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Commons Gazette 2025-05

Volunteer staff changes

In April 2025, 1 sysop was elected. Currently, there are 178 sysops.

User:Kaganer was elected (34/4/2) on 26 April.

Other news

Template:Wikidata Infobox will be updated to show language of work or name (P407) of video and audio files that have this qualifier set in Wikidata. See the request "Adding which language info for videos in infobox".

Edited by User:Prototyperspective and User:RoyZuo.

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

--RoyZuo (talk) 05:57, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Category-related POV-pushing

I have deleted the category and removed the files from it. As multiple users have pointed out, blood libel is a highly specific form of antisemitism that was not the subject of those files. Others are welcome to create neutrally-named categories as needed to sort files.

Chenspec, I would recommend you stay away from the subject of the war entirely. Consensus in this discussion is that your editing so far on the subject has not complied with the neutral point of view policy. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 07:32, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

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.

I recently happened to notice the account Chenspec adding the category Blood libels during the Swords of Iron War. Intrigued, I decided to access the category, as I was unfamiliar with the term "blood libel". I ended up learning, through Wikipedia, that it refers to a false antisemitic accusation alleging that Jews use the blood of Christians in religious rituals. Such a notion is, of course, reprehensible.

However, in the category in question, which also includes "Antisemitism during the Israel–Hamas war", I find only ordinary individuals holding signs with messages such as "Stop killing children" [1], "Stop genocide" [2], "Stop war crimes" [3], and "Stop the slaughter of innocent children, women, elderly men, and babies" [4]. I see no one holding placards accusing Jews of using Christian blood in obscure rituals, nor anything that could reasonably be considered antisemitic, except through dishonest fallacies that completely distort the meaning of the term.

Furthermore, the categories Israeli apartheid and South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention) are listed as subcategories. I fail to understand how the concept of Israeli apartheid—treated as a matter of fact on Wikipedia—could bear any relation to "blood libel", nor how the South African government's accusation that Israel is committing genocide could be deemed antisemitic or interpreted as an allegation of using the blood of innocent children in macabre rituals.

Thus, I propose that the category be deleted and that the account Chenspec be monitored for possible attempts of POV-pushing. I open this thread here to give the matter greater visibility, as I believe I could simply empty the category myself, but then it would be just as easy for them to revert my edit. Thank you, RodRabelo7 (talk) 02:13, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo, JWilz12345, Queen of Hearts, and Ratekreel: Would you like to give your opinion on the matter? RodRabelo7 (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

@A1Cafel and Kingofthedead: As the ones who uploaded the mentioned photos, would you also like to comment?

RodRabelo7 (talk) 02:24, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7: I strongly disagree with this categorization and in my opinion (all political biases aside) it's a clear violation of NPOV. The photos have messages like "Stop Israeli War Crimes," "Free Palestine," "Stop Genocide," "Stop Killing Children," etc. all things which reliable sources have documented. The phrasing "Swords of Iron War" too shows clear bias towards the Israeli perspective. Kingofthedead (talk) 03:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7 no comment on this matter, since this is not of my forte/sphere of wiki-interest. My apologies. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 05:06, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

What you wrote is not accurate - a blood libel is a false anti-Semitic accusation against Jews. The problem with them is that throughout history, blood libels have led to various pogroms, murders, and harassment against Jews. Although the libel about Jews murdering Christian babies and using their blood is a common blood libel, it is not the only one. In fact, this is one example of a particular case that belongs to a broader pattern. In today's context, false accusations of the Jewish state of genocide and apartheid are relevant examples that reflect the same pattern. Chenspec (talk) 05:53, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

"I see no one holding placards accusing Jews of using Christian blood in obscure rituals" - so you are clearly not accustomed or knowledgeable in this issue, since a blood libel is also referred throuout history as any false accusation against Jews including in Russia. W:Blood libel includes also other allegations, such as "versions of the blood libel accused Jews of ritually re-enacting the crucifixion" and more. So the narrow verbal interpretation of blood libel only as "Jews use Christians' blood" is mistaken. Ehud Amir (talk) 08:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Even so, see the comments below, especially the one by Josve05a. By the way, an average of 70 edits per year on Commons and just happened to stumble upon this topic? Curious. RodRabelo7 (talk) 14:38, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

The idea that anyone who has an even slightly critical opinion of the war in Gaza is antisemitic or committing blood libel is laughable at best. If anything, that kind of attitude about the war just increases antisemitism. More to the point, in this case it's just an attempt to use Commons to push a nationalistic political agenda with the category system, which we don't allow for. So the category should be deleted for the Category-related POV-pushing that it clearly is. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:11, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

A false accusation of genocide is not a "slightly critical opinion" Chenspec (talk) 06:20, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Good thing I didn't say it was. The important thing is that it's still not blood libel or antisemitic. That's even assuming it's not a genocide to begin with but even if it's not, the category is still nationalistic, political POV-pushing regardless. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:27, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

This shows this topic is to complex to fit into a category system. Therefore we should not try to fit it into the category system. Just delete all categories they label something in a political way unless there is no serious doubt about that label. Describing the topic and the discussions about is the task of Wikipedia not of Categories on Commons. GPSLeo (talk) 06:43, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable to me as long as this policy is included in all relevant cases, including the category Israeli apartheid. Chenspec (talk) 07:22, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't seem fair to me. This topic was opened because you are associating people protesting and a sovereign country accusing another of genocide with blood libel, which according to the Wikipedia page refers to Jews using Christian blood in rituals. There's a false equivalence here, especially since the Israeli apartheid is controversial precisely mostly, if not only because its existence is denied by those who perpetrate it. See the article on the English Wikipedia, which as I mentioned treats it as a fact. RodRabelo7 (talk) 07:38, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a huge fan of any political categories myself but at least images like this one show an accusation of Israeli apartheid, which is the point in the category. Whereas, this image is just of someone wearing a shirt with the word "Palestine" on it. A shirt with the name of a geographical location on it obviously isn't antisemitic or blood libel. Unless your going to argue the actual State of Palestine is antisemitic and it's mere existence is slander against Jews. Let alone that someone wearing a shirt in support of it is. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:43, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we should rename the category Category:Israeli apartheid to Category:Media related to Israeli apartheid discourse. The Category:Blood libels during the Swords of Iron War should be renamed to Category:References to Blood libel at Israel–Hamas war related protests and all files with no direct reference should be removed from the category. GPSLeo (talk) 08:24, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking about something like that, but I'd still argue that someone wearing a Palestine shirt isn't a reference to blood libel or has anything to do with it. If we extend the definition of "blood libel" to any accusation towards Jews or the Jewish state then it's essentially meaningless at that point. Category:Blood libel is pretty clearly about the historical trope of falsely accusing Jews of kidnaping and murdered the children of Christians in order to use their blood as part of religious rituals. That's what the description for the category says, it's what the Wikidata item says, that's the definition of blood libel on Wikipedia and Google search. Blood libel has nothing to do with the state of Isreal either. Know one outside of extreme Jewish or Israeli nationalists would say it's blood libel to simply criticize a Jew or the Jewish state regardless of the accusation being made. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:39, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes there are no photos directly referencing blood libel in that category and only maybe 5-10 with possible indirect reference. GPSLeo (talk) 09:41, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Adamant1 - The photo you mentioned was not cataloged because of the caption on the shirt but because of the caption on the sign "Stop Genocide" Chenspec (talk) 10:09, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the importance of distinguishing between legitimate criticism of a state and blood libels. Things that I think go beyond legitimate criticism and fall under the definition of blood libels are false accusations of genocide, war crimes or apartheid. As well as false comparisons to the Nazi regime - which are actually more implicit accusations of genocide. To the best of my memory, all the images that are categorized there are associated with one or more of these options. If there is an image that is not clear why it is there or another type of blood libel that I have not mentioned here - you are welcome to ask and I will be happy to answer.

