Commons:Village pump/Archive/2026/03

Are these AI generated?

I suspect most images in Category:Butchers in Ireland are AI-generated, because I just felt that they are somehow odd-looking, but I couldn't be sure. Can someone just help take a look at these before I mass nominated them for DR? Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes and also a violation of COM:WEBHOST -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 16:42, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I went and opened a mass DR: Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Butchers in Ireland (sorry, couldn't refrain from the tongue-in-cheek "butcher-related AI slop"...). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you Nard for your help, and also thank you to Grand-Duc for creating the mass DR and identifying the errors. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:38, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Now all deleted. I don't think it matters whether we delete this as AI slop or as copyvio. It's one or the other, or possibly (given Irish law) both. Deleting. - Jmabel ! talk 19:53, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 19:53, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Mass rename/edit request

Hi. I just uploaded many audio files via Lingua Libre. I thought I had sorted out the settings so that this would not happen, but it included my old username alongside my current one in both the file names and in the "Recorder" field in the description. I would prefer that my old username was not visible like this. Please could someone with permissions rename the files and change the recorder field to Pink Bee? (If the latter cannot be done automatically, I will do it manually.)

I am sorry to have to request this again – like I say, I thought I had sorted the naming issue. I will make sure it does not happen again. Thank you. Pink Bee (talk) 02:02, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

• Mass rename started. - Jmabel ! talk 06:58, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
• @PinkBee: should all be done, let me know if some admin-specific task remains. - Jmabel ! talk 07:36, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks. Please could "PinkBee" be replaced with "Pink Bee"? This should put the files in Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation by Pink Bee. Pink Bee (talk) 07:55, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Pink Bee I have replaced them, let me know if I have missed any. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

  Looks good. Thank you :) Pink Bee (talk) 23:17, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

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Wikipedia linking back to Commons

When I used Chrome I used to get a backlink from Wikipedia to Commons in a column on the right side of the article. It would also have the link to Wikidata. What setting in Chrome/Wikimedia did I accidently change to have it gone. RAN (talk) 00:45, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton, only works on articles with a Wikidata item and sitelinks for other projects on Wikidata. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 02:00, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• Yes, but I am not getting any links when they exist. I can go from Commons to Wikipedia through the infobox, but the links back disappeared about a week ago. I must have changed a setting or updated Chrome or Wikimedia settings, but cannot work out what changed. --RAN (talk) 02:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Is there any "In other projects" section at all? (Search for that string within the page.) - Jmabel ! talk 03:20, 4 March 2026 (UTC)
• No, let me delete Chrome and re-install it. --RAN (talk) 05:23, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

  Perhaps it collapsed into a single Tools button at the top right (next to Edit and History)? The Tools dropdown menu gives me the option to "move to sidebar". --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:32, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks!!!! That was it, most likely an errant click that collapsed the sidebar. Simple error, but drastic changes, and not obvious before you figured it out. Thank you again. --RAN (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

It might have been a change on Wikipedia end. I use different language wikis (with Firefox browser) and some language wikis have the side bar while others haven't, so I'm guessing that this is not a Chrome issue. Nakonana (talk) 17:32, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

When you hide the sidebar there's just a Tools dropdown. It stays like this unless you clear cookies or open it with another browser where you haven't hidden the panel yet. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:40, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

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Wikidata Infobox

I've always had this set to 'Collapsed', as it's a nuisance. Just today, it's suddenly started being expanded each time I go to a new category, and it's getting tiresome having to click on 'Collapse' on every new link. How can I get it to stay collapsed, please? I can't find it in the Preferences. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Maybe you had them collapsed via some gadget. These scripts apparently got disabled since that problem today where wikis were changed to read-only. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:03, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective Could be; no idea, I don't remember! But I want whatever it was back again, ASAP . . . MPF (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@MPF, the collapsed Wikidata Infobox setting is at line 8 of your user JavaScript (User:MPF/common.js), but as mentioned by Prototyperspective, all user JavaScripts have been temporarily disabled. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 20:50, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy thanks! Is there any info on when they might get restored? - MPF (talk) 20:56, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@MPF, you can monitor phab:T419154 for updates. The site JavaScripts were re-enabled an hour ago, but currently there is no clear info on user JavaScripts, other than they will be "back online soon, with a few restrictions". Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy Thanks! "due to an issue being worked on" . . . remarkably secretive! Wonder what it is??? - MPF (talk) 21:10, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Maybe they now prevent loading of JavaScript from other namespaces or even external servers in MediaWiki namespace. I thought this was already the case, but it seems that it was not. GPSLeo (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@MPF, since the issue is related to the security of the site, I would assume it is better for them to be secretive about it until the issue is fixed. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:00, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

 Info, see announcement by WMF, it appears user javascripts have now been re-enabled. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy Excellent! Thanks for the updates - MPF (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

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Launches to accompany racing crews

I tried and failed to find a category for the launches that typically accompany racing crews during training. Nothing apparent under Category:Boats by function. E.g. File:Bainbridge Island Rowing safety launches 01.jpg or File:2024-12-20, George Pocock Memorial Rowing Center (Seattle), 081910.jpg. Do we actually lack a category for these? - Jmabel ! talk 02:35, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I think they can be categorized under Category:Launch (boat), or perhaps you can create a new subcat under it. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:53, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll make a subcat, Category:Rowing launches. - Jmabel ! talk 07:57, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

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"Photographs by" categories

I notice that some of these are hidden cats and some are considered topical. I was surprised to see that Category:Photographs by Asahel Curtis was hidden when Category:Photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis (his brother) was not, so I changed the former, but now I see Category:Photographs by Frank H. Nowell (among other things, the official photographer of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition) is also hidden.

All of these are important enough photographers to have en-wiki articles. Do we have any criteria of how significant a photographer has to be in order to have a topical (vs. hidden) category? - Jmabel ! talk 08:58, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

I thought the "hidden" criterium is more for user categories (photographs by Wikimedians who upload their images by themselves), and "topical" cats for photographers that are non-Wikimedians? --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

That's how I understood the split to be as well. Most "Photographs by photographer" categories are hidden because they're userspace categories. There are a few notable photographers who are also Wikimedians, who can have photographs both in main- and userspace. For the photographers mentioned by Jmabel (and others this would apply to) it doesn't seem fitting to have these categories be hidden. ReneeWrites (talk) 15:28, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Same, although there have been a couple incidents where Commons users demanded to be unhidden, and I don't recall there being consensus that it was absolutely required. User categories can get pretty expansive, though, since many of us have hidden category systems we use to organize our own stuff (doesn't make much sense to unhide "Quality images of birds by Rhododendrites" or "Photographs taken by Rhododendrites - Poland"). There's another use case that's often hidden: files from [some particular flickr account]. But in general, yeah I think photographers other than Wikimedians should be unhidden by default. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  16:08, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Imo category-hiding is slightly overused. Usually it's useful to be able to go to images made by the same person – these often have certain similarities such as subjects the reader/visitor may be interested in. For Commons contributors, people can go to the user-page. For photographers, a category is useful. If I'm not mistaken, hidden categories are not displayed to people who are not logged in and have enabled the display of hidden cats. So it would be best to unhide most if not all of these categories. Categories where there's just very few files in them probably aren't useful. Categories about who made a photo are not topical as they are not about the topic of the image but they're nevertheless useful and not just for maintenance purposes or useful only at the category pages instead of also at the file pages that most people would not benefit from seeing. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:02, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Btw, it may also be a good idea to link to the category page in the Author field of the information template which currently links to the Wikipedia article. One could add sth via template like (see more photos of this creator/photographer). Then there would be less need for the category to be unhidden but even that would not mean the cat is better hidden. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:07, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Typically, the Wikipedia article links (at least by the normal interwiki links via Wikidata) to the main Commons category for the person, and the "Photographs by" category is a subcat. Exactly as for any other creator and their works, if their works (or representations of their works) are on Commons. Not sure why photographers would be different from, say, painters, for this. - Jmabel ! talk 06:37, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Not sure how this is meant to relate to my comment – if one was looking for further photos a direct link to the page with more photos of the photographer that's easily visible to all in the Information template would be useful and the same applies also to painters. Even if that was widely done I think it would be better to unhide these categories. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:12, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

It sounds like we aren't certain exactly where to draw the line, but that the people I'm asking about are certainly on the "should not be hidden" side of the line. I will unhide these and similar ones I come across. - Jmabel ! talk 06:37, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Μιλάς ελληνικά? Do you speak Greek?

Please add at least one more category to 1,855 files in the Category:Images with file name and description in Greek language

Today, 2,700 poorly categorized files have been added to the Category:Images with file name and description in Greek language. All of these need at least one more category, please. Can you help, to categorize them, please, or even use them in an article? Do you have any recommendations, how to achieve this more effectively? NearEMPTiness (talk) 12:26, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

What's the criteria for a new license template?

So there's one user on a site, and on their profile they say all of their uploads are released under a CC BY 4.0 license. There's no license laundering apparent and it appears to be their own work. This user has uploaded thousands of images. Would that warrant creating a separate template and license review category for it? HurricaneZeta^C 15:02, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

@HurricaneZeta:

Why would this entail a new license template? What different license is claimed?

Yes, this would be an appropriate maintenance category, probably one added by an appropriate, purpose-specific maintenance template. Compare {{UWash-Check-Needed}}, though that one is about needing a cat check, not a license check. - Jmabel ! talk 19:47, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel I was thinking that the template would categorize it into the category. I have seen quite a few templates like {{Official Prime Video AU & NZ YouTube channel}} (essentially the same as {{YouTube}} with an explanatory note), although maybe something like {{YouTubeReview}} would suffice. HurricaneZeta^C 19:54, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

{{Official Prime Video AU & NZ YouTube channel}} exists because it is a special case that is valid but has some date dependencies. Yes, I a special-case variant of {{YouTubeReview}} (possibly a wrapper around that) adding a category specific to this task would be a good solution. - Jmabel ! talk 20:04, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Why Wikipedia Can't Explain Math

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33y9FMIvcWY

commons was mentioned too. worth a watch and lets us think about how we can better engage newcomers. RoyZuo (talk) 19:17, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Not specifically a Commons topic but as a person with degrees in both Math (including graduate-level work in topology) and Computer Science, almost every time I tried to edit a math-related article on Wikipedia to make it more comprehensible to lay readers, I was reverted on the basis of insufficient rigor. (I had not removed any existing, rigorous, content, just added paraphrases in lay terms.) Of course I stopped trying. - Jmabel ! talk 19:58, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Questionable flags

There are quite a lot of purported flags from history on Commons, where their actual historical status is unsourced or otherwise uncertain. Most of the time these have been uploaded in good faith and they're not "fictitious", but they often reflect misconceptions that have gained popularity online. I wasn't sure which template to use, have started a thread at Template talk:Fictitious flag#Disputed flags but I was thinking perhaps to start something more specific like a flag version pf {{Lacking insignia source}}.--Pharos (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

A new Mapillary importer: Curator

Hi!

