Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/07

Help reviewing image uploads by one editor

Aladythatwrites has uploaded 2-3 dozen images. I've reviewed several of them and I have nominated them for deletion as they almost certainly have the wrong license attached to them e.g., college wordmarks are not likely to have been placed in the public domain, images downloaded from a school's website are not likely to be CC licensed. I do not have the time to review the remainder of their uploads but I strongly suspect they are all incorrectly licensed and should also be nominated for deletion. ElKevbo (talk) 03:05, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Strong warning sent. However, I believe that most of what you nominated for deletion are simple text logos, which can be kept. - Jmabel ! talk 05:50, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

thank you, all. I'm new to this, so I appreciate others' work on this. Aladythatwrites (talk) 15:04, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 02:42, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Reproductions of public domain images

I have an image of a Czech composer here. According to this source it seems like it's a reproduction of an image in 1894, which would be {{Pd-old-assumed}}. This reproduction is in 1996. Is it copyrighted or is it free to upload on Commons? WafflesInvasion (talk) 03:47, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Wait, I think this is supposed to belong in Villagepump/Copyright. Sorry! WafflesInvasion (talk) 03:49, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

I assume, that it would be eligible per {{Pd-old-assumed}} (or any similar license). Pinging @Gumruch, Harold, and Jklamo: — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 07:00, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

In the EU there is no copyright to mere reproductions of public domain works. Herbert Ortner (talk) 19:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2025-07

In June 2025, 1 sysop was elected. Currently, there are 180 sysops.

• User:ChemSim was elected sysop (25/5/1) on 6 June.

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Edited by RoyZuo.

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

--RoyZuo (talk) 11:06, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

wikimap tool is down

I’m getting a 504 error from https://wikimap.toolforge.org/ and it doesn’t seem it’s transient.

1. Any ideas on how to get it back to work?
2. Or is there are comparable tool that would show geolocated Commons files pages on a map?

-- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 13:42, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Confirming down for me too. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:53, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing@Tuvalkin: Thankfully, appears to be back up. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:49, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Yay! -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 10:33, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 02:43, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/03/Category:Lebak

Kindly look into this possibly-uncontroversial CfD that I opened months ago. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

 Done. --Achim55 (talk) 20:36, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Now closing this thread.

This section was archived on a request by: 09:01, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

_ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:01, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Category:HistoricImages

Category:HistoricImages I added a category for these watermarked press photos for sale from the company "HistoricImages", they are all watermarked and eventually there will be better software for removing the watermarks. They buy press images from defunct newspapers. If we find a better version without a watermark we usually overwrite the image. Any idea what the parent category should be? Or what a better category name would be to describe the images. We probably have 50 of these but no way to find them. RAN (talk) 16:09, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Should just be a hidden maintenance category, in any case, and I'd call it something more like Category:Images from HistoricImages. - Jmabel ! talk`

• How do I make it a maintenance category? --RAN (talk) 19:46, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Place it under Category:Maintenance categories or a descendant, and make sure you use __HIDDENCAT__. - Jmabel ! talk 21:16, 2 July 2025 (UTC)
• @Jmabel: Did you try and use any of the AI watermark removal programs on these images yet? I tried three of them a few years ago and none were very good. I am sure some are much better now. The best of the three produced this: File:Olive Jones, President Of National Education Association.webp, which wasn't worth pursuing. --RAN (talk) 00:01, 3 July 2025 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): I'm not working on these, and have no particular intention of doing so.

  In the past, I've had some success removing watermarks using the clone tool (and some other similar tools) in GIMP. That's the only program I use for retouching in recent years. - Jmabel ! talk 01:43, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

Would introducing something like en:Wikipedia:Proposed deletion on Commons be helpful?

For anyone who's not familiar, editors on enwiki add a template to a page (there an mainspace article, here a file) proposing it for deletion, with a reason for deletion. Anyone can remove the template if they disagree, and the page can't be re-proposed after that. If the template stays up for a period of time (there a week or so, here probably longer) an admin reviews the page and decides to delete it or not. Editors and admins also have the option of converting it into a regular deletion request if they feel that it needs discussion. This is generally intended for stuff that doesn't meet the speedy deletion criteria but opposition wouldn't be expected on a deletion requests.