I also emphasize that blood libels include false accusations only. If the accusation is about an event that occurred in reality - that is a different issue. However, it is important to remember that Wikipedia is not a place for primary research, so the determination of the very existence of various events, or the way in which they should be interpreted, should come from official and reliable external sources that are relevant to the subject.

Regarding changing the names of the categories to some wording that would clarify that this is a discussion around a specific issue and not a determination of the nature of the case itself, I am also okay with it as long as it is applied to all relevant categories equally. Chenspec (talk) 10:25, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Commons is not a place for advancing political narratives (neither implicitly nor explicitly) through categorization. Per my reading of Commons:Categories, categories should reflect verifiable facts (my emphasis, not a direct quote), not interpretations or arguments. Terms like blood libel are deeply historically loaded and, per both w:Blood libel and d:Q498273, refer specifically to false allegations that Jews murder non-Jews (typically Christians) to use their blood in religious rituals. This is not a flexible metaphor; it's a precise concept. Broadening it to mean “any false accusation against a Jewish person or Israel” dilutes its meaning and injects WP:POV into Commons, which violates both COM:NPOV and COM:SCOPE. None of the images currently in Category:Blood libels during the Swords of Iron War include references to blood rituals, nor do they invoke Jewish identity in any direct way. Most of them are images of protests making general political or humanitarian statements like “Stop genocide.” That may be seen as unfair, hyperbolic, or offensive by some, but it is not blood libel. To include such media in this category is at best a misunderstanding, and at worst a clear case of POV-pushing. Commons categories are not the place for editors to make judgment calls on which political claims are true or false. That belongs to reliable sources and (where needed) Wikipedia articles that can weigh them with context and citations, not to Commons file categories. I therefore support deletion of these kind of categories in their current form, as it violates policy on neutrality and factual categorization. If there's a valid need to track visual documentation of such accusations (e.g., actual protest signs referring to blood libel tropes), a much narrower and carefully scoped category may be considered, but that is not what this is. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 11:36, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I would suggest to just create categories like "Protest posters accusing Israel government committing war crimes", "Protest posters accusing Israel government committing genocide" or "Protest posters comparing Israel government with national socialism". Then the category makes a simple and verifiable statement what is visible. The photos can also be categorized in Categories like "Protests in support of Palestine" or "Protests in support of Hamas". But trying to guess the cultural background of a protest poster is nothing that should be done in Commons categories. GPSLeo (talk) 11:43, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I also support deletion per Josve05a and others above. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:03, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of deleting the category and moving its contents to Category:Demonstrations and protests related to 2023 Israel–Hamas war in support of Palestine.

As much as I'm in favor of letting the conversation run its course before action is taken, I removed the "Blood Libel" categories from Category:Israeli apartheid and Category:South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention). I've also removed the category Category:Antisemitism during the Israel–Hamas war from Category:Demonstrations and protests related to 2023 Israel–Hamas war in support of Palestine, all of which were put there by Chenspec. Pro-Palestine protests are not inherently anti-semitic. Any images found to be anti-semitic in nature can be moved to the appropriate subcategories. This is a wholly inappropriate use of the category system. ReneeWrites (talk) 15:12, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

There has been an obvious hijacking of the category system to defend a specific POV, which is totally out of Commons scope. I second all others that defended deleting that category. The categories suggested @GPSLeo would allow people to find that specific content without falling into terms loaded with POV. Darwin ^Ahoy! 15:29, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Fully agreed that this is not "Blood libel" (medieval/modern accusations against Jews kidnapping and murdering children for secret rituals). The Gaza genocide is committed by the government of Israel, not "shadowy Jews" and not even by the general populace in Israel. It's also committed in the open, not in secret; and people aren't killed for dark rituals either. Just because 19th/20th-century antisemitic sentiment was entirely unfounded and racist, does that dark past not delegimitate todays Anti-War protests. (This would be different with stereotyped antisemitic posters.) Regarding this category, Delete. (Edit: Someone in the discussion above also mentioned Category:Israeli apartheid. That is a long-standing BDS idea and seems POV too.) --Enyavar (talk) 15:32, 2 May 2025 (UTC)
Support deletion. This exploits and dilutes the term "blood libel" to the point of making it meaningless. - Jmabel ! talk 17:57, 2 May 2025 (UTC)
I also support deletion. Blood libel has a specific meaning and this is not within the meaning of that. Abzeronow (talk) 18:58, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I am thinking that the category is important, as mentioned above, a blood libel is a false anti-Semitic accusation against Jews, as it stated at the photos.Ovedc (talk) 05:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

As numerous other users have stated above, this is incorrect (or at least confusingly stated). "Blood libel" is a specific type of antisemitic accusation. It is not a blanket term for all forms of antisemitism, or for any negative statement about Israel. Omphalographer (talk) 06:26, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

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.

Arrival 1946 in Israël picture

I have a picture of a bus arriving at jewish settlement, with on the backside the text:

Arrivé d'immigrants en Israël, le 19 mai 1946. It is likely to be zionist propaganda (very enthousiastic welcome)

There is the copyrigth notice of Tallandier. I havent been able tp find anything on this Tallandier. I dont know when the phofografer may have died.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Hm. Are you sure that Tallandier is the photographer? This might be the French publishing company fr:Éditions Tallandier (est. 1901). If they own that picture, you'll have to wait just a few short years: it will already become public domain in 2042. --Enyavar (talk) 15:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Its fr:Éditions Tallandier. There is no mention of a photografer, only the copyrigth letter C and the name Tallandier. This is pre-Israël Palestine, so I suppose its a British license, or is the nationality of the organisation/photografer more important? In the EU, it is PD 70 years after publication for pseudo-anonymous photographs such as postcards, without a photografer or writer attribution. See newspaper articles without a writer attribution. The original Tallendier family members no longer had a role in the publishing house after 1933, so a Tallendier photographer can be excluded, certainly in a turbulent Palestine far from French soil. So this is work bough by the publishing house. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

It is this picture is also on the Delcampe (postcard website): arrivee-d-immigrants-en-israel-le-19-mai-1946.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:19, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

May 02

Old Commons:Media by time?

Hello, should be Commons:Media by time updated to year 2025? I don't know how to do that at first glance :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:40, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Done - Jmabel ! talk 16:35, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 16:35, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

May 11

Category:2 men with other organisms; 1 boy with 4 women; 5 women with other people; etc

Please see Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/10/Category:2 men with other organisms regarding such categories.
Prototyperspective (talk) 11:28, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: There are a lot of these categories. Check out Category:Adult humans in groups of 5 -> Category:Adult humans in 5 people -> Category:Clothed adult humans in 5 people -> Category:Clothed adult humans in 5 clothed people -> Category:Clothed men in 5 clothed people -> Category:2 clothed men in 5 clothed people -> Category:2 clothed men in 5 clothed adult humans -> Category:2 clothed men with 3 clothed women. Notice that none of them actually have any files except for the last one. Nosferattus (talk) 15:43, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

These are absurd. What next, "2 cats and a toaster"? - Jmabel ! talk 17:08, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Guess what, they have potential for expansion. Why should I take anything I read on this page seriously when in previous discussions, I read complaints about cats which are underpopulated and have little or no chance of expansion, all the while they continue to proliferate on the site and there's no evidence of the regulars here doing anything about it? I certainly don't have time to hang around here and constantly comment simply for the sake of commenting. It might help to look up "paper tiger". RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 18:15, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

no evidence of the regulars here doing anything about it? Not sure what you mean. a) This seems not relevant to the categories this particular thread is about and b) There's at least two ways people do things about underpopulated categories: there's many people categorizing files when they find them into such and there is Commons:Categorization requests where people can list such underpopulated cat if adding the note "This category is missing many files" (see examples) is not enough.