I would like to introduce Curator. It is a tool that allows the import of image sequences from Mapillary. The tool was rolled out and tested and has reached a stable state. Before you try it out, check out COM:Curator and remember issues like Freedom of Panorama. Mapillary covers many areas, which have a Wikipedia article, but no image in it. Or Mapillary maybe shows areas and structures that don't exist anymore. Happy testing! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Photo challenge January 2026 results

Hello everyone. It's my "officially" first time to announce the winners of this challenge.

Brutalist architecture: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Architectural detail on The National Theatre in London.	beautiful brutalism in Metz	Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 1969, currently digitized
Author	Julian Herzog	KaiBorgeest	Foeniz
Score	29	12	12

Peace: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Signpost in Christiania (Copenhagen).	Artistic peace symbol at Toronto Distillery District	Menhire für den Frieden
Author	Gzzz	Muzzudan	Fischer1961
Score	10	9	9

Congratulations to @Julian Herzog, KaiBorgeest, Foeniz, Gzzz, Muzzudan, and Fischer1961. This is Taiwania Justo speaking (Reception Room) 15:41, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Danke Fischer1961 (talk) 20:02, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks :-)) Gzzz ^zz 20:13, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Congrats. The Brutalist architecture has a large number of very high-quality files – the entries/scores gallery is very much worth a visit. I found most files in the Peace challenge didn't have much to do with the subject – it seems difficult to capture this subject in photos. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:40, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Flickr upload with Upload Wizard

Is uploading free licensed files from Flickr via Upload Wizard currently down? I've repeatedly tried uploading files by long time good Flickr users with 2 different browsers on 2 different machines and can't get anything to upload. (Uploading files directly from my machine works fine.) Wondering, -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, discussed in Help desk and Technical VP. Reported in phab:T419263. --Geohakkeri (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 19:41, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

seems to work again and this is a technical issue where it would be best to centralize further discussion at the thread in Village_pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:32, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

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2023-01_ai_image_of_man_01.png

File:2023-01 ai image of man 01.png - AI-generated image of ordinary man, likely isn't useful, but I am not sure about policy. Evelino Ucelo (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Not specifically against policy, but not terribly useful either. Created Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:AI-generated images by Ziko van Dijk. Omphalographer (talk) 19:07, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

this is not how to file a deletion request Prototyperspective (talk) 12:33, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

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Rotate Orthophotos / Aerial Photographs Facing South?

While trying to georeference a bunch of aerial photographs from Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen Findbuch Wü 160 T 5, I've found that some (but not all) of those photos are facing south (in german: "gesüdet"; example for photo facing south), not north as usual ("genordet"). Aerial images facing south are hard to work with, since nowadays all modern maps (and modern Orthophotos) are facing north. Currently, there's no category for aerial photographs / orthophotos with such a cardinal direction, as it's the case for maps. Is it OK to rotate the images currently facing south by 180° or should they keep their current orientation? What's your opinion? --Fl.schmitt (talk) 10:12, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

@Fl.schmitt: I think we can rotate this images. There now loss of information after the rotation. Thanks for your work with this orthophotos and for the georeferene. --sk (talk) 11:50, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

If you wish to make rotations, they should be as derivative images.

Also, the example image is not "facing south"; it is facing straight down. It is (presumably) orientated with south at the top". We would talk about images facing in a compass direction when they are oblique (like, for example File:Raf 58 2445 psfo 0117.png). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:40, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Probably best to make the rotation into a derivative image with an explanatory note about the rotation because if you rotate the image you gave as an example, the numbers at the top of the image will come up upside-down and people might attempt to fix that by rotating the image back. Nakonana (talk) 17:47, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

@Nakonana and @Pigsonthewing: ok, derivative images are another option. Regarding the numbers on the pics: There are different ways that those numbers were applied - some have the same numbers multiple times, e.g. this pic. So, an explanatory note would be in fact useful - good idea! Fl.schmitt (talk) 18:15, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Why is overwrite controlled by abusefilter

1. Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2023/08#c-GPSLeo-20230813073100-Limit_file_overwriting_to_users_with_autopatrol_rights decided to limit overwrite.
2. overwrite is specifically "reupload" a permission set by the software Special:ListGroupRights.

why is it not done by removing "reupload" from autoconfirmed users and adding it to autopatrolled users? RoyZuo (talk) 15:49, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

This would currently not allow any exceptions without granting user rights, not even for own uploads. GPSLeo (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

this seems solved; if not please remove this template Prototyperspective (talk) 12:41, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

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People voices audios

Where can I find all of them? Is there any common category? I've found only Category:Voice project but it contains not only audios. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infovarius (talk • contribs) 12:26, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Infovarius: If your start point the Category:Voice project then you can use the search with this searchtext: deepcategory:"Voice project" filetype:Audio. --sk (talk) 13:38, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Category:Audio files of human voices if I understood you correctly. --Prototyperspective (talk) 14:28, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

You may also be interested in Com:Voice intro project. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:31, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

GPS data

If I have an image and want to show where it was taken I can use: {{Location|40.0000|-70.000}}. But what if I want to link an address in a news article, so that it can take me to one of the mapping sites, we link to. Id there a template for that? --RAN (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Closest thing I can think of is {{Inline coordinates}}. - Jmabel ! talk 18:46, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks! That is closest I will get. You can see the experiment here: File:Salters in the 1877 Gouldings New York City Directory.png, an old city directory. --RAN (talk) 19:07, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

seems to be solved – if not, please remove this template Prototyperspective (talk) 12:46, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

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Sports statistic question

I am transcribing File:1915 in Sports in The New York Times of New York City, New York on December 12, 1915.jpg but I do not understand a portion of the sport timing. A typical line reads for a timed event: "440-Yard High Hurdles - William Henry Meanix, Boston A. A. Time, 0:52 3-5." What does the "3-5" mean? --RAN (talk) 16:55, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): My guess would be three fifths of a second, in common typography .6 or 3/5 or ⅗.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 17:10, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks! I think you got it. Distances are marked as "¾ inch". The typesetter had type for 1/4, 3/4 and 1/2 for measuring distance. They did not have fifths, and all times were measured down to the fifth of a second. Thanks again. ChatGPT: "Races were recorded in fifths of a second starting around 1862". --RAN (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

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Change links on main page

on the main page right under the title there're 4 links to Images Videos Sounds 3D Models, which link to the root categories of each of those types.

however, i think the root cats are not very helpful, especially for occasional users of this website who may not understand how to navigate the site, because those pages have long lists of subcats and sometimes files that are waiting to be moved to subcats. they look too technical and dont present some high quality files.

i tried to look around for a random or regularly updated gallery of files, but couldnt seem to find one. so here's an idea. what if a bot regularly (weekly?) generates galleries, and the main page links to those instead? another idea is these links https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=date&title=Special%3AMediaSearch&type=image&assessment=any-assessment https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=video&title=Special%3AMediaSearch&type=video&assessment=any-assessment , but these search results might be quite static, stale and boring over time.

something like https://www.gettyimages.com/editorial-images https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/ https://www.flickr.com/explore/ is more interesting for main page visitors. (Commons:Picture of the day and Commons:Media of the day are close but still contain too much text and technical details.)

Category_talk:Videos#c-Gloweave-20221027093200-Adult_videos prompted this thought. RoyZuo (talk) 15:04, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

 Oppose your proposed links aren't better and secondly these links can be added to those linked category pages. There's some useful links on these pages already. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I feel like Commons:Featured pictures is the most similar to the links to other sites you were mentioning. Bawolff (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I had a go with making my own version of that type of page - Commons:Explore. The galleries are random, and should change once an hour (or whenever someone does ?action=purge) Bawolff (talk) 10:21, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Interesting and I'd suggest to links from that page to the category pages but I wonder why one would want to browse through a totally random good-quality images – I think just a small fraction of visitors is sometimes interested in that.

Things that could be better include having such autogenerated galleries linked well-visibly at the top of categories (maybe even partly embedded via a new panel where one can click [see more] to go to the full gallery page) and/or having images for all the subcategories in the gallery where one can then browse to the subcategory by clicking on the file's description/link.

That's basically what the gadget Help:FastCCI is about which dynamically loads featured pictures, quality images, etc for whatever category one is in. However, most visitors probably have not noticed the button and never used it; and the bigger problem is that like 90% of the time it doesn't work because the tool is down and still nobody has fixed whatever is causing it to go down at the time (see its talk page). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:30, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I think many people coming from the main page might be interested in looking at a random selection of reasonable quality files. I don't think people go to the main page if they are looking for something specific. Although perhaps such people would be better served by Commons:Featured Pictures.

The probable reason nobody has fixed fastCCI is a mix between nobody caring and nobody having access. One of the problems with toolforge tools is access is usually restricted to the author. That said, as cool as fastcci is, i don't think its suitable for people wanting to browse. Bawolff (talk) 17:07, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I didn't say most are looking for sth specific; I meant that most people aren't very interested in a totally random set of good-quality images from about every imaginable topic (albeit with strong bias for photos and nearly no statistics, videos, or diagrams) but instead are interested in more narrow sets of files. In my case that would be photos relating to say current events and science as well as up-to-date statistics of all kinds (again, not included in these featured pictures).

There is a new comment at Help talk:FastCCI#Down. again. relevant to this.

i don't think its suitable for people wanting to browse. I'd be interested in why you think that is – in specific because then maybe another tool / variant of it could be developed or FastCCI be improved accordingly. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:29, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Why does this user think people all think the way they think and not in other ways?

"I didn't say most are looking for sth specific... most people... are interested in more narrow sets of files." Not specific but more narrow. What's all this exceedingly long rambling about? RoyZuo (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I was describing what I meant to say/said in my prior comment. I could have written 'Why does Bawolff think people all think the way they think and not in other ways?' but I prefer more constructive less offensive and more friendly language. Thanks Prototyperspective (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I think some people just want to look at pretty pictures. Some people are also going to want different things too. I think we already do a reasonably good job with narrow areas but not a great job for people who just want to be surprised with a broad selection of reasonable quality photos. Bawolff (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

And that's why I recommend adding that link to the category page. We should not assume all or the vast majority of users want to look at sets of pretty photos about random topics. They can open the link from there. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

So this user assumes "the vast majority of users want to look at" "the category page", and they want to "open the link from there"? RoyZuo (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

No, I'm not "assuming" anything; I was having a constructive discussion. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Your codes are super. The pages generated are perfect. RoyZuo (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Smooth rocks/Boulders

Besides the artic fox, the boulders are very interesting. I dont know what processes shapes these rocks. Is there any category for this? 'Round boulders' dont seem to accuratly describes these rocks. Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Commons:Expert identification or categorization requests may be a or could become a better place to ask questions about categories for individual images (what the fitting category would be and if it exists).