One motivation for this is the large backlog of deletion requests, but I can think of other ways it could help. This isn't quite a proposal yet, I just want opinions. Apocheir (talk) 02:21, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Commons deletion requests generally default to "delete" so long as the nominator makes a valid policy-based argument for deletion and the file isn't in use, so I'm not sure how much of a difference a PROD-like process would make. Omphalographer (talk) 03:15, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

There's already speedy deletions anyway, which should work like PRODs in theory since they can be contested. Although I rarely see anyone convert them into regular deletion requests. But that's what they are in theory. I just don't think anyone usually cares about contesting the deletion of individual files on here as much as they do with Wikipedia articles on enwiki. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:01, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

I think adding that proposed deletions would increase the complexity of the process for no benefit.

The large backlog of deletions in Commons is not because of cases for which no oposition is expected but for more or less borderline causes where the need for deletion is unclear. The simple cases for which a proposed deletions process would be applied are simple enough that they are usually deleted within a week. Additionally, setting a deletion proposal for a single file is more automated in Commons than in most Wikipedias, and therefore there is no need so simplify it. Pere prlpz (talk) 10:24, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

A week? Commons:Deletion requests/File:!!!Basic strokes.jpg took two and a half months. That was a diagram of kanji stroke order that was so blurry you could barely tell what it was trying to show. Commons:Deletion requests/File:1 Без назви.xcf took a month and that was last year. Apocheir (talk) 22:03, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

How long it takes deletion requests to be closed is certainly inconsistent. That's improved some lately since two more administrators were approved though. A lot of this comes down to that. Not enough users working in the area because of how toxic and complicated it is or admins to close the discussions, Etc. Etc. That's not really helped with PRODs. If anything they would just exacerbate the issue because it would be yet another process people would have to be put the time into. I don't think PRODs are really that effective on Wikipedia anyway. It's not something that seems to scale well since anyone who does more then a couple of PRODs at a time just gets reverted, attacked, reported to ANU, Etc. Etc. Or at least that's how it was back when I use to contribute to Enwiki. Commons really just needs more contributors and admins period. Either that or AI to do everything instead (obviously I'm being sarcastic but that seems to be where things are going). --Adamant1 (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Keeping a Category redirect

I've modified Category:Edifici Gil-Tecles so now it's a category redirect. The name of the building is not all that popular; in fact I didn't knew it even after reading a whole 500-page paper on Valencian architecture of that period. But it seems that the name has some use by some people, so I would like to keep it. Option B is eliminating it and having to search any pictures uploaded to categories too general to be of any help.

It seems that what I have to do is nothing. But I'm not sure.

Thanks!

10:25, 2 July 2025 (UTC) B25es (talk) 10:25, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Convenience link Category:Edifici Gil-Tecles.

@B25es: this is not how you are supposed to move a category. It does not handle the history well. Please read Commons:Rename a category, which is policy. Also "Building at" is not normally part of a category name; much more normal to just use the address.

Commons (and Wikimedia broadly) is overdue for a complete overhaul — here’s why

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi all,

After years of contributing to Wikimedia Commons and other projects, I want to openly express a number of deep concerns and propose a direction for meaningful reform. Please read this not as an attack, but as a call to renewal.

1. The platform is stagnating. Commons — like Wikipedia — hasn’t aged well. From interface limitations to rigid community structures, the platform feels stuck in the late 2000s. There's been little visible progress toward modernization, and much of the system feels unwelcoming, overly complicated, and hard to engage with productively.

2. AI moderation must be implemented before uploads go live. Commons badly needs 24/7 AI-powered pre-screening of uploads. Copyvios, spam, or harmful files should never go live in the first place. We need to stop relying on burned-out humans to clean up messes that could be prevented entirely. Machine learning tools for filtering visual content, metadata quality, and licensing compliance are mature enough to handle this today.

3. The editing and review experience is hostile or thankless. It is often far more difficult and tedious to contribute in good faith than it is to vandalize. Newcomers face a dense wall of policies, unfriendly tooling, and inconsistent community support. The result? Editors leave, while vandals find loopholes.

4. Commons is flooded with low-value content. We should prioritize quality over quantity. Most uploads are marginal, unsourced, or redundant. A massive audit — ideally automated — should identify low-value content for merging, deprecation, or deletion. Let’s stop hoarding and start curating.