Guess what, they have potential for expansion The possibility of getting files added doesn't mean a category is useful / good to have. We also don't have Category:English-language PDF files containing the word example for example. (However, I don't really fully understand your comment.) Prototyperspective (talk) 19:52, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

One of the things that sucks about the category system is that it's impossible to keep people from creating categories and there's a lot of bureaucratic hurdles in the way of dealing with ones that end up being an issue. Some can create thousands of clearly problematic categories in a matter of minutes but then it takes months of back and forth in a CfD for them to be deleted. It's not a great system by any means. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:17, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Some can create thousands of clearly problematic categories in a matter of minutes I haven't seen any such cases. but then it takes months of back and forth in a CfD for them to be deleted if it's actually problematic it usually just takes a small number such as 1 user to support deletion and if there are no objections it will simply be deleted without much of back and forth. Relative to the total number of categories there is quite little bureaucratic cost for deletion. One way to get rid of lots of misleading and/or useless categories would be deleting all categories that have stayed empty for months and aren't maintenance categories but that didn't gain traction and other than that I haven't seen many cases of problematic categories and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:23, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I haven't seen any such cases. I was being slightly hyperbolic but it's certainly a lot easier and quicker to create categories a lot of the time then it is to get rid of them.

It doesn't seem to be a problem. It really depends on the situation and who created the category. It's usually not a problem to delete a single category that was created by someone who isn't a contributor anymore. That's not what this discussion is about though. It certainly takes a lot more time and effort to clean up category systems like this one then it does to create them. Anything beyond a couple of a categories that were created by a dead account is going to take some time, effort, and jumping through multiple bureaucratic hoops to deal with. Even then people just recreate previously deleted categories. Then it turns into edit wars, ignored talk page messages, baseless ANU complaints about harassment or some nonsense Etc. Etc. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:23, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

It is definitely my experience that the "splitters" have a great advantage over the "lumpers". Anyone can unilaterally create an overly narrow or utterly useless category in seconds, and populate it with Cat-a-Lot or similar tools in minutes; undoing that normally takes (1) noticing it, (2) writing up a CfD, (3) building up something of a consensus, and (4) even if that consensus is relatively easily built, doing at least as much work after that as it took to create and populate the category in the first place. Plus, in many cases, splitters have the advantage of always having on their side the argument, "you are removing information from the category portion" which unless the category is a strict intersection of preexisting categories will always be at least technically true, even if the category is (as I remarked above) "2 cats and a toaster" or "Angele Merkel on Tuesdays in the 1990s". - Jmabel ! talk 02:15, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

We do seem to have these sort of discussions quite often. Maybe it's time that we create a policy against useless over-specific categories. The only problem is how to define such a policy. How do we prohibit "2 cats and a toaster" in a way that everyone can agree on? Nosferattus (talk) 02:47, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

If I had my way the standard would be not having intersectional categories for more then two subjects. Otherwise it obtuse pretty quickly after that. So "2 cats and a toaster" would be out. As would all of these categories. I doubt there's any chance of something like that being approved though. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:42, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any way to get away from this being a judgement call every time. It's just frustrating when some long-term users don't seem to be able to gauge consensus over time and/or willing to conform to it. - Jmabel ! talk 04:02, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

E.g. Category:Red fire hydrants in New Hampshire, presumably a perfectly good category, intersects an object type, a color, and a geographic location. - Jmabel ! talk 04:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

On the other hand, I've had to reluctantly accept the consensus in favor of Category:Female bass guitarists, which I find a pointless intersection: what does a female bass guitarist do any differently from a male bass guitarist? I get breaking the U.S. down to its states, breaking something down 50 ways can make for more tractable categories in many areas, but breaking it in two seems useless to me. And what about a non-binary bass guitarist? But clearly I am in the minority with this view. - Jmabel ! talk 04:10, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd probably axe most of the gender based categories myself since it's not like we know how people identify in a good percentage of cases anyway. I much rather the categories not exist to begin with then having instances of people being misgendered. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:17, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

That cat is partly to include the files/categories in the Category:Female musicians branch. I think the cat is reasonable, maybe useful for some but not very useful. I think the problem rather is that due to COM:OVERCAT it can result in people moving files into by gender subcategories which are then missing at the top level and aren't categorized into far more useful categories such as about the setting or the instrument. Another example is Category:People exercising and its subcategories (esp. this) where people partly categorized by gender and age where it would be far more useful and reasonable to categorize by exercise / type of exercise. Secondly, improved ways to see files across many subcategories are also needed due to how subcategorization works. For example to see a well-sorted scrollable filterable wall of images of any kind of fire hydrants regardless of color and location.

Both of that I think means not the categorization itself is the problem that needs and can be well addressed, but such/potential issues relating to subcategorization. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:18, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe a solution would be to make it so gender based categories can only be added to ones specifically for the people. Instead of there being a situation were images just get dumped in "by gender" categories and not put in better ones like it happens now. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:04, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

There is an unfortunately common tendency among some editors to split up large categories using criteria which often feel arbitrary, and which act as a barrier to more effective subcategorization - e.g. gender or nationality for categories of people, "by year" categories for photos of locations, etc. Which isn't to say that these properties should never be used for subcategories, but rather that they should be a last resort. Omphalographer (talk) 22:10, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Category:Listed medical buildings in France

Category:Monuments historiques in France (hospitals) should be renamed in Category:Listed medical buildings in France

What do you think ?

Category:Listed buildings in France should be created Io Herodotus (talk) 17:23, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Comment why "Listed buildings" rather than Monuments historiques? Are there no other designations of listed buildings anywhere in France, so that the terms are equivalent? - Jmabel ! talk 01:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

There are other designations, for example Commons has Category:Monuments à l’inventaire, which are monuments of the Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel and are not labeled and protected as Monuments historiques of Category:Monuments historiques in France. Monument historique is a particular legal status and a label. See also on en.wikipedia en:Monument historique and en:Category:Monuments historiques of France. On Commons, both subcategories are grouped in Category:Cultural heritage monuments in France. There are also other labels, such as fr:Catégorie:Édifice labellisé « Patrimoine du XXe siècle » or en:Category:Maisons des Illustres. -- Asclepias (talk) 11:09, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Then "listed" can't be used in this context as a synonym for Monument historique. - Jmabel ! talk 00:00, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Comment The proposal is an approximate translation of the label, does not correspond to any international use of the terms, nor to criteria for moving the category. "Monument historique" is the official designation and the most common used expression and the same used on enwiki. So the renaming suggestion is against the Commons policy:

Category names should generally be in English [...], however, there are exceptions such as:
some proper names
[...]

names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language (or there is no evidence of usage of an English-language version)

(from Commons:Categories#Category_names)

--Una tantum (talk) 06:59, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

While it may be tempting to translate this term to improve clarity and ensure content consistency, the suggested equivalent clearly falls short, as it refers to a concept that is legally defined. If an English translation is truly necessary, a more accurate option might be "Buildings legally designated as historical monuments". For the sake of consistency, the article's title "Monument historique" on English Wikipedia, should also be reconsidered. — Baidax ^💬 09:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I would guess that to the average American, monument historique is actually clearer than "listed building", a British term not widely used in the U.S. - Jmabel ! talk

Hierarchies of categories

Could someone help me with my confusion about how a hierarchy of categories should be created? I have read a number of articles on the subject but can't work out the final step(s).