I asked an LLM attaching the image and it returned The round boulders or rocks you're referring to are commonly known as ball boulders or spherical boulders. In geology, these are often referred to as concretions. They typically form through the process of sedimentation and mineral precipitation, resulting in rounded shapes over time.[…]. but I could not find a category named with either of these two terms so maybe it doesn't exist yet. I then searched for spherical boulders beach to find a similar image to check its categories and it found the one on the right with Category:Moeraki Boulders set but that cat has no broader cat about this in specific set. One could also create e.g. Category:Spherical rocks on beaches. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:41, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNf8wyyuLUY/ this may answer your question. RoyZuo (talk) 13:52, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

@RoyZuo: Given that, how about Category:Smooth stones or Category:Smooth rocks?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 17:08, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I asked chatgpt whether stones are categorised by curvature. Here're 2 measures I found:

Power's Scale of Roundness

Cailleux Roundness Index

see https://www.field-studies-council.org/resources/14-16-geography/coasts/fieldwork/ https://geographyfieldwork.com/CailleuxRoundnessIndex.html

I dont think commons can follow these systems and subdivide Category:Boulders, so your photo should just go under Category:Boulders in Iceland. RoyZuo (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

JSTOR image

Hi !

I just uploaded an PD image of Tristan Tzara from JSTOR but I only have access to the thumbnail cause I'm not in the USA. Can someone access it from Wikipedia Library (login to Wikipedia Library before clicking the link or use your own access) and download a better version please ?

Thanks in advance, Wyslijp16 (talk) 10:42, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

“Your institution does not have access to this image on JSTOR.” --Geohakkeri (talk) 12:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for checking. :(

Maybe someone have another access ? Wyslijp16 (talk) 12:59, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Got it. Currently here [1]. Based5290 (talk) 07:06, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks to Based5290 the larger image can now be uploaded as a new revision of File:Tristan_Tzara_Photo_of_Artist_in_Zurich.jpg Prototyperspective (talk) 11:58, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Done. I uploaded the new version. – Howardcorn33 (💬) 01:53, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Based5290 @Prototyperspective@Howardcorn33 Wyslijp16 (talk) 13:17, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Based5290, do you have a better image for File:Dada Dinner (Diner Dada).jpg please ? Wyslijp16 (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Same for : File:Dada "alliance".jpg Wyslijp16 (talk) 13:45, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

[2]

[3] Based5290 (talk) 22:41, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The 2 requests are solved now. For further JSTOR requests or things like it, please post / reply at Commons:File requests. Maybe this page could be made more visible or get a new subpage for requests relating to access or Wikipedia Library. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Wrong meta data

"File:Electricity pylons in Eritrea" is from Mozambique, not from Eritrea. At the Mapillary link there are more pictures from the same location. On one car there is written „Moçambique elevaçao“. Probably it is Nampula due to the mistake of latitude north vs south.--Grullab (talk) 15:35, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Convenience link: File:Electricity pylons in Eritrea.png. - Jmabel ! talk 20:54, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Grullab: I'm not going to go looking around another site to see if I can find what you found, but nothing is stopping you from using {{Fact disputed}} and/or proposing a file move. I suggest that in doing so you provide the URLs for the content that led you to the conclusion. - Jmabel ! talk 20:59, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. Best regards. -- Grullab (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Grullab I was able to identify the broader area. Per this, there is a board shown that points towards Murrupula, which is in Mozambique. I moved the file --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 21:18, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Adding support to JPEG XL and HEIC files

Hi there everyone, I would like to know if there are plans by Wikimedia and Wikimedia Commons to add support to the new JPEG XL and HEIC type of files. Been experimenting with them in the last days and they seem really great, allowing to shrink the file size by very much. ----LucaLindholm (talk) 11:01, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

For JXL, see phab:T270855. The task is flagged as “stalled”. --Geohakkeri (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

@Geohakkeri Thanks, just saw it and people suggest to start discussion just here in the Village Pump on Commons to begin exploring whatever or not there is consensus on these new files. :D -- LucaLindholm (talk) 11:27, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

If the reason for its stalled status is lack of consensus to support these filetypes on Commons, I'd suggest making a thread proposing this at Commons:Village pump/Proposals where the benefits of adopting these filetypes and their characteristics are sufficiently explained. I did not read the full issue but it seems like there also are some technical challenges. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:45, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

JPEG2000 at least has some patent-related issues for some compressions, afaik. I don't know if JPEG XL has it, but I would approve the inclusion of modern filetypes, as long as they are free (thinking about OpenEXR, LAZ and glTF) :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:27, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I would definitely support JPEG XL, as it's far superior to JPEG and manages to avoid most of the problems that doomed other JPEG replacements. Nosferattus (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

"If the reason for its stalled status is lack of consensus" no it is not. However consensus is definitely a requirement if you ever want Wikimedia to even consider doing something about it. Without that, you are at the mercy of chance or of external developers (as you might notice, I recently spent some time investigating both HEIC and JpegXL support). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:24, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

questions about Game & Watch consoles

This image is a Quality image.

This image shows all of the lit LCD panels, which occurs when the batteries are reinserted.

I'm a bit confused about uploading images of Game & Watch consoles to Commons.

Would the screens on the consoles count as a derivative work? In the United States, most photographs of game consoles (like the Nintendo DS) have utilitarian aspects, as stated in this section of the guideline. However, it states later in the guideline that anything on a utilitarian object may be subject to copyright.

I have several questions regarding this. Do the permanently colored backgrounds of the screens on Game & Watch consoles, such as those listed in Category:Game & Watch and its subcategories, count as utilitarian? When all of the LCD panels on the console are lit, would it not count as utilitarian?

In a similar manner to the derivative works questions, would some of the displays (either turned on or shut off) on the console be below the threshold of originality (for example, those in Category:Ball Game & Watch)? JudeHalley (talk) 18:35, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

The graphics displayed by a video game are fundamentally not utilitarian in nature, regardless of whether they're being displayed in the course of normal gameplay. Omphalographer (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

I would assume it would not count as de minimis, either, given the examples in that guideline.

Would this mean that most of the images that depict Game & Watch games need to be edited to conceal their graphics? (The reason I say most is that this would probably exclude ones like Ball with its screen off, which may be under the TOO.) JudeHalley (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Would this topic not fit better under COM:VPC? PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Probably; I may start a new discussion there. JudeHalley (talk) 13:43, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Could some (if not, all) graphics fall under de minimis? JudeHalley (talk) 02:17, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Not so much de minimis as ineligible for copyright.

Also: if there is an imae of a console we want to use, and the content on the screen is not relevant, it is easy enough to blur or otherwise cover anything that is not relevant to the purpose of the photo and would constitute a copyright violation. - Jmabel ! talk 05:15, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

discussion continues at Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Video game_consoles - utilitarian function?. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Photographer logo

Can anyone work out this photographers mark? File:KELLIE_EVERTS_1978.jpg RAN (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) Photographer is James J. Kriegsmann. Found a higher quality photo with that watermark here PascalHD (talk) 01:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

• Amazing research skills! --RAN (talk) 01:56, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:31, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Commons:Upscaling

I started a draft guideline at Commons:Upscaling that could use input. To be clear this section is not a proposal to make this a guideline but an invitation for users to edit or provide feedback on a page I plan to eventually propose as a guideline. I started to detail procedures for how to describe/tag/categorize upscaled images, but that got me wondering: what are the valid use cases for upscaling on Commons? I'm having trouble thinking of them. In some cases, upscaling is actively harmful. In others, it's a simple task that we should really just leave to our reusers if they want to. The only thing I can think of is if a Wikimedia project wants to upscale an image for use in an article. So maybe INUSE is the only realistic exception? Thoughts? — Rhododendrites ^talk |  17:34, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I've made a bunch of edits since posting this message (and thanks, Jmabel for getting the exceptions started). Still hoping for additional comments or edits, even if to say "looks good". Planning to wait about a week and then start the proposal process at VPP. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  20:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Bot request: replace old username in file descriptions

My username was renamed from Christo to Random photos 1989, then I've renamed back to Christo.

Many of my uploaded files still contain the old username in the description (for example in the Author field of the Information template).

Could a bot replace "Random photos 1989" with "Christo" on my files?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListFiles/Christo&ilshowall=1

Thank you! Christo (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Would probably be good to move to Commons:Bots/Work requests. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:56, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Change Commons guidance

Hello. I've told to open a debate in the Village Pump by Jameslwoodward because apparently, Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Consolidated_list_T#Taiwan says any photograph after 1951 is subject to the URAA.

This is not true: The Republic of China had its first copyright law in 1928 (Wikisource), with modifications in 1944 (minor change in 1949), 1964 and finally 1985. (I know there are more copyright laws later, but 1928-1985 is the relevant timeline.

As you can check in the wikisource links provided, the copyright lenght did not change between 1928 and 1965 reforms, being the most relevant of all the texts 1944 because it included for the first time movies. This is the articles and terms:

Art. 4 General Works (Individual Author) Life of the author + 30 years (for heirs)

Art. 5 Joint Works (Multiple Authors) Life of all authors + 30 years (after the death of the last surviving author)

Art. 6 Posthumous Works 30 years from the first date of publication

Art. 7 Corporate or Official Works 30 years from the first date of publication

Art. 9 Photographs and Sound Recordings 10 years

Art. 9 Film Works 10 years (must be legally registered)

Art. 10 Translations 20 years (Note: This did not prevent others from translating the same original work)

So, there was a deletion request for some pictures (photographs) made by a folk who lived in the Mainland during ROC times and then fleed to Taiwan, and those pictures were deleted, even if, obviously, somebody linving in the ROC (both Mainland and Taiwan) between 1947 and 1966 was under the current ROC copyright laws (all 1944, 1944 and 1964 recognised 10 years post publication lenghth) and had its copyright expired by the time the 1985 copyright law was implemented, and far before URAA applied in 2002.

And now it seems I need the whole Commons guidance for Taiwan (and probably China as a whole) to be changed: so it be.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 18:11, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

ping to ppl in the original discussion: @Lee Shiau-Shiuan: , @Taiwania Justo: , @Tvpuppy: and @Infrogmation: TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 18:38, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Just to clarify, by using for example Art. 7 and 30 years: does your statement mean that ROC government works up to 1954 would be considered public domain because they fell out of copyright before the laws changed in 1985? Or would that deadline rather be 1971, because the URAA date is 2002? Or does this work differently? Best, --Enyavar (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Not a lawyer, but my understanding is:

If a work was PD by July 10, 1985 (when the Taiwanese Copyright law changes), then it's PD. Answering your question (what was PD by July 10, 1985?):

Works by people dead by 1954 (+30 years: 1st January 1985)

Corporate works made in 1954 or before (+30 years: 1st January 1985)

Photos and videos made in 1974 or before (+10 years: 1st January 1985)

Translations made in 1964 or before (+20 years: 1st January 1985, very rare to have in Commons)

Then, 1985 changed again to

General Works Life of the author + 50 years

Cinematic (and Photo) Works 30 years from completion

And 1992 changed Cinematic (and Photo) Works to 50 years after public release; remaining the General Works unchanged.