5. Disincentivize abuse through real accountability. Tying editing rights and upload privileges to verified accounts (e.g., through a secure third-party identity verification service) could deter sockpuppetry and long-term abusers. Most good-faith users would have no reason to object — and it would help reduce abuse, vote stacking, and endless reuploading of deleted material.

6. Mascots like Wikipe-tan need to be retired. Wikipe-tan has been around since 2007, and her design reflects a very specific (and exclusionary) subculture. It’s time for Commons and Wikimedia at large to project a more professional, inclusive identity that reflects a modern, global project. Mascots should unify, not alienate.

7. Merge all language editions into one Wikipedia — and one Commons. Right now, projects are fragmented and duplicated across languages, each with their own templates, policies, and standards. This makes translation and collaboration painful. We should aim for one global platform with multilingual support, not dozens of inconsistent forks. That includes Commons, which could benefit from being streamlined and deeply integrated with a unified multilingual backend.

8. Simplify and clean up everything. From templates to user rights to Village Pump categories — the entire system is overloaded with cruft. We need a deep cleanup: of unused templates, contradictory policies, broken workflows, and outdated assumptions.

9. The current governance model discourages reform. The “old guard” often resists change, enforcing policies more out of tradition than effectiveness. Meanwhile, real contributors burn out and potential editors bounce off. Reform needs to be baked into our governance model. Admins, ombudsmen, ArbComs — these structures need to be transparent, accountable, and re-evaluated regularly.

10. Donations must be anonymized. To prevent financial influence or bribery disguised as “support,” all donations should be routed through third-party anonymizers. This is vital for editorial independence and public trust.

In summary: Wikimedia Commons and its sibling projects must stop running on inertia. We need a full audit, a modern architecture, AI-first moderation, professional branding, and a governance model that respects contributors and adapts to change.

I say this not out of hostility, but because I care about what Wikimedia could still be.

Thank you for reading.

Grandmaster Huon (talk) 16:23, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Certain Commons editors are fond of constantly beating the "Commons is short on admins" drum. No, Commons is short on warm bodies, period. The few regulars have a bad habit of being exceedingly condescending towards those on the wrong side of the learning curve, while giving a pass to people with exclusively or overwhelmingly problematic contributions who have figured out how to game the system. That's at the top of my list. This and other things are the reason why I've put a pause on contributing my original intellectual property. If it keeps up, I just may throw it all on Flickr and mark it copyrighted instead of CC-licensed. The choice is in how others choose to conduct themselves, really. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 18:39, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Grandmaster Huon, as we are here at Commons, it might have been more goal-oriented to restrict your expose to really Commons-related issues. For example, #10, AFAIK, has no relation to Commons.

Anyway, from my own year-long experience, I can confirm the problems described in #2 and #4. It seems indeed to be absurd that the constantly growing number of uploads needs to be manually checked by (unpaid) volunteers for issues such as being a copyvio, which IMO could easily be taken over by a AI routines/bots. --Túrelio (talk) 19:01, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi Grandmaster Huon,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. While there are definitely some valid points in your post — particularly around modernization and contributor burnout — I think it’s important to address a few things for the sake of context and transparency.

First, it’s a bit misleading to frame this as coming from a longtime contributor. According to public user records, your editing history spans just under two years, during which you've been indefinitely blocked on two different Wikimedia projects — and, until very recently, were also indefinitely blocked here on Commons. You successfully appealed that block just yesterday, and now you’re presenting a sweeping reform manifesto as though you’ve been here for a long time. That dissonance undermines the credibility of the post.

Second, while there's nothing wrong with using tools to help write clearly, this reads very much like something generated (or heavily assisted) by ChatGPT or similar AI. Again, not a crime — but it's worth being transparent if you’re going to frame this as a deeply personal appeal.

Lastly, while critique is always welcome, reform is most credible when grounded in experience and mutual trust. Coming off a block and immediately calling for top-to-bottom change, including drastic measures like account verification, mascot retirements, and forced platform unification — all while dismissing the current community as stagnant or outdated — feels more like a provocation than a good-faith invitation to collaborate.