Today I created a Commons category, "South Australian Railways wooden end-loading passenger car".

A hierarchy could be:

1: South Australian Railways
2: South Australian Railways passenger cars
3: South Australian Railways wooden end-loading passenger car.

I'm finding it difficult to know whether, or where, to add the categories above "South Australian Railways wooden end-loading passenger car".

My ignorance is evident in another new category, Category:South Australian Railways Brill railcar. Clearly I have the two levels of "South Australian Railways Brill railcar" wrong. I'd appreciate advice on that too.

Any help would be enormously appreciated. SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 09:36, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Start from the top - with Category:South Australian Railways and work down! Rathfelder (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: It's the process of doing that, not the concept, that I don't understand. Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 00:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

If you put [[Category:South Australian Railways Brill railcar]] on the page [[:Category:South Australian Railways Brill railcar]], then you are saying it is its own parent. (I've fixed that.) - Jmabel ! talk 00:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: Thank you! Now I get that bit! :-) Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 00:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@SCHolar44: Is Category:South Australian Railways Brill railcar about one particular railcar or a type of railcar? - Jmabel ! talk 00:06, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: It is a type of railcar. SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 00:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@SCHolar44: then the category name should be plural, I'll fix it. - Jmabel ! talk 04:48, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Bahnhof Bergen auf Rügen?

I am not certain this is Bahnhof Bergen auf Rügen. I was taken on route from the File:Rasender Roland 2003 4.jpg to Rostock. I dont know on wich routes the Connex trains ran.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:30, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

If it is take at a station where the Rasender Roland stops it could only be Category:Bahnhof Putbus but I think tracks and roof do not match. It could be Bergen if there was once a longer roof at the platform that is now removed. GPSLeo (talk) 12:09, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Back when I was a student at the University of Rostock, there was an InterConnex train line from Rostock-Warnemünde to Leipzig (see InterConnex). After Rostock, it IIRC followed more or less the tracks of the RE5 (Schwaan, Güstrow, Neustrelitz, Waren, Berlin); not getting near Rügen (at least, not with this rolling stock). Your image may have been shot in Rostock Hbf. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 04:54, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article says there was a line to Binz from 2002 to 2006 so the 2003 photo would fall into that time de:InterConnex. GPSLeo (talk) 07:08, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but the Connex to Binz was not serviced with a Bombardier TRAXX (DB BR146) nor with classical coaches, as seen in the picture. Instead, the line used Diesel multiple units from Siemens (Siemens Desiro); that's why I wrote "not getting near Rügen (at least, not with this rolling stock)". Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 15:59, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The roof matchtes the one in Rostock. It was late evening (long days june), so it could be a return to Rostock Connex train.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Flag of the Council of Europe

As far as I know, the Council of Europe use the normal flag of Europe as its official flag. These flags

Logo of the Council of Europe (green, no lettering).png
Flag of the Council of Europe.svg

are not a rendition of a real flag but a version of the official logo without lettering:

and thus their names should be changed. Besides, the one with the green letter has a dubious license. -- Carnby (talk) 18:20, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I doubt anyone would support it but I don't think we should allow for "variations" of flags to begin with. Since with how it currently is there's just to much room for people to upload made up flags that purely exist to spread nationalist propaganda. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I think really existing "variations" of flags are OK. For example: Category:Heart-flags of Eurovision. Nakonana (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't have problem with those kinds of flags per se, which is why I put "variations" in quotes. It's mainly the ones that are clearly created by the uploader or come from other websites that don't have any standards. If I were to guess there's probably an extremely small amount of flags on here that are legitimate, official variations. Most of them are fake. It's not like we couldn't clearly seperate the two and make an exception for legitimate variations of flags if there was ever a policy about it though. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:43, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I would rename them "logo flag" or "logo of the Council of Europe (no lettering)" since they're not actual flags of the Council of Europe.-- Carnby (talk) 20:39, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

"Logo of the Council of Europe (no lettering)" is perfect. It's not used by the Council as a flag - just as part of their logo - so we shouldn't call it a flag. Omphalographer (talk) 20:59, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Done-- Carnby (talk) 11:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

We will be enabling the new Charts extension on your wiki soon!

(Apologies for posting in English)

Hi all! We have good news to share regarding the ongoing problem with graphs and charts affecting all wikis that use them.

As you probably know, the old Graph extension was disabled in 2023 due to security reasons. We’ve worked in these two years to find a solution that could replace the old extension, and provide a safer and better solution to users who wanted to showcase graphs and charts in their articles. We therefore developed the Charts extension, which will be replacing the old Graph extension and potentially also the EasyTimeline extension.

After successfully deploying the extension on Italian, Swedish, and Hebrew Wikipedia, as well as on MediaWiki.org, as part of a pilot phase, we are now happy to announce that we are moving forward with the next phase of deployment, which will also include your wiki.

The deployment will happen in batches, and will start from May 6. Please, consult our page on MediaWiki.org to discover when the new Charts extension will be deployed on your wiki. You can also consult the documentation about the extension on MediaWiki.org.

If you have questions, need clarifications, or just want to express your opinion about it, please refer to the project’s talk page on Mediawiki.org, or ping me directly under this thread. If you encounter issues using Charts once it gets enabled on your wiki, please report it on the talk page or at Phabricator.

Thank you in advance! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) I think this message was mistakenly added here as Charts are already enabled on Commons since they could not work anywhere without Commons. GPSLeo (talk) 17:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Argh, I overlooked the presence of Commons in the list. Apologies for that! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Unsure how Canadian and USA copyright law interact here regarding AI fan art

I have used AI to create an image of the character Jirel of Joiry, and would like to upload it here. However, I'm not sure how Commons treats the interaction of the copyright laws of Canada (where I live) and the USA (where Commons' servers are located).

The description that I intend to use is:

AI-generated fan art of the character Jirel of Joiry as she appeared at the beginning of the story "The Black God's Kiss" by C. L. Moore.
"The Black God's Kiss" was published in the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales, which is stated by the Internet Archive to be in the Public Domain. This, there is no copyright issue with making a derivative work based on a story published in that magazine issue.
The image was created by User:Robkelk using Google's ImageFX tool, with the seed 999660 and the description "A realistic image of a tall woman in her mid-30s, with an athletic build and a face that is more handsome than beautiful with an expression of barely-contained anger. She has short red hair and hazel eyes. She wears a sleeveless chain-link tunic over a long-sleeved doeskin leather shirt, doeskin leather leggings with Roman-style greaves, and leather boots. Her belt has a sheathed dagger, and she carries an old but sharp shortsword. She stands in front of a simple wooden throne that is sized for her to use." That prompt is the sixth iteration of the prompt used to create earlier versions of the image, so the creator assumes that this counts as human-guided creation rather than sole AI creation.
Canadian law is silent on the copyright status of human-guided AI-generated images. Assuming that the AI tool is just that – a tool – Rob Kelk claims copyright of this image and licences it under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

I would tag the upload with the template "Fan art" and the categories "AI-generated fan art" and "Jirel of Joiry".