This means anything in PD according to 1985-1992 law by 2002 was already PD in Taiwan because of 1928-1966 laws (and anything made in the Mainland under ROC rule was also PD by then). For Commons effects, anything falling in PD because of 1985 or 1992 (or 2002) law is not eligible because URAA, until 2047, when post-1996 fall into PD (The movement should ignore URAA in order to improve out projects, but it's a different debate).

TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 19:34, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

 Comment, regarding the DR you linked, it was not correct to say "some pictures (photographs) made by a folk who lived in the Mainland during ROC times and then fleed to Taiwan". Per my comment in the DR, the photographs depict that person, so clearly the person did not "make" the photos. It is unknown who has taken the photographs, so we can only assume for the photographs taken in mainland China, the works of the unknown author are subjected to PRC laws, while for the photographs taken in Taiwan, the works of the unknown author are subjected to ROC laws. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

That's a topic for The Undeletion requewst itself, and I can't see the pics (Where were those made?), but if the man moved to Taiwan in 1949 (mny guess: post-1949 are pics of Taiwan), then the whole rationale works.

And still: PRC had no copyright law at all, PRC did not have a Constitution (so, abolish all of the ROC laws) until 1954, and works made by people without PRC passport at the time (two pics, if made in the Mainland) fall into the copyright laws of the country who gives citizenship to the photographer, not the laws of the place where the pics are made. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 21:52, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

When a new law extends the length of the copyright term, there are two possibilities:

1. The new term applies only to works that were under copyright on the effective date of the change, or
2. The new term applies to all works, including those whose copyrights under the old law had expired.

The second is less common, but the combination of the dates in the existing guidance looks like that might be the case in Taiwan. I don't read the language and I'd rather not trust Google translation with something as subtle as this, so I think we need a Chinese reader to look at that issue. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 20:07, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I believe there is no combination in the existing guide, someone did 2002-50 = 1952, and followed up with the 2002 (1992) laws regardles of previous possible considerations.

About the possibilities you name, it's the first option, according to article 50 of the 1990 text, which I'll quote in Chinese (you can Google translate to get an idea while waiting for a subtile native translation which I can't provide because I'm not a native speaker).

第五十條之一

　　著作已完成註冊於中華民國七十四年七月十日本法修正施行前，其著作權期間仍在存續中者，依本法所定期間計算其著作權期間。
　　完成於中華民國七十四年七月十日本法修正施行前未經註冊取得著作權之著作，其發行未滿二十年者，於中華民國七十四年七月十日本法修正施行後適用本法之規定。但侵害行為之賠償及處罰，須該行為發生於本法修正施行後，始適用本法。
　　中華民國七十四年七月十日本法修正增訂之著作，依中華民國七十四年七月十日本法修正所定期間，其著作權仍在存續中者，適用本法規定。但侵害行為之賠償及處罰，須該行為發生於本法增訂該著作後，始適用本法。

TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 22:07, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm also not a lawyer, so below is just what I understood by reading the law:

• I think the explanation can be found in the article 106-1 of 1998 law (for English translation, see "article106bis" in page 57 of this PDF, the PDF was for later versions of the law, but article 106 is the same).
• From reading Article 106-1, I think it meant that for works completed before the WTO date (1 Jan 2002), if those works haven't obtain copyright under the previous versions of the law, and are still under the copyright terms of the current version of the law (e.g. death+50 years), the current law shall apply to those works (there are some exceptions for foreign works, but that's not the subject of discussion).
• Article 117 also states Article 106-1 shall take effect on the WTO date (1 Jan 2002)
• To me, this meant that most works created before 2002 shall be subjected to the current copyright terms, hence works that are not PD in 2002 will subject to URAA protection (with exceptions for some unpublished works, registered works and foreign works)

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:17, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

"著作完成於世界貿易組織協定在中華民國管轄區域內生效日之前，未依歷次本法規定取得著作權而依本法所定著作財產權期間計算仍在存續中者，除本章另有規定外，適用本法。"

Article 106 has two clauses on it (quoting the English version you linked):

"this Act shall apply to works that were completed prior to the date on which the World Trade Organization Agreement took effect in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China":

where such works did not enjoy copyright under the provisions of the respective versions of this Act (condition 1, the works had copyright and expired under previous versions of the act)

but

where the term of protection for economic rights has not expired in accordance with this Act; (condition 2)

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm using now AI to help me navigate this but:

• Intellectual Property Office (智慧財產局), Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan (ROC) 智著字第09300006140號:

二、按著作權法（下稱本法）於民國十七年制定迄今，歷經多次修正，對完成於中華民國八十一年六月十日本法修正施行前之著作，是否適用九十二年七月九日新修正之著作權法規定而受保護，應視其是否合於新修正著作權法第一百零六條第一項之規定，即「著作完成於中華民國八十一年六月十日本法修正施行前，且合於中華民國八十七年一月二十一日修正施行前本法第一百零六條至第一百零九條規定之一者，除本章另有規定外，適用本法。」三、依前揭規定，民國七十四年七月十一日以前完成註冊之著作，其著作保護期間若跨過七十四年七月十一日及八十一年六月十一日，且合於中華民國八十七年一月二十一日修正施行前本法第一百零六條至第一百零九條規定之一者，則受新修正著作權法保護；反之，於八十一年六月十一日以前屆滿者，則因著作財產權保護期間已過而成為公共財產，任何人自得自由利用。

Once again, not a lawyer, but it seems like the works those whose copyright protection period expired before June 11, 1992, shall become public property because the copyright economic rights protection period has expired, and anyone may freely use them. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:15, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, 智著字第0920008530-0號:

三、又所詢依據內政部公版電影發行日已超過五十年者，是否仍可繼續生產銷售一節，按著作如已屬公共所有，則不因此重新受著作權法保護，即無前述著作權法第一百零六條之二回溯保護之適用，申言之，並無前述說明€j之銷售時間限制。四、又視聽著作是否為公共所有，應視下列情形分別認定之：〈一〉該視聽著作公開發表或完成至今已逾五十年，為公共所有。〈二〉該視聽著作公開發表或完成至今未逾五十年，則應視該著作已否辦理著作權註冊，分別認定，如已辦理著作權註冊，且註冊後依當時之著作權法規定，其著作權保護期間，如已屆滿者，則為公共所有。如未辦理著作權註冊者，則可回溯受著作權法保護。五、以上說明，請參考著作權法第三十四條、第一百零六條之一、第一百零六條之二之規定。

This introduces a new nuance: 1944 ROC law (and following ups) did include a provision (apparently, only for films) in which in order to be protected they needed to be registered (simillar to US law). Apparently, the law is retroactive for those films failing to fulfill legal register. But only for those (because the need to register in order to have copyright was only for films under the 1944 version, not in the original 1928 law) and not retroactive for works already in PD according to the then valid law.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:35, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, this second TIPO documents seems to confirm what the "such works did not enjoy copyright under the provisions of the respective versions of this Act " in article 106 did mean: The law is retroactive but only for works not covered by the older versions of the copyright law (Movies not registered according to article 10 in 1944 law (　電影片得由著作人享有著作權十年。但以依法令准演者為限). Indeed it's not exactly a US-like copyright registry, it seems every film was protected... unless they were censored films. For works which are not movies, the law was fully authomatic, so it will change nothing on the restoration proposal of deleted photos.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• The first statement by TIPO is referring to registered works. Please note that prior to 1985, all works are required to be registered in order to have copyright protection, so not just for films.
• You can see this in Article 1 of any versions prior to 1985, which states "works that are registered according to this law shall have copyright". This register system was abolished with the 1985 law, and it was changed to the current system of "automatic copyright upon creation".
• The 1990 text clarified (in Article 50-1, as you quoted above) that the 1985 law will restore copyright for unregistered works published after 10 July 1965. These works subsequently have their copyright terms extended under Article 106 of the 1992 law.
• To me, the 1990 text also meant that unregistered works published before 1965, still have not "enjoyed copyright" under any versions of the law, until the Article 106-1 came in effect in 2002, and restore copyright to them.
• The fact the register system exist before 1985 is exactly the reason why I specified there are exceptions to registered works. It has a slightly different calculation for their copyright terms, hence it is more complicated (similar to the registered works in the U.S.)
• However, to my understanding, currently there isn't a digital system to check for past registration records in Taiwan (unlike the U.S. Copyright Public Records System), so not sure how people here in Commons can check if a particular work was registered or not.

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks for the nuance. All works had to be registered
• Same
• Unregistered works [only those] had its copyright extended, as clarified in 智著字第09300006140號 and 智著字第0920008530-0號. Registered works with their original copyright term expired are considered PD.
• Your statement explicitally contradicts 智著字第09300006140號:

三、依前揭規定，民國七十四年七月十一日以前完成註冊之著作，其著作保護期間若跨過七十四年七月十一日及八十一年六月十一日，且合於中華民國八十七年一月二十一日修正施行前本法第一百零六條至第一百零九條規定之一者，則受新修正著作權法保護；反之，於八十一年'十一日以前屆滿者，則因著作財產權保護期間已過而成為公共財產，任何人自得自由利用。

• Yes, the system is complicated, but the current guidance and explanation is wrong. Works properly registered under 1928-1965 copyright law whose term expired before 1992 (indeed, before 1954/64/74) are PD. This should be explained, and those files should be in Commons.
• IDK if there is a registry, but we can assume, at least, for movies, that any film not censored by the government was indeed registered (same for magazines; otherwise, they would not be able to publish it in a military dictatorship with censorship such as Taiwan). For photographs, especially non-professional ones, it can be tricky.

TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:57, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, I found 智著字第89007299號:

按著作權法(以下稱本法)於民國十七年制定後，迄八十七年一月二十一日止歷經多次修正，對完成於中華民國八十一年六月十日本法修正施行前之著作，是否適用八十七年一月二十一日新修正著作權法而受保護，應視其是否合於新修正本法第一百零六條第一項之規定，即「著作完成於中華民國八十一年六月十日本法修正施行前，且合於修正施行前本法第一百零六條至第一百零九條規定之一者，除本章另有規定外，適用本法。」，是以民國七十四年七月十一日以前完成之著作，有下列任一種情形，且未依民國七十四年七月十日修正施行前著作權法辦理註冊者，即為公共所有之著作，不再享有著作權，合先敘明：（一）民國五十四年七月十一日以前發行之著作，迄民國七十四年七月十一日發行已滿二十年。（二）「北美事務協調委員會與美國在台協會著作權保護協定」第十六條第二項所定之西元一九六五年之前（即民國五十三年十二月三十一日以前）完成之著作。

This simplifies the text of the future Guidance text: unregistered works from before 1965 are also PD.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 10:18, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Curent status of works

Registered works by people dead by July 11, 1955 (+30 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered corporate works made in July 11, 1955 or before (+30 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered photos and videos made in July 11, 1975 or before (+10 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered translations made in July 11, 1965 or before (+20 years: 11th July 1985, very rare to have in Commons)

Any unregistered work made before July 11, 1965--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 10:18, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

In terms of your undeletion request, you can see the different copyright terms for old photographs in Taiwan at {{PD-ROC-oldphoto}}, or you can see a more detail explanation (in Chinese) in this page. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:54, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

The undeletion request is the undeletion request, we can talk about it in the specific pages. We have undeletion petition for works made in Taiwan, in the Mainland, for pictures, films and paitings. Each has a different case. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:37, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @TaronjaSatsuma, thanks for your reply

• As I stated before, the paragraph in 智著字第09300006140號 (the first TIPO statement you quoted) are specifically referring to registered works, so it doesn't contradicts with my statement about unregistered works. The paragraph is simply stating for registered works that entered PD before the 1992 law, they would remain in PD even if the 1992 law extended the copyrighted terms.
• Please note that 智著字第89007299號 (the second TIPO statement you quoted) was made in 29 August 2000. The statement did use the term "Article 106-1", but the text TIPO quote is definitely Article 106, not Article 106-1. So, the statement was probably referring to Article 106 only.
• This means when that statement was made in 2000, it was definitely true that unregistered works published before 1965 was still in PD, since they do not meet the requirements of Article 106, which previously came in effect in 1998.
• Article 106-1 (the important part) only came in effect in 2 years later in 2002, as dictated by Article 117 which states Article 106-1 to 106-3 shall come in effect on the WTO date. Only then in 2002, unregistered works published before 1965 have their copyright restored retroactively.
• Please see this TIPO statement from 17 September 2003, which states, "又我國自九十一年一月一日加入WTO後，之前未曾依我國歷次修正施行之著作權法受保護之電影著作，將依著作權法第一百零六條之一回溯保護著作公開發表後五十年，亦即原先在我國未曾受著作權法保護之本國及外國人著作，將因適用回溯保護之規定而受保護（即四十一年一月一日至七十四年七月十一日間發行而未註冊之影片將因本條文規定仍受著作權法保護）".
• Note that they specifically used the term "回溯保護", which means "retroactive protection".
• The sentence in bold roughly translates to "unregistered films released between 1 January 1952 and 11 July 1985 will still be protected by copyright law under the provisions of this article". The sentence is referring to films because TIPO was answering a question about films, but I think it would apply to any unregistered works from 1952 to 1985.

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 13:50, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

1) Ok, I understand now. Obviously, we should focus on analizing both the registered and unregistered works

7) Ok, good find. I must admit I'm starting to get lost on details, but I get the 2002 law did override some of the conclusions I had arrive.

Focusing on what we can agree (changing the wording in PD-Taiwan, even creating a new template if necessary):

What is PD in Taiwan (and compatible with URAA)?

Registered works by people dead by July 11, 1955 (+30 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered corporate works made in July 11, 1955 or before (+30 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered photos, sound works and audiovisual works made in July 11, 1975 or before (+10 years: 11th July 1985)

Registered translations made in July 11, 1965 or before (+20 years: 11th July 1985, very rare to have in Commons)

Any unregistered work made before July 11, 1965 Any unregistered work made before 1st January 1952 (+50 years after creation in the time URAA was effective)

Taking into consideration the current discovering only affect works registered, perhaps instead of changing the existing templates should we create a PD-ROC-Registered template? I believe using ROC as name is better because it covers both Mainland and Taiwan period, but it could be named PD-Taiwan-Registered too.

Also, I'm unsure if the right date should be July 11 or January 1 (although I believe de facto will always be January 1 because works fall into PD at the begining of the year). @Tvpuppy: What do you think about this? TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

As I mentioned before, the copyright terms calculation for registered works is more complicated, so I cannot be sure if your calculation are accurate. However, I have some comments:

• Registered works that entered PD before 11 June 1992 is in PD on the URAA date. This is because Article 106 of the 1992 law states the 1992 law only applies to registered works that are still in their copyright terms. This means the copyright terms of registered works whose copyright has expired in 1992 were not extended under the 1992 law, hence remained in the PD ever since.
• For some registered works, there is a distinction between the creation date and publish date. This is because between 1985 and 1992, the copyright terms are calculated from the creation date. However, prior to 1985 and starting from 1992, copyright terms are calculated from the publish date. It is possible for works to be created and registered before 1985, but wasn't published until before 2002. This means the calculation might be different for those works.
• For unregistered works, the current tables in Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Taiwan should be the most accurate, so you may want to refer to those.
• I agree "PD-ROC-Registered" is more suitable than "PD-Taiwan-Registered", as some works might be registered to the ROC government when ROC still governed mainland China before 1949.
• The concept of "works fall into PD at the beginning of the year" was only first introduced in Article 35 of the 1992 law. Prior to 11 June 1992, works fall into PD on the date it was created/published.

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll do my best to make a proposal for Proposal for PD-ROC-Registered template, adapting the tables in Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Taiwan to help people to identify. Probably, it will take me some days to prepare it. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:24, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Proposal created. Feel free to modify it. I'm unsure if copyright runs after the public release or after the registration, but I did my best to create a first draft. Feel free to improve it.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Ancillary buildings for locks

We have Category:Lock keepers houses, but we don't seem to have any particular categories for other buildings or structures associated with locks. I'm thinking of things like the ones seen in File:Chittenden Locks - attendants relaxing.jpg and File:Chittenden Locks central control tower.jpg. Anyone got a name better than "Ancillary buildings for locks" or "Buildings associated with locks" (the latter of which, if used, would certainly belong as a parent category to Category:Lock keepers houses as well)? Maybe "Lock control buildings"? I'm not sure. - Jmabel ! talk 22:06, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel: How about Category:Water transport buildings and structures?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 22:23, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Fair enough. For now I'll use that; if someone wants to subcat at some point, I have no problem with that. - Jmabel ! talk 02:01, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

seems solved; subcat creation could be requested at (places like) Commons:Categorization requests Prototyperspective (talk) 12:16, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:16, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Input requested on maps showing projections of the future

While looking at wanted categories, I noticed groups of categories for future years similar to these:

• Category:2028 maps of Africa
• Category:2028 maps of Asia
• Category:2028 maps of Europe
• Category:2028 maps of North America
• Category:2028 maps of Oceania
• Category:2028 maps of South America

There are similar categories for places other than continents. There are also some categories that have been defined, like the first one listed here.

The issue is that our terminology "<year> maps" usually means maps produced in the indicated year, not maps showing data for that year. These categories were obviously not produced that 2028. Most of the content of these and similar categories I've looked at show demographic projections, so they don't represent actual data.

So these categories need to be named differently, but how? "Maps of Africa in 2028" wouldn't work, because the data doesn't represent a real situation. Maybe "Maps of Africa showing projected 2028 data"? Something else?

Since some of these have been created already, we might need to look at those to move maps of projected data into different categories.

@Tvpuppy: : pinging you because you created the Africa map listed above, and you edited Template:Map showing old data, which is used in at least some of these categories. (Do we need a separate template for maps showing projected data?) --Auntof6 (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

An extensively populated cat of that type is Category:2050 maps of the world. For non-ancient maps, the year in the cat title refers to the year of the data shown. For ancient maps that's more or less the same as the year the map made. It would be best if the cats for future dates are renamed or if subcategories for these are created. Maps of projections for the future that is now the past or present also need to be considered. You can find many or most, possibly nearly all such files via Category:Future and Category:Prediction (I've added most of these data graphics to these two cats and their respective subcats for maps).

A related issue exists for charts showing data also for the future (projections). I created for example Category:Charts showing data and projections through 2025 but there aren't many of these (sub)cats. (Again, they could be built using the two aforementioned cats). Prototyperspective (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Auntof6, there is a related discussion above at Commons:Village pump#Maps from Our World in Data. Not sure what is the best solution for future maps, but in the other discussion, they have created specific templates for OWID maps showing past data. Those templates will categorized these maps into a special OWID category under the "YYYY maps of each continent" category (e.g. see Category:1940 maps of Africa).

Perhaps we could try using this solution for these future OWID maps as well, or maybe the templates needs some adjustments for future maps. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:44, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Is there a way to move a batch of categories named ...

Is there a way to move/rename a batch of categories named "old alphabetic character string including spaces"+"numeric character string" to "new alphabetic character string including spaces"+"numeric character string"? The old category should be removed. For instance, I want a category named "Canadian National 1234" renamed to "CN 1234". Also, "Canadian Pacific Railway 1234" renamed to "CP 1234". In addition, all child categories should be updated to include new parent names. I suppose there should be a script that does all that. My-wiki-photos (talk) 02:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, that script should rename a batch:

Canadian National 1234
Canadian National 5678
Canadian National 9012
Canadian National 3456
Canadian National 7890

to:

CN 1234
CN 5678
CN 9012
CN 3456
CN 7890

My-wiki-photos (talk) 03:32, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Regardless of whether such a script exist, this is not a purpose for which you should use it. The current category names are preferable. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Pi.1415926535. You are asking to move categories to less broadly comprehensible names. - Jmabel ! talk 06:53, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I disagree. These category names are not consistent across different railway companies. For instance, for Canadian National Railway, it's "Canadian National #number"; for Canadian Pacific Railway, it's "Canadian Pacific Railway #number", etc. What would the category name be for Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway? The category name "Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway #number" is just too long. These category names are all over the place. So, inconsistent. The short names for such railway companies are very well known: CN, CP, CPKC etc. Furthermore, these categories are child categories of the categories with full railway companies names, so its use is therefore justified, and moreover consistent. I hate to see the inconsistency in their current names. My-wiki-photos (talk) 09:48, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• The category name "Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway #number" is not too long if it simply is the best name to identify the train.
• The short names for such railway companies are very well known: CN, CP, CPKC etc. Perhaps these acronyms are well-known to you, or to people who are interested in railways in Canada, but I think most people will not associate these acronyms with the Canadian railway companies. For example, please see the disambig pages of en:CN and en:CP, which the acronyms can mean a lot of other things.
• I think the rule of thumb is acronyms should only be used if they are internationally well-known, such as Category:USB or Category:NASA.