If you genuinely want to help Commons improve, I’d suggest a more constructive path: engage in active contribution, participate in discussions with humility, and propose incremental change where it’s grounded in actual experience here. That’s how real reform happens — not through sweeping manifestos from a just-unblocked account.

Respectfully, ReneeWrites (talk) 19:17, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this was written with the help of AI, as it helps me articulate my statements. Grandmaster Huon (talk) 19:28, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who wrote it, but how it resonates. Grandmaster Huon (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

OK, if AI writes it, AI can read it. No reason for humans to be involved at either end. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 19:54, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Wow! Honestly, my mind couldn't tell the difference between a well-written statement and... well, AI. All of this is more of an emotional appeal to those burned-out users, actually. George Ho (talk) 20:34, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

• If AI were to filter my uploads and make decisions to exclude content, I would leave the project.
• You refer to "low-value content" but give no examples. You do not even state criteria for such value
• I may be mistaken, but I haven't seen anyone here reference Wikipe-tan in about a decade. Can you give me an example from the past year?
• It is hard enough for Commons and Wikidata to coordinate across languages. Why would you want to impose our most difficult issue on the creation of articles that are inherently each monolingual?

- Jmabel ! talk 21:27, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

• Also, frankly, coming back from a well-deserved block to tell us we should all be doing things very differently shows a lot of gall. - Jmabel ! talk 21:32, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your candid feedback, Jmabel. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify and respond.

1. On AI filtering and content exclusion:

I understand your concern about AI making exclusion decisions. My intention is not to replace human judgment but to use AI as an assistant to flag potentially problematic or low-quality uploads before they go live, allowing human reviewers to make final calls. This would reduce the workload on volunteers, not remove their authority.

2. Defining “low-value content”:

By “low-value,” I mean media files that:

Lack clear educational, encyclopedic, or documentary purpose.

Are duplicates, blatant copyright violations, or trivial fan art without relevance.

Have poor or no sourcing or context.

The goal is not to censor creativity but to maintain Commons as a high-quality repository that serves global knowledge needs.

3. Regarding Wikipe-tan:

While it may be true that Wikipe-tan isn’t frequently referenced recently, she remains an emblematic mascot representing an older era and subculture within Wikimedia’s history that no longer reflects our current mission or broad community. The suggestion to retire her is symbolic of broader cultural modernization.

4. On language coordination and multilingual articles:

I recognize that articles are inherently monolingual. My vision is not to force projects to merge immediately, but to work towards a unified backend and AI-assisted translation tools to reduce duplication and inconsistencies over time. This is a long-term goal, not an overnight change.

5. On my history and “gall”:

I accept that coming back after a block and proposing sweeping changes is unusual. However, my motivation is to contribute constructively to Wikimedia’s future. I hope this can be judged on the merit of ideas rather than personal history.

Thank you again for engaging in this dialogue. I welcome continued discussion on how to improve Wikimedia sustainably. Grandmaster Huon (talk) 22:31, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

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Preemptively closing this before it becomes a complete circus. Throwing out a bunch of vague thoughts that are a mix of unrelated to Commons, non Commons-specific, utterly unworkable, exceedingly unlikely to be accepted by the community, and bereft of useful detail is not the way to start a productive conversation.

@Grandmaster Huon: , I suggest you carefully Jmabel and ReneeWrites told you. Immediately after an unblock is an exceptionally poor time to propose systemic change. That is not going to establish you as a trustable community member, and neither is posting LLM-generated drivel. If you want to eliminate "low-value uploads", you can start with some of your own. Just since your unblock, you're uploaded multiple uselessly-blurry files (1, 2, 3), multiple sets of duplicates (4a/4b, 5a/5b), and vacation photos with useless filename and description (6) - and none of the uploads are well-categorized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pi.1415926535 (talk • contribs) 22:42, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Renaming a Category

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

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

Copyright of audio works that are only partially generated by AI

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

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

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

Category for files that were ripped from video games

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

File:Marcellus Hartley Dodge Jr. (1908-1930) portrait.png

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More intense monitoring of copyvios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Problem with Template pages

Hmmm...

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

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

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

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

Category:Files from 500px.com with bad file names

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

If moving:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LES LARMES D’ÉROS

http://www.leslarmesderos.com/

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

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

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

is there a task force or project to save these ?

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