Is it permitted to upload the image here? If "yes", is there anything else that I need to add to the description and licence texts?

--Robkelk (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

@Robkelk: The character itself would be in the public domain, so any copyright of fanart would transfer over to the creator of the image without it being shared by other copyright holders. Whether Canadian law says this author is you, or considers it to have no author due to the image being AI-generated, Commons should be able to host the image either way. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Don't be surprised if it gets nominated for deletion. Uploading AI generated fan art of something that's already PD is super pointless and goes against the guideline that Commons isn't a personal file host. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:34, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Given that, I think that perhaps I should wait until there's a decision as to the status of AI works under Canadian copyright law. (If somebody's going to think this is using Commons as a personal file host instead of being me sharing a work, that would be two possible strikes against Commons keeping the file.) Thanks for the help anyway. --Robkelk (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

There is no "decision" to be made. If it's not covered already then it's not protected by copyright Trade (talk) 13:20, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

That is not how the copyright law works in Canada. --Robkelk (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

There's no evidence of any court ruling that AI pictures are inherently copyrighted by someone other than the prompter. I wouldn't let Canadian legalities stop you from uploading it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:42, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I live in Canada. I must take into account Canadian legalities, just as you appear (from the content of your User page) to need to take into account legalities of the USA. --Robkelk (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Making a picture of a PD character that we have no visual representation of is useful in many contexts; it is certainly not super pointless. I'd certainly use it over the cover of the magazine that does not depict her on w:Jirel of Joiry.--Prosfilaes (talk)

The question is if there's a cover of the magazine that depicts her. If so, then its pointless to upload a generated image of her to Commons. I don't see why there wouldn't be a normal one but the burden should be on whomever wants to upload an AI generated version of an exiting character to at least look first and upload a non-AI generated verison instead if one exists. Otherwise there's no point in doing this. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Or, you know, we can be less stressed about it and not demand one true solution. If someone wants to upload a picture of a PD character with limited available art, we could let them and not slap them down or demand they do in depth searching first. Build up instead of tear down.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:03, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I think there's two solutions there 1. Look for an image 2. Upload an AI generated one if that's all there is. I'm just saying people shouldn't skip the first step because its easier to push the "AI go burr" button then it is to look through search results. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:24, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

There is a cover image that has fallen into the Public Domain in the USA (File:Weird Tales October 1934.jpg), but it's what I would call a "cheesecake" image of the character that does not match the character's personality as described in the story itself. --Robkelk (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

File:Mouth and gums of a lead-mill worker Wellcome L0062322.jpg

Is it fine the artwork is cropped? --Quick1984 (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

@Quick1984: Yes, CC BY 4.0 allows that. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I think the question was about commons guidelines and there the overwrite was definitely not okay. I reverted it to the original version. GPSLeo (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. Thank you. Quick1984 (talk) 21:09, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Fuzhou Metro logos

Some people claim that the proposed ones do not meet the requirements of "TOO China", but why are there no problems with other ones such as: File:Guangzhou Metro logo.svg, File:Guangzhou Metro icon.svg, and File:Amoy Metro logo.svg? However, the person who proposed the deletion could not produce any evidence at all（Image Links:File:Fuzhou Metro logo.svg, File:Fuzhou Metro icon.svg）. --御坂雪奈 (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@People who have participated in similar discussions:@User:TimWu007 @User:Ankry @User:Liuxinyu970226 @User:Sam_Sailor --御坂雪奈 (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@御坂雪奈 You might have more success in asking in COM:VPC. Greetings :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

thank you!But the discussion has already begun. If you are able, could you please make an evaluation and judgment there?[5] and [6].thank you very much! 御坂雪奈 (talk) 16:14, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion of merge (Potd)

Hello, because of the Picture of the day of today, I was searching for the wikidata item of the Ormož Basins nature reserve, Slovenia (Ormož basins nature reserve (Q108138093)), and its commons category, but we have both Category:Naravni rezervat Ormoške lagune and Category:Ormož Basins. It seems the same subject, am I right? In your opinion can we merge categories? I notify also the creators of categories @Sporti and @Yerpo. Una tantum (talk) 07:17, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

This is the wrong place to discuss this, please start a category discussion. Prototyperspective (talk) 08:51, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Prototyperspective: I am writing here because of the high visibility of POTD, to make the discussion faster than if I posted on the category discussion page. But yes, I will add the discussion in the talks of categories too.--Una tantum (talk) 09:24, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

@Una tantum: for now, you can add {{See also cat}} to both. - Jmabel ! talk 23:47, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Óscar E. Duplán Maldonado (1890-1942) in 1915.jpg

Can someone add his image to his Wikidata entry RAN (talk) 15:02, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ):

Done, see d:special:diff/2347472489. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:24, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:06, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

YouTubeReviewBot

why was this bot banned, again?--Trade (talk) 08:27, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Special:CentralAuth/YouTubeReviewBot Log/block Special:Diff/575750163 User%3AYouTubeReviewBot This was 4 years ago. Taylor 49 (talk) 09:13, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

LicenseReviewerBot, the bot that replaced YouTubeReviewBot have been dead for 3 years. Something must have happened--Trade (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Comment well ...

Special:CentralAuth/YouTubeReviewBot killed 2021 operated by Special:CentralAuth/Eatcha stopped editing 2021-11-18 but NOT banned
Special:CentralAuth/LicenseReviewerBot dead since 2022, deflagged 2024, operated by Special:CentralAuth/Bd9a119b5d05019d7c923207398ef3c3 reportedly sockpuppet of "Eatcha" and essentially inactive

no operator -> no bot. Taylor 49 (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Taylor 49 (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criterion

This arose at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Gatley-WikiBio-P.pdf. We have speedy-deletion criterion Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion#GA2 if someone basically writes an article and puts it in gallery space. Is there any reason we don't have a comparable speedy-deletion criterion if they do the same and upload it as a PDF? Deletion in such a case is pretty much certain, as far as I can tell. Why should we have to leave discussion open for a week (or at least until COM:SNOW)? - Jmabel ! talk 04:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

No objection from my side to introduce such a criterion. In fact, I looked into COM:CSD at first and was mildly surprised to see that there was no fitting rationale, making me settle for this standard DR. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 05:06, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, a CSD criterion for that would be helpful. It shouldn't be specific to PDF, though; I've occasionally seen people write encyclopedia articles and upload them as images.

It'd also be nice if this could encompass web browser "print to PDF"s of wiki pages. I don't know why people upload these, but they do sometimes, and they're never useful. (Wikibooks shouldn't be affected; I believe they use LaTeX to render their PDF books.) Omphalographer (talk) 17:17, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

So does this need to go to Commons:Village pump/Proposals? We're talking about changing a policy page. - Jmabel ! talk 19:35, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Can you figure out the word?

File:Complimentary Banquet in The Brooklyn Union of Brooklyn, New York on January 13, 1883.jpg Yard Honoring a Good Citizen and Selfless? Mechanic. --RAN (talk) 03:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Looks like "skillful" to me, with the final "l" floating up a bit (much like the "f" did a few lines below). Omphalographer (talk) 03:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I think threads here could not get much more trivial. The text currently says "Selfless" but that word shouldn't be there since it seems fairly clearly not the one in the image. Agree that it seems to be skillful but and l seems to be missing (skilful). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:12, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! --RAN (talk) 15:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
- Definitely "skilful mechanic". - Jmabel ! talk 03:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jmabel ! talk 03:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: New set of categories for UK and IoM

I've been advised that this is the best venue to raise this. The United Kingdom is mapped by the Ordnance Survey. There is a National Grid Reference system to locate places.