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 10:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

If you look at this category for instance: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Canadian_National_2344, you will see that one of its parent categories clearly identifies the full railway company name. It is the standard for this type of category with the acronym, which is always visible on a locomotive, plus its number. So, at least, the company name in such categories is redundant. Plus, long names contribute to inconsistencies in naming conventions, which I hate to see. My-wiki-photos (talk) 10:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

The category names should stay as is.

As for CPKC, the locomotives do not hear that reporting mark, they are either CP or KCS even when repainted.

As others have said, it's best to keep using the spelled out name. Wolfy13399 (talk) 13:05, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

People disagreed here but if you still want to have these cats renamed, start a CategoryForDiscussion process. See also Commons:Village_pump/Technical/Archive/2025/10#How_to_move_(rename)_many_categories?. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:22, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:22, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks everyone. My-wiki-photos (talk) 14:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

AI restoration and "Lie factor"

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I recently used Nero AI denoiser and the results are a bit hyper-real and there is a certain "lie factor". I wonder if there are any guidelines on the use of such tools - should the manipulations be documented as part of the image description? If so what are the essentials? I think keeping the original also on Commons might be a good guideline. Thoughts suggested by this. Shyamal L. 03:45, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Shyamal Please see the guideline Commons:AI images of identifiable people, which is applicable to the example you provided. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 03:56, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you @Tvpuppy - adding the {{AI modified}} template. Shyamal L. 04:13, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

This seems solved then? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:38, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Shyamal, for restoration of photos, you can get a more authentic result by asking at the Graphics Lab. Moiré and halftone can be easily removed without AI. JayCubby (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Shyamal, there was also a recent discussion last month that led to a new guideline (currently a draft, still!): Commons:Upscaling. Your comparison image of Mr. Buck could also be used as an example for what can be done with AI but ideally shouldn't. --Enyavar (talk) 12:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Importing from lokalhistoriewiki.no ?

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

There are thousands of images on lokalhistoriewiki.no which were uploaded with a CCSA license yet only a few hundred have been uploaded to commons. Is there any way to (at least partially) automate the importation of these images from a mediawiki wiki outside the wikimedia project? I recognize that, since Norway doesn't have FoP, images of newer buildings and artworks might not be possible, but there is plenty there that would be good to have on commons. Sorry if this is a dumb question and thanks for any help you can offer. -- Themightyquill (talk) 11:00, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

See Commons:Batch uploading. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:38, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

File:South Africa Africa.svg

This needs some fixing, in my opinion. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:02, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to have threads here about unused individual files, especially when it's unclarified what you'd like to have changed and/or what your concern is. The file could be renamed, see Commons:File renaming or be nominated for deletion. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed for what purpose? I see no use case; it was apparently used by the uploader as a base layer for File:Africa road5.svg. The latter displays an incorrect O-o-A theory. Both images are unused, I will support a deletion request. --Enyavar (talk) 13:40, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Why delete? Is there anything inaccurate about this map, or any problem with its licensing? - Jmabel ! talk 23:49, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Now nominated at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by 丁禾. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 03:10, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

How can I add a template to multiple files?

I need to add a particular template (Supported by Wikimedia Österreich) to most of my new uploads. Until now, I have added it manually to each file, but this is a rather tedious process for larger photo sets I intend to upload. Is there a possibility to add a template to multiple files at once? Thanks! Aciarium (talk) 09:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes: MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange. After activating go to your Uploads page and then select Tools -> Perform batch task. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:42, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, this is what I was looking for! Aciarium ⚒ (talk) 13:48, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:42, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Flickr and restricted downloads

Has anyone found a way to download the highest resolution version of an image from Flickr, when the image is copyright-expired, but "The owner has disabled downloading of their photos"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:20, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Does the Image Max URL addon solve this? Prototyperspective (talk) 14:38, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you; but it seems not. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:55, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

You can try viewing the highest resolution version and find the source URL, hover over the image and hit Ctrl+Shift+C in Chrome. A docked window opens and the highlighted HTML block could reveal the URL. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:11, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing can you provide an example Flickr file or album? Thanks, -- Ooligan (talk) 00:34, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

[4]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:26, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I have a solution: The Web-Developer toolbar (for various browsers; I use if in Firefox); view the largest image, then open the toolbar and select then "Images -> "View Image Information". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:26, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

• Photo → view all sizes → select the highest size → click the right button of your mouse save page as → save complete page → find photo in the uploaded folder. Does it help? Юрий Д.К. 13:41, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

can just right click, inspect. i found https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/3350042770_7df94a4a39_k.jpg from inspect readily.

should be easy to make a script to automatically do that. RoyZuo (talk) 21:36, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

It would benefit the most people or at least more if that was added to the open source addon linked above; could not find an issue about this there. https://github.com/qsniyg/maxurl Prototyperspective (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Dan Breen: wrongly identified

The image File:Dan_Breen, circa 1920s.jpg refers. It appears on the en:Dan Breen article (a deceased Irish republican). The provenance is RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster, and I have asked them about it.

That Talk page has an item from a relative of Breen informing us that this image is not of Dan Breen but his younger brother Laurence "Lar" Breen, an Irish republican himself. I emailed this Mr O Riain as follows:

Hello Paud,

I see you have queried this pic of "Breen" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dan_Breen,_circa_1920s.jpg) on his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Breen

It came from RTÉ but the page in question is no longer available: https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/1129/1263845-the-treaty-debate-a-close-run-thing/ Can I ask how you know that this pic is of Laurence and not Dan? Fwiw, I suspect you are correct, for while there is a resemblance, it does not appear to be the same person.

While I'm not an administrator on Wikipedia, if there is any photographic evidence you can send me or point me to in order to prove that a mistake has been made, I will try and pass it on.

• Reply: "I am delighted to hear from you, I've had to raise this issue with a number of people over recent years. The reason I am so sure about this that I happen to be a Grandnephew of both Dan and Laurence Breen. Their Brother Patrick Breen was my Grandfather and his daughter Josephine Breen was my Mother. I regret to say I don't have another photo of Laurence Breen(He died in the USA in 1940).

Paud Ó Riain"

What is the best way forward? I am happy to receive a message or messages about this.

Thanks,

Bill Billsmith60 (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• I added {{Fact disputed}} and you should add your concerns and research to the page. --RAN (talk) 18:31, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you. Billsmith60 (talk) 00:04, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

  Now that there has been no contrary evidence about the identity of the person in this image, is it in order to ask an admin. to rename it to: File:Laurence_Breen, 1920s.jpg and to identify the subject as: Laurence ("Lar") Breen, Irish republican and younger brother of Dan Breen

  Thank you Billsmith60 (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

  Moved to File:Laurence Breen, circa 1920s.jpg. - Jmabel ! talk 04:10, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:02, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Global ban for Faster than Thunder

• Faster than Thunder (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions)

Hello, this message is to notify that Faster than Thunder has been nominated for a global ban at m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Faster than Thunder. You are receiving this notification as required per the global ban policy as they have made at least 1 edit on this wiki. Thanks, //shb (t • c) 01:50, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Decade year navbox adds unwanted spaces in parameters

I'd like to add a navbox for navigating through photoyears in Bavaria. When adding the template (Category:RGB orthophotos from Bayerische Vermessungsverwaltung (2005)), it adds spaces after the prefix and before the suffix, constructing non-existent category names. How to avoid this? Thanks in advance :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:01, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@PantheraLeo1359531, for {{Decade years navbox}}, the parameter padding is the string added after the prefix and before the suffix. It is currently default as a single space, but you can set it as an empty string. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 12:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, that was it :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 12:15, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 12:15, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Increase text size

Hello, I was wondering if there is a way to adapt the size of text and images here on Commons. For one or another reason, today the images and text appear smaller than on the other chapters. Thank you so much for your help. Lotje (talk) 15:48, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Lotje: This may be browser-dependent. In my browser (latest Chrome on latest Windows 10), Menu / Zoom is affected by Ctrl-NumberPadPlusSign(or MinusSign) and Ctrl-mousewheel-up(or down). As this effects all tabs in all Chrome windows, it can take a little while to become visible. Sometimes, without warning, the zoom level will revert from my main 90% to 100%.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: thank you so much for coming back on this one. Do you also know what happens with a version Windows 11? Lotje (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Lotje: No, but if this behavior is not on other sites you use with that browser, it may be due to the new "Appearance / Text" in the new default skin Vector (2022) - see the "Skin preferences" in special:preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering and change "Text" from "Small" to "Standard" or "Large", then save that setting and refresh any page other than your preferences.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:30, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: Y're a star. It is normal again Thank you very, very much. Lotje (talk) 16:46, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Lotje: You're welcome.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 17:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 17:03, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Text above the table of contents on a page

How can I make text appear above the default table of contents on a page? RAN (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) Please see mw:Manual:Table of contents, you can use the magic word __TOC__ to put the table of content at the preferred position on the page. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:40, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks! --RAN (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 01:25, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Neutrality and "Wiki loves Ramadan"

Hi everyone, am i the only who wonders what presence is given to the competition "Wiki loves Ramadan" by advertising it on the main page and on banners. For our big three competitions, WLM, WLE and WLF i understand such a promotion since their topics are neutral, for WLR i do not understand it. In my mind, there should be a policy of neutrality for main page advertisements and banners. PS: My comment is not about the WLR itself, but about the question if it should be advertised on same level as WLM etc. --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Arnd! This absolutely is a valid point!