So, my proposal is that we creat a new set of categories to cover the UK by Grid Reference. Heirarchy would be National Grid Reference system > 100 km square (e.g. TQ) > 10 km square (e.g. TQ35 > 1 km square (e.g. TQ 3574). Individual locations are generally expressed in 100m coordinates (TQ 351 749) or 10m coordinates (T3517 7492), but we don't need to go that far. As can be seen, the new categories would cover the whole of England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. I would suggest that the NR and NW squares only be categorised outside of Northern Ireland, as there is a different system which covers the whole of the island of Ireland and could possibly be a future project. I realise that this would be a big project, which is why I'm bringing it up to see whether there is interest, rather than boldly creating the categories. Mjroots (talk) 06:09, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd worry that this was a case of doing something just because we can. What would be the usefulness of categorizing this way? What would be in the categories? Populated places, structures, geographic features, other? How would this add to what we get by including latitude and longitude? -- Auntof6 (talk) 06:35, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

What would be in the categories would be pretty much every image in the area covered. I've recently been doing work on category:Oasts in Kent and its subcategories. Where an individual oast has a category, I've added a description with the grid reference (preferably to 10m squares). This will assist future imports of images from the Geograph website to be correctly identified. Many house converted oasts are given fanciful names which are totally unrelated to their historic farm connections. Mjroots (talk) 06:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

This seems like pointless duplication. Either that or you'd be categorizing images in ones for the areas of Oasts when their actually outside of them. I don't think most people know or care about the grids anyway. There's plenty of different ways that geographical locations are delineated and it's not worth having specific category systems for all, or most, of them. Otherwise things would just get to convoluted. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be better to have the geocoordinates of images added in some way that is searchable and filterable. There's for example this wikimap thing where one can see files in a category on a map Category:Drone videos from unidentified countries. Don't think it's a good use-case of categories at first glance but if it is, I think it would need to be set by some bot based on the set coordinates and other categories of the file (like the city) – a flat category system could actually be quite useful because then one could use these category together with deepcategory to filter photos by location which often is not possible with other location-categories because they're so large. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:18, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The reason some files are in unidentified country categories is that they don't have any information that identifies where the subject is. I don't think having the new categories would help that -- if we don't know where the subject is, we can't identify the location, the latitude and longitude, or the grid. -- Auntof6 (talk) 11:32, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Makes sense but I don't know how it relates to my comment – that category is just there for an example of a wikimap (see top right of the category). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I meant to say that we can't categorize by grid if we don't know the location.

I wonder if Wikidata would be a better place for this data. -- Auntof6 (talk) 12:54, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes but then I don't know why you replied to me and not OP. Even then: these categories would be for files for which we know the location. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:53, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I wonder whether anyone outside of the Ordnance Survey uses this system. Wikivoyage has a good rule of thumb that I recommend using here: ignore what governments do when classifying locations, and use the systems that actual people actually use. If we do this, we don't need to teach every new user how we do things, because we do things the same way that people in real life do things. (For example, is a hypothetical location in SC or NX? Who cares, it's on the Isle of Man.) --Robkelk (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Many people in the UK use Ordnance Survey maps. Grid references are used in many articles about UK locations, as a search for {{gbmappingsmall| will show. My proposal is not intended to replace any other method of categorisation, but to be an additional method of categorisation. Mjroots (talk) 08:03, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Unusual process

This discussion about a category was speedy closed, then all the categories manually removed by the user Sbb1413. Some of the files not re-categorized. Finally the main category tagged for speedy deletion. Ping Andy Dingley. Could we please have more opinions? -- Basile Morin (talk) 22:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Seems to me to be inappropriate in process terms. Generally, if a category is under discussion, it is OK to work on fixing problems with it in order to keep, but not in destroying it because you think it should go away. - Jmabel ! talk 04:09, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

The discussion had 4 participants, 3 of whom argued for deletion (or at the very least questioned the merits of the category existing) and one to keep (not counting the person who closed the discussion, which would make it 4 versus 1). It's hardly unusual to see a discussion be closed under those circumstances, especially if no new comments have been added for more than half a year. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:19, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I count Pigsonthewing (as nominator) and JopkeB and (less clearly) Omphalographer voting to remove, apparently joined by non-admin closer Sbb1413; Dronebogus as saying "keep, but examine contents"; oddly, nothing there from Basile Morin, who came here to object. So, I take back what I said earlier—this wasn't particularly out of process—but I'm still not convinced it was a good decision, and it was definitely not followed through well: there were a lot of subcats that were not ever linked to this discussion, that did not necessarily have the same issues, and that were also implicitly included in the follow-up without much apparent thought being given to what really should happen to their contents. - Jmabel ! talk 19:47, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, over-categorizing hundreds of files by deleting important information in each was out-of-process. Thank you. -- Basile Morin (talk) 03:55, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Copyrighted material deliberately being uploaded and deleted

I was recently made aware that it is standard practice for Commons admins to upload copyrighted works, delete it and then restore the material once copyright has expired. This seems highly problematic under copyright law, under title 17 only copyright holders have the specific right to distribute or reproduce their work. By copying the works to our servers, we are distributing the work for later use. It's not important whether we are holding onto the work until copyright expires - until this occurs, we may not reproduce or redistribute the material.

Has this practice been vetted by the WMF's legal team? This seems incredibly dangerous from a legal point of view! When did this become Commons policy? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 01:22, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: It is also universal practice that except for CSAM, we never hard-delete anything, and it remains available to admins. Are you also suggesting that Legal is unaware of that? - Jmabel ! talk 04:11, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what legal are or are not aware of. But if we are intentionally uploading images knowing that we are storing them for good and just to restore them when copyright has expired, this appears to violate title 17 of the U.S. Code. Specifically, 17 U.S. Code § 106 which grants copyright owners the exclusive right to "distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". We are technically distributing the works - notice that it doesn't say anything about publishing a copy of the works.

The bit that will absolutely get us, however, it that we are reproducing the material. Under section (1) we cannot reproduce their work without their permission. We are 100% storing their work on our servers for the purpose of later restoring the material. We have not asked them for their permission to do this.

So, no, on the face of it, we are not allowed to do this. I would be interested in hearing WMF legal counsel's opinion on this. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 06:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

This procedure is absolutely legal this is what every library does. We could even make some of the material available under certain conditions but we do not do so because of our own rules not because of legal reasons. GPSLeo (talk) 05:42, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Except we are not a library. You are referring to 17 U.S. Code § 108(d), which specifically allows for digital distribution and reproduction where a user makes a specific request for the item in the collection. We don't have such a mechanism in Commons. In fact, the archive is not being loaned at all, it is being kept in storage and no user has the right to access it till copyright expires. So no, this is not the same situation that covers libraries as we are categorically not a library.

Furthermore, do you think libraries don't have costs? A library relies of first sale doctrine to loan out the item. This means they have purchased the material. Archive.org got into trouble on this matter in Hatchett v Internet Archive. Hatchett got an injunction against IA that required them to remove any commercially produced books. We have not paid for any of the material we have been deleting. We don't have first sale doctrine to fall back on.