In fact, I did feel offended. Not exactly for reasons of Christian belief ... but where is "Wiki loves Lent (Fastenzeit, Carême, Quaresima)"? Where is "Wiki loves Easter"? ... or, on a more general scope, "Wiki loves Christianity"? -- Martinus KE (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think there is any reason why we couldn't have a Wiki Loves Lent or Wiki Loves Easter or Wiki Loves Passover or Wiki Loves Holi for more examples. Abzeronow (talk) 03:25, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I think this is a good call and would suggest that instead the competition/campaign is made broader so as to be about religious practices or religious festivals. Additionally, I find many campaigns like this one slightly problematic since there already is good free media coverage of the subject but lots of other subjects without any such challenges are missing media files with lots of gaps. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:35, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, there was a Rfc about this on Meta last week: Requests for comment/Religion-focused CentralNotice banners. Ciell (talk) 19:13, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

While Commons is not bound by the RfC linked above, there are good points brought up there. I think one of the best points is that the standard naming "Wiki Loves [X]" implies more of a celebration/preference than the reality of such projects entail. It's really more like "Wiki Documents [X]" (although that wording is perhaps drier than it needs to be -- I don't have a good alternative). "Document Ramadan With Wiki" maybe better. I, too, am uneasy with explicitly religious events advertised to everyone across the project, but appreciate that it's not realistic to disentangle religion and culture, which overlaps in some places more than others. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  19:20, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I was aware of that when commenting and here is a RfC about that m:Requests for comment/Wiki Loves X. The (main) issue however is not with the naming but with the campaign topic where a suggested potential action could be to broaden it to religious practices or religious festivals or even religions overall. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

This particular event is timed to coincide with the month of Ramadan (18 Feb - 19 March this year) - even if the name or description of the campaign were changed, it's still inherently focused on one cultural event. Omphalographer (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I propose(d) to change the timing too. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:56, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

i have an idea: "wiki looks at xxx", so it sounds neutral and keeps the acronym. RoyZuo (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree that something like this is better language. It also irritates me to no end that it's "wiki loves x": there must be a better way to name that than anthropomorphizing wikis. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:17, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

 Comment, on a side note, I expect the main page will change to promote Wiki Loves Africa 2026 after Wiki Love Ramadan ends this month. Do you think promoting this event on the main page (which have been done for the last 4 years) have neutrality problems as well, since it only focus on a specific continent? Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:00, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Are there campaigns for other continents too? If so, which and why not the remaining ones? Prototyperspective (talk) 00:03, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think so, other than Wiki Loves Africa, I don't know any other continent-specific campaigns. There are some country-specific campaigns in the past (e.g. Wiki Loves México, Wiki Loves Sudan), and given their smaller scale, it makes sense these have not been promoted in the main page before. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:28, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

They are sort of neutral, in a sense they at least pick different subjects. For example, there was Wiki Loves Pride, it was also criticised, but by different groups of users. If they equally represent concepts "loved" by different social groups or cultures, it might be not big issue. MSDN.WhiteKnight (talk) 04:54, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

My vote is clearly against Wiki loves Africa. For Asia, the corresponding campaign is Asian Month, so I'd rather have the Africa campaign also named that way.

Just imagine it the other way round: What amount of protest would be triggered by a campaign called Wiki loves Europe, or even Wiki loves Catholicism? My guess is that the protesters would get quite vocal ...

In the end, it depends on whether we want to have a somewhat neutral Wikipedia or an activist Wokipedia (as it's nicknamed by conservatives). -- Martinus KE (talk) 07:53, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I just think the issue is not with the name but with the focus on a narrow subject where the other equivalent subjects do not have such campaigns. One idea would be to have campaigns for these too and not unlikely contributors interested in that could somewhat-readily set them up; another idea would be to broaden the scope so those other subjects can participate too. I don't think a Wiki loves Europe campaign would get much protest and for continents or large territories/regions like that it may make more sense to also run campaigns for equivalent subjects instead of broadening scope so I'd suggest somebody sets sth like that up (eg Wiki loves Europe, Wiki loves European Union, Wiki loves Oceania etc). If there are concerns that we have lots of media about the subject already or that there are no/very few media gaps etc – that applies more to Ramadan where I doubt there's still important media gaps to close when there's a whole campaign about that particular religious practice. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:41, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

This project supports European users very well. Nine out of the ten largest Wikipedias are European, with the exception having been threatened to get shut down because of the use of bots to make it larger. You speak Dutch, as 22 million people do? We have a Wikipedia with 2 million articles for you. You speak Welsh, as a half million do? We have a Wikipedia with a quarter million articles. You speak Hausa, as a 100 million people do? Have a Wikipedia with less than one hundred thousand articles. We have extremely good coverage of Europe, and pretty poor coverage of Africa. But, no, it would be unfair to support Africans in one way if we don't support Europeans in the very same way.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:51, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The German chapter also had a campaign Wiki Loves Democracy. We should not make guidelines, who can use this slogan as long as they are within our project scope and values. The question how large and global a campaign has to be, to be featured on the main page, is a different topic. There I think we should have some kind of guideline. GPSLeo (talk) 06:37, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

as a anti-islamist wikimedian, i believe this project is good for getting information from muslim communities. in year passed, muslim people getting more technology and know wikimedia better. we are the ones who bring information to them. i  Support this project. yes, it is looking un-neutral, not secular... but in life everything has flaws. modern_primat ^{ඞඞඞ ----TALK} 20:04, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

+we should do more projects like this. for people who got geting more and more access to internet. modern_primat ^{ඞඞඞ ----TALK} 20:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

So is this campaign about Islam in general and not just the religious event called Ramadan of the religion Islam? Prototyperspective (talk) 22:44, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

"Islamic traditions and cultural heritage" https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Ramadan_2026 modern_primat ^{ඞඞඞ ----TALK} 15:37, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Wiki loves Ramadan is basically a promotion campaign to get more images of Ramadan on commons. Cyberwolf (talk) 15:46, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

 Support for RoyZuo's idea of "wiki looks at Topic", that is a much more neutral way to communicate what we are doing. "Wiki loves trees" sounds like we are superficial hippies, "wiki looks at trees" is telling that we encourage studying the topic. Not sure if the Wikilove groups can easily rebrand, but I would love it. To encourage people to upload media about sanitation, we can hardly campaign on "Wiki loves sewage".

(That said, I would not be against "wiki loves Easter" or "wiki loves Holi" either, although there are already plenty of Easter images so it is kinda hard to justify promoting it further. "wiki loves Lent", maybe.) --Enyavar (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

id agree unsure for what to call it tho. The whole wiki loves is to provide an encouragement that we value the images. But yeah in this case its odd
Maybe “commons loves photography of (subject)” Cyberwolf (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I get that keeping the "L" saves a little branding effort, but "Wiki looks at X" sounds contrived. Why not something more descriptive like "Wiki Documents X"? — Huntster (t @ c) 18:33, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

or we could use a single umbrella term: "wiki media drive" (like blood donation drive). for each different topic simply append it like "wiki media drive - xxx". RoyZuo (talk) 09:08, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• It is highly strangely to see here what is indistinguishable from promotion of a particular religion. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• Wiki also loves Folklore etc. This seems to be much more about the subject matter and we, of course, want photos of Ramadan, like all religious festivals. Secretlondon (talk) 07:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

  Well the discussion about the naming continues. I don't see a big problem with the name – the issue is that the campaign is about one specific religion where there are no campaigns for other religions or it being about religious practices overall; can we now also discuss this please and not just the name? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

  Wiki loves Folklore is also about folk religions. Nakonana (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Automated OCR for images of text

Are there any plans to detect images of text, and automatically run OCR on them, and add the text to the entry? We have lots of news articles without the text, and captions on news images that have not been transcribed. RAN (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): This would be a nice feature. At the moment you can it down only by hand via https://ocr-test.wmcloud.org. --sk (talk) 21:52, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

should be https://ocr.wmcloud.org/ right? RoyZuo (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Someone showed me (maybe you!) ocr-test.wmcloud.org a few month's ago. It is amazing. Newspaper.com has done a terrible job with OCR so has the New York Times. Ones that were unreadable from both, have been 95% corrected using wmcloud. I am rerunning all the ones that were not readable through again and migrating the text to Wikisource. I just read that Newspapers.com is rerunning all their OCR again using a new AI-OCR. --RAN (talk) 22:42, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Is this about adding OCR to PDFs, or can OCR be added to JPG/PNGs as well? ReneeWrites (talk) 12:32, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I more familiar with JPG/PNGs because I work with them, so there is my interest. I imagine the pdfs can be run through Adobe and have the text mapped. --RAN (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Categories for exact dates

Do we have categories for exact dates, so that I can click and see what news articles we have for that day? Generally news articles are categorized by the publication and the year. See: Category:The New York Times, 1920 RAN (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Other than the usual Category:2026-03-11? Nakonana (talk) 16:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I am right now sorting clips of uncategorized weather maps into these by-day categories. Also, when I come across a newspaper file, I add the day category, but I am not aware of any systematic effort to sort newspapers into these categories. The last time I suggested to do so was in 2024, see the full discussion here. I would support this idea, but also suggest getting support from bots if possible. --Enyavar (talk) 17:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

• Yes, that would be it. I was trying the wrong date formatting, and I could not find an example. Should it be News articles published on 2026-03-11, or just Articles published on 2026-03-11 so it can contain magazine articles, or just Works published on 2026-03-11, to be as broad as possible? Or should news articles be categorized by the day of the event, not the day published? News travelled slower in the past. That way someone looking up a day during the American Civil War would see the events of the day, not a day or two later, when it was published. --RAN (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

  Should news articles be categorized by the day of the event, not the day published? News travelled slower in the past.

  In this case, there should be a category for the day the article is published, and one for the subject the article is about. "Works published on..." would be a suitable parent category with "Articles published on..." being one of its subcats. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:58, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

  Re "Works": Here I don't think we need to consider other periodicals, or books. The exact date of publishing is not too relevant with a scientific journal, so I don't think they would need to be categorized by date. The same with monthly periodicals: these are not daily newspapers, and should be categorized by month of appearance, even if they do have a day-date. That means, "Works published on..." (date) is really superfluous in my opinion, and will just lead to more fractures in the category tree. For example, 1876-06-09 is the exact publishing date of Twain's Tom Sawyer, but we do not need a category for "Novels published on 1876-06-09". Rather, "1876 novels" is precise enough, and "1876 books from Chicago" for the 1st edition (year book location-scheme). Ergo: Publications/Works where the publication day really matters, are (daily+weekly) newspapers, but little else. That is, I'm looking at the matter with pre-internet publications in mind. Post-1990 and post-2000, things may be different.

  Then, RAN might have mixed two slightly different subjects in the comment above, namely newspaper issues (the full publication, or whole pages) and newspaper clippings (singular news articles). I think these should be approached differently.

  I'm strongly supporting the idea of just categorizing newspaper issues only by date of publishing. In the times when news travelled at the speed of horses or sails, the same newspaper issue would contain stories about events that happened weeks and days ago, along with the local news of yesterday and today. Our users just should expect on their own that an earthquake that happened in Chile at a certain date in mid-19th century, would not appear in a London newspaper on the same day. Also, a weekly newspaper would still be filed by date of publication.

  That said, a newspaper clipping of just a single story, should instead be categorized by the date of the event that is described in it. For example, 1921-06-22, but not 1921-06-23, despite being taken from a publication of the latter day.

  On the name of the categories? Until right now, newspapers that are categorized by date at all, appear mostly directly under the date, like 1896-06-18. However, we should be careful to follow existing naming patterns. Right now we have the following patterns to consider: 1921 newspapers, 1921 newspapers of the United Kingdom rivalling with Newspapers of the United States, 1921 (!). Also consider by-date-pattern-categories Switzerland photographs taken on 1921-06-22.

  I think that country subcategories will come up sooner than later, so I want to consider them early. That doesn't mean we should create by-day categories single newspapers, of course. But it still means several different patterns could be established, here I'm going for an example: "Newspapers of the United States, 1899-09-14" or "United States newspapers published on 1899-09-14" or "1899-09-14 newspapers of the United States". All three suggestions fit the existing patterns, I would say. My favorite would be the third: "<date> newspapers" and possibly "<date> newspapers of <country>" --Enyavar (talk) 05:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

  For the daily categories the established pattern for parent categories, that go directly intoCategory:2026-03-11, appears to be putting the date at the end of the category name: Category:Photographs taken on 2026-03-11 and Category:Videos taken on 2026-03-11. Therefore I'd say the parent category should be Category:Newspapers published on 2026-03-11. Nakonana (talk) 16:08, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

  Would you also prepend the country name, as also established with the photos? That would fit the second suggestion in my post above.

  Another thing, would you also change the category names of the year? Right now, we have "Newspapers of the United States, 1826" but also 1826 newspapers of the United Kingdom. Once we take on the daily format, the year categories could be changed to "Newspapers of <country> published in 1826", which also has the advantage of more clarity. In that way we could harmonize the two rivalling category structures. (Just a suggestion to ask if someone else sees that need; needs further debate in a CfD.) --Enyavar (talk) 16:26, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Some categories for exact dates are hidden and some are not, what should we standardize on? --RAN (talk) 18:50, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

  I guess that photos of monuments/buildings that don't change daily don't need to have a visible by-date-category for the photos that depict them.

  But newspapers? Hiding media by making the categories inaccessible is the best way for nobody being able to find them. I would think that these new-to-implement newspaper-by-day categories, however the name, should not be hidden. --Enyavar (talk) 14:39, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• I suppose I can add in two date categories for some news articles. The day of the event and the day of publication, if there is no event category. Where there is an event category, just the day of publication. --RAN (talk) 16:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

With merely events that are reported, I am currently just assigning the day-categories for the actual event, for example 1631-09-15, 1896-01-07. At least for historical timespans before 2000, I think that "events on 1985-09-31" is too granular for the events-category. After all, we are already subdividing events by location as well, and the logical consequence of maintaining location-categories (1985 events in New York City, Berlin, etc) and also the day-event category is that someone else eventually has the glorious idea to create "1862-03-03 events in Weingarten (Württemberg)". There is always such a someone-else, just give it a few years and the topic will come up. And that will lead to very narrow category definitions within un-navigable cat-trees, containing single-file entries like the example for Weingarten that I linked above. Which is the reason why I am not wholeheartedly support the idea of "events by day".

For whole paper issues, I don't think we have a problem, except one suggestion: I had concerns before about subdivisions by country... Right now, I think we should subdivide by language first and foremost: Spanish-language newspapers are produced in many countries, but all Spanish-speakers can read them, and it matters less when we only have 1 newspaper from Uruguay and 1 from Peru and 2 from Mexico and 3 from Spain. Similarly, most English-language newspapers are produced in UK and US, but that subdivision could take place one step down, if at all. Which means my preferred idea is for the substructures to look like this:

• 1896-12-31
  • Photographs taken on 1896-12-31
  • Newspapers published on 1896-12-31
    • Spanish-language newspapers published on 1896-12-31
      • File:El Noroeste, 31-12-1896.jpg and all other files
    • English-language newspapers published on 1896-12-31
      • Denton County News. (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 5, No. 35 and all other files
    • French-language newspapers published on 1896-12-31
      • ... etc.

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): , does that proposal look okay? --Enyavar (talk) 16:37, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• Looks good! --RAN (talk) 16:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Cool. Provided that everyone else also agrees, these would be the next steps:

  1. Creating the template Template:Newspaper date navbox that works essentially like Template:Date navbox but does create subcategories of the latter with essentially this content: [[Category:YYYY-MM-DD]][[Category:YYYY newspapers by day]]
  2. Starting to create and fill the category structure. This breaks down into several parts:
     1. identifying the publishing date of all newspapers in our digitized newspapers on Commons. A lot of archives available on Commons are already filled-out descriptions like | date = 1896-10-09; for these it is incredibly easy. Other archives do not have full descriptions, but the file names still provide follow a scheme that can be converted into ISO-8601.
     2. categorize them by the identified date (Newspapers published on YYYY-MM-DD) and
     3. create the respective categories (both for the newspapers and for the date itself) where they don't yet exist
  3. Where possible and necessary: subdividing per language as per above.

  For the timeframe of 1850-1950 alone we can expect up to 36'525 newspaper categories, and that is also the timeframe where I think we have the most publications. For practical reasons, I would suggest starting with newspapers that were in publication in 1899 and categorize them completely for all years they were published. Then expand to earlier newspapers going backwards until none remain. Then expand to later newspapers going forward until none remain.

  ... Wow. This is certainly a sizeable project, maybe it requires a project page to coordinate all that work. Disclaimers: I do not know how to create such a complex template as the one I proposed above; I do not know how to program and task bots; but I do have years of work still to be done on Commons. Which is why I don't volunteer much more than just ideas here. --Enyavar (talk) 21:00, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Global ban request for Taksen

Hello. There is an ongoing global ban request on Metawiki for Taksen (talk · contribs), who is also active on Commons. Discussion is at meta:Requests for comment/Global ban for Taksen. Thanks for commenting. Best regards,--A09 (talk) 11:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

"This category page should not hold any files."

Currently disambiguation categories say: "This category page should not hold any files." but most disambiguation categories do contain files because there are images and news articles that cannot be disambiguated without more information. There may be a John Smith in a news article/image, but no clue as to which John Smith. Should the warning mention that any images in the category need further disambiguation? I want to make sure people do not remove the files because of the wording. RAN (talk) 20:53, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

All of those files in disambiguation categories are problems waiting to be solved, and clear out the disambiguation category. But perhaps a rewording about should be diffused to zero or some such might be more appropriate. - Jmabel ! talk 22:25, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

... or "This category page should ideally not hold any files." --NearEMPTiness (talk) 05:58, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

+1 – this needs a change at Template:Disambig; specifically Template:Disambig/en for the English version.
Additionally, it would be good if a page about disambiguation that explains what it is was linked. Apparently none such exists or did I just not find it? Commons:Disambiguation redirects to an essay. Alternatively, one could add a section to Commons:Categories requiring diffusion and then redirect to that section. I think it would be useful because the page could explain things for people interested/confused and offer some backlog links and help, etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:28, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

The text says "should not" (describing the desired ideal state), not "must not" (describing a prohibition). I see no reason to change it, but NearEmptiness's suggestion is okay. So a +1 on that one.

Some background, I often add files to disambigs purposefully, for example when there are more people with the same name, like David Adams or when I am not able to do the disambiguation myself because doing so would require further research. I trust the wiki principle of someone else with more knowledge to step in later. But those potential others won't know that a proper category is missing when it doesn't even show up on the disambiguation page. People should not remove that category from a file just to achieve an empty disambig page; instead they should group the files about the same person into new categories that are then linked on the disambig. When that is not possible, the files should remain there - potentially for a long time. --Enyavar (talk) 12:30, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

The issue is that "should not" here is ambiguous so a certain fraction of readers probably misunderstand it and to a certain fraction it causes unnecessary confusion/required-investigation regarding what is meant. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• The wording has to be clear enough that people stop removing the images from the category unless they are further disambiguated. I only came across the problem after seeing images deleted, instead of further disambiguated. Some images may require a lot of research, or there is still not enough info today, but maybe in the future. A similar problem is removing red linked name categories. They should be added to surname categories, instead of deleted. In some cases the full name of the person depicted may only appear in the red link. --RAN (talk) 23:03, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Question about original flag creations and COM:EDUSE

For the past couple decades, Wikimedia commons has been a magnet for amateur vexilologists to upload their original creations, usually either country flags that never existed or political flags that have never been used by any organisation or movement. Just as an example of the latter, see the category and various sub-categories for anarchist flags, which are full of original creations without any real-world usage. It seems to me that many of these files would not be realistically useful for educational purposes, as they would inherently serve a limited number of purposes, namely to mislead readers into believing this flag was associated with a certain subject or to promote the artist's original work. On various languages of Wikipedia, it has become a perennial issue for some projects, as artists try to push their original work onto articles or well-meaning people add a Wikicommons-hosted flag to an article (thinking it to be a real representation of the subject) despite it never having been used in real life or even outside Wikicommons.

I wanted to ask the community about this, as it seems to me that many of these flags fall firmly outside the project scope and liable to deletion, albeit up to consideration on a case-by-case basis. Would such original creations fit the criteria for deletion? Or will they likely be left up? In the latter case, is there any way to flag such uploads as original creations beyond the "Own work" field in the description? Cheers. Grnrchst (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@Czar: Courtesy ping, as I've seen you expressing frustration with flag citogenesis since at least 2019. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:08, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

See also Category:Flag related deletion requests and Category:Fictional flag related deletion requests. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for posting these, I wasn't aware of these deletion categories. Seems like it's a lot more common for such requests to result in deletion than a keep. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

The categories are just scratching the surface, I'm afraid. There's probably thousands more deletion requests for fictitious flags, as well as a lot that get speedily deleted as personal images (i.e. "Flag of The Kingdom of My Backyard", etc). Omphalographer (talk) 19:23, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I've just come across the enormous category for special or fictional flags and it seems like this goes way deeper than I'd imagined. I also found this decade-old discussion, so I'm far from the first to flag this as an issue. Perhaps a clearer policy about this specific area needs developing, or at least more bold action might need to be taken. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:53, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Several users have over the decades contributed to the deletions of thousands of "special" flags of all kinds, each, and I count myself among them (still coming a bit short of 2000 DRs, regularly covering several flags at once though). Most of the "special" flags you see remaining here, are actually the "better" ones: those that are in use within at least one wikimedia project ("in-use" overrules "out-of-scope") and those where other users have hesitated because there is at least a flimsy source, etc. This is why we have not wholesale-deleted all of the content in the categories you pointed out.

The existing policies are sufficient in my opinion, but I agree that our current measures are rather stop-gap and that bolder action can easily be taken. Please volunteer to check the individual flags for being out-of-use AND out-of-scope, and then file the DRs. A tip: check if the same user has uploaded more fantasy files as well, the typical fake-nation has images of the flag, the coat of arms, maps, pictures of the monarch, diagrams... the whole shibang.

tl;dr: yes a lot has been done, and your help is appreciated. Whatever you do, do not forget to be kind and respectful since most flags come from different people often not aware of our policies. BEst --Enyavar (talk) 17:45, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough response! I'll be sure to help check for flags that are both out of use and out of scope. I've already gone ahead and collected together the fictitious anarchist flags I noticed into their own category, which should at least help with sorting the wheat from the chaff in that area. I will of course be respectful of the people involved; in fact, I'm quite impressed by quite a few for their artistic capabilities, I just worry this isn't the right medium for their creations (i.e. commons is not a personal web host). --Grnrchst (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2026 (UTC)