If the WMF wants to start a library, then let them start a library. I'm sure they might want to speak to archive.org who are already doing this work. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 06:40, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

@Chris.sherlock2: I don't think the analogy to archive.org works because they weren't privately storing files. They were lending books to people. Know one is being loaned files that get deleted until the copyright expires on here. The files can be accessed by administrators in specific instances, but that's not lending to the public. People are illegally allowed to show copyrighted works to a small group of their friends, family, or coworkers in private. It's not a copyright violation to do so. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:35, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

You are correct in that this is quite a different situation. You are also wrong because actually, this makes it worse, we are reproducing copyrighted material without the permission of the original copyright holder. It very much is against the law to copy material without the permission of the owner of the copyrighted work. That's the clear reading of 17 U.S. Code § 106 and to do otherwise is, in fact, a violation of the copyright statute. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 05:15, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes we do not have a procedure to make some media available on request that is why viewing them is entirety limited to admins. The admins could be compared to employees of a library they are also able to view any media they have any time. Like employees signed in their contract admins are bound to the terms of use forbidding them the usage of hidden content. We are not a regular library but as it does not require a permission to run a library there are no special rules (unless for public libraries) they would not apply to us. GPSLeo (talk) 07:05, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I was actually going to ask about or comment on that. I assume admins can't just mass download hidden files or otherwise access them outside of their official duties. Like I have to believe the WMF would take action if an adminstrator downloaded hidden files and uploaded them to another website or something. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:12, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other a bit. The key issue isn't whether admins can access deleted content (we all know they can), but whether uploading material we know is copyrighted, with the intent to restore it once copyright expires—constitutes a violation of copyright law under U.S. Title 17.

The crucial word here is intent. This isn't a case of uncertainty about copyright status or acting in good faith with incomplete information. This is about knowingly uploading non-free content, knowing it is not permitted under Commons' licensing requirements, and relying on the ability to delete it immediately and retrieve it in the future. That is fundamentally different from cases where material is removed after copyright concerns are discovered. Here, the reproduction is deliberate from the outset.

The "we're like a library" argument doesn't hold up. Libraries operate under very specific exceptions, such as 17 U.S. Code §108, and the first sale doctrine. Commons doesn't purchase the works, doesn't restrict access under lending rules, and doesn't require individual requests. Admins are not staff in any legal sense, and they aren't bound by contracts that legally restrict their access or redistribution of such content.

This raises serious legal questions: Are we okay with deliberately creating a repository of copyrighted works that are, technically, only a deletion away from being public again? How is that different in principle from uploading the full Avengers movie, deleting it, and then saying it's okay because it'll be public domain in 95 years? --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't really see how intent matters here. Libraries obtain inventory through donations all the time. So I don't buy the idea that the first sale doctrine actually matters that much. Look at this way, if I buy a book, I put it my bedroom closet, then take it out to share with my family members once in a while is that a violation of copyright? If not, then does it suddenly become one if someone gives me the book instead of me buying it? --Adamant1 (talk) 07:35, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Because the scenario you give is what is known as an “unpublished” distribution. But this is largely irrelevant because under this scenario, you are not making a copy. The first sake doctrine allows you lend the book to a friend to read it. However, if this was an ebook, the law gets a little more murky but in general it is seen as a problem as you would be making a copy and this violating copyright.

The courts will not consider our intent when it comes to determining whether we violated copyright law or not - except if we argue wheat we are doing is allowable under Fair Use, but even here we will almost certainly hit an uphill battle convincing a bunch of impartial judges that we satisfy this part of the law (see my response to GPSLeo below for why). Intent will not be taken into consideration. Yes, this sucks, but that is the law of the United States. I’m not a U.S. citizen so I cannot change it no matter what I do, but even a U.S. citizen - or a group of citizens - will not change the law around this. We should not tempt the fates, as did archive.org, who partially lost a reasonably similar court case only some time ago. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think making extremely limited copies of something that aren't being shared publicly violates copyright. Otherwise, essentially everything on the internet in general would be illegal. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, what you think and what is actually allowed are very different things. I can only urge people at the WMF and Commons to look at what the law says and hope they act accordingly. I don’t want to be in a position where things are ignored and we have a serious legal issue. - 20:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC) Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I do not know the exact definition of libraries and archives in US law. If there is no clear limitation to public archives I would consider Commons an archive. Additionally storing the files only visible to a very limited group of people until the copyright expires should be covered by fair use requirements. And there is no huge difference in accepting terms of use and signing a contract. GPSLeo (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I’m sorry, but to satisfy fair use doctrine you must pass a four prong test. Firstly, you must satisfy the court as to the purpose and character of the use of the copyrighted work. That we are a not for profit would help, but the purpose would likely not: we are in this case specifically storing a copy of copyrighted works for the specific purpose of waiting out copyright. I doubt a court would look too kindly on this as a reason. We would certainly have no argument we could provide to the court to convince them we are using the material in a transformative manner - it would be literally sitting on our servers and we would have mo arguments the court that we are fairly using the material in a transformative manner.

The court would also look at the nature of the material we are storing, and given the wide variety of material we may choose to store I think we would be on very shaky ground on a fair amount of images. I for one wouldn’t want to have to justify to the court why we are storing an image or video of a fictional character we are storing till copyright is expired.

The third prong is the amount and substantiality of the material being used. In our case, it would be the entire work, and so the court would not in any way look upon this favourably.

The fourth prong is likely the least concerning issue - we could show we did not impinge on the commerciality of the works as nobody had easy access to it.

What you need to understand about Fair Use doctrine is you must satisfy all four prongs. And we could not do so.

of course, the irony here is that you are saying Commons is now explicitly relying on Fair Use to store images, which we are absolutely virulently against, and rightly so. So it’s a nonsense to even try to use this legal doctrine to justify what we are doing here.

I also say, with the greatest of respect, that you do not appear to understand the U.S. copyright laws you are relying upon. It might be unwise to reference and rely on your understanding of these laws without checking what they actually say. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:17, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Sure, you might be able to make this argument if not for the fact that we have not legally purchased the copyrighted material. Libraries are actually dealing with some very interesting licensing challenges around loaning out electronic books. With a physical book, CD, DVD or video cassette then first sale doctrine applies - they have purchased the item and they can loan it out to others without any issues. For electoric works, however, you are literally making a copy when you loan it out. Libraries don’t delete the electronic version from their servers when they loan it out. Instead they sign up to licensing arrangements with publishers where they can loan out items under certain terms and conditions. I’m not entirely privy to how they do this - I am not a librarian, but the likelihood of any publisher letting us do this for every item we have deleted is 100% never going to happen.

Of course, this point is moot. We haven’t purchased any of this material. We haven’t been given permission to store it on our servers. If a publisher so wanted, they could easily get a court order through discovery to find out all the work we have in our servers, public facing or otherwise. I doubt this will ever be an issue, but if it became known that we are intentionally storing an electronic copy of their copyrighted material to immediately serve out to anyone once the copyright term has expired, then all they have to do is get a court order to find out when we made the copy of their copyrighted material material and I’d not want to be the WMF lawyer who must convince the court that we don’t owe them damages for the period of time we stored their copyrighted work on our servers whilst copyright had not expired.

And yes, there are a few publishers out there I can think of who might decide this is a valid way of making money. Do you want risk

this with Springer or Elsevier? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 15:45, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to take a specific example here. Last year in Bucharest I had the opportunity to photograph quite a few works of major Romanian artists who lived past 1954, and whose works are therefore still copyrighted in Romania. I did this at various museums, in all cases with the knowledge and permission of the museum, and in at least one case while walking around with a museum docent. (If we were to take Chris.sherlock2's argument at face value, the moment I took those photos I was harboring an illegal copy of the photo on the SD disk in my camera, and when I copied that to my computer I made another illegal copy, but neither of those involves Commons.)

I am 70 years old. Most of these works will not come out of copyright in the next decade, some of them not until the 2080s. Even for the ones that will emerge as soon as, say, 2040 (picking that year because it is when the works of Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck come out of copyright), it is frankly less than 50% probable that I will be alive at that date and in good enough health to upload them at that time. Plus, I would need to write down the documentation now, and store both photos and documentation in a manner that would make them still available to upload in 2040, possibly finding a successor who could upload them on behalf of my estate, fill out {{Artwork}} templates (or whatever may be their equivalent in 15 years) properly, etc.

So, I uploaded these with full documentation and immediately deleted them so that only admins can see them. The Cuțescu-Storck files are listed at Category:Undelete in 2040, the others in the various analogous locations depending on the date when they become "free".

I am quite confident that almost every archive in the world would consider this "best practice". I am unaware of any case law in any country that has ever deemed this practice to be illegal, and if there is I would like to see it cited here.

This is probably the last I have to say on this topic, unless specific questions are addressed to me. - Jmabel ! talk 17:02, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I can only urge Commons to look at U.S. copyright law and clearly established precedents such as Hachette et al. v. Internet Archive . What one would like and what is actually allowed are often at odds. Under U.S. law, your photographs could only be allowed to be uploaded to the Commons servers (located in a U.S. jurisdiction) if you argued you are using them under Fair Use. What happens before the actual upload is unknown, I don’t know Romanian law. But as you are aware, we don’t allow fair use on Commons, and yet that is what you are currently relying upon. Personally, if it were up to me, I would love to be able to give you my personal blessing to continue - if it were allowed it would be a worthy project, but under title 17 of the U.S. Code what os being done in this case is fairly clearly violating the law.

im not going to do anything more than publicly urge the community to see sense, but if I am to be ignore then so be it. I’ve tried and I’m satisfied that I have given appropriate notice and warning to the community that there is a real issue. Time will tell if my warnings are heeded.- Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:48, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

When researching something else, I came across a page at the Library of Congress website:

https://guides.loc.gov/fire-insurance-maps/copyright

That page states, "The Geography and Map Division will not scan or reproduce any material that may still be under copyright restriction without either the permission of the copyright holder or proof that the item is no longer protected."

Other details on the page confirm that the division does not scan a map, wait for the copyright to expire, and then publish the map on its website. Glrx (talk) 06:44, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I think that "pre-uploads" don't violate copyright because deleted files are exist only as a digital code and nobody to see them! Without pre-uploads it is a risk that some unfree files will be lost forever! Юрий Д.К 15:33, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
Under title 17 of the U.S. Code, you may not make copies without the express authority of the copyright holder. I’m afraid this is a violation of U.S. copyright law, and the only arguments that might give an exception to this are all made assuming the doctrine of Fair Use would allow this, however such arguments misunderstand the law around Fair Use and are invalid. A court would not find any such argument persuasive and would likely find against us. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
I apologize for returning to this when I said I wouldn't, but I think there is a confusion here of Commons' policy and law. U.S. law allows fair use. It is Commons' policy not to publish files on a "fair use" basis. It is not Commons' policy not to store files on a "fair use" basis. I think there is a pretty clear "fair use" argument for storing a file with the intention of publishing when it falls out of copyright. I'm not even saying that argument would necessarily win the day, or that we could store absolutely anything on that basis, but it is ridiculous to dismiss it out of hand, and I elieve that what we have, in fact, stored on this basis falls well within "fair use." - Jmabel ! talk 20:01, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
And yet, you seem to have completely ignored my explanation as to why Fair Use is not satisfied. I don’t think you understand the law around fair use, and given that Commons never really has to rule on whether something is valid under fair use law I’m not at all surprised your understanding is lacking.
If you can explain how my reasoning above is incorrect, it would be appreciated. You said you would not be engaging further, but now you are incorrectly saying this is all allowed under fair use. It is not, as I have already explained. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 20:34, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
Sorry, but with this argument every cloud storage service would be illegal in the US. GPSLeo (talk) 21:03, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
Indeed, if you are storing copyrighted material on a cloud service without permission, then this is indeed copyright infringement. There is no need to be sorry, I don’t like it either, but that’s U.S. copyright law for you. They prosecuted MEGA for it.

Remember: just because you don’t like a law does not mean you can ignore it. That’s life in society. Don’t rag on me for it, I didn’t draft or vote for the laws, they’ve been around for a long time. Why do you think we need Commons? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 23:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
@Chris.sherlock2: was there anything in Hachette v. Internet Archive that prevented the Internet Archive from retaining copies of these works internally? As far as I can see, the issue was entirely about making them available to the general public. - Jmabel ! talk 01:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
Given that Commons administrators are volunteers from the general public, not Wikimedia employees, the boundaries of what exactly we can consider "internal" are a little fuzzy here. Omphalographer (talk) 02:49, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:
Judge John G. Koeltl ruled on March 24, 2023, granting the publishers' request. He held that the Internet Archive's scanning and lending of complete copies constituted copyright infringement and that the Internet Archive's fair use defense failed all four factors of the "fair use test". He rejected the Archive's argument that their use was "transformative" in the sense of copyright law. He further stated that "Even full enforcement of a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, however, would not excuse IA's reproduction of the Works in Suit".

I'm not clear if they ordered them to delete the works from their servers. You can, however, see that the court looked at all four factors of a fair use defense and, as you can see from above, a judge looking at our defense of fair use would likely have a similar view. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 04:32, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Systemic flickerization of hrefs and anti-Latin OCR-ization, a case from 2014

When removing ancient bad OCR nonsense ("En ut Simia pafpulos catellosPufert omnibus, omniumque formasDeridet, nequefe videt mifellaNudam podice, dunibufque caham:Nos akerius <videmus omnesLynceis oculis jfuofque talpaGjwfquepr&tcrit) & videre non ^vuk-Quid m tergore Mantiae geratur.") from one image, I have also noted that:

A. Most of the unneeded hrefs there lead to Flickr, e.g. Authors: Schoonhoven, Florens, 1594-1648 Passe, Crispijn van de, d. 1670 -> https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/bookauthorPasse__Crispijn_van_de__d__1670 (of course 404 by now)

Subjects: Emblems -> https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/booksubjectEmblems

We are on Wikimedia Commons, not on a Flicker link farm.

B. Even the presumed author, "Internet Archive Book Images" (which is nonsense in itself), leads to ... Flickr and not to "https://archive.org/details/schoonhoviigouda00scho/page/180/mode/2up" or Wikipedia article about the same author.

-> We need a bot to clear up this mess methinks. Zezen (talk) 11:51, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

See Commons:Bots/Work requests (maybe move this thread there). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Video Player

Hello, could active contributors in MediaWiki please request an update to the current media player on the wishlist? It feels like we are in 2010, the player is outdated. Regards Riad Salih (talk) 21:00, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Agree. However, for videos it's almost fine. I don't like that when clicking on play it disables you from continuing to scroll and read the page such as the file description and categories, but I think this could be changed with the current player. Is there something specific you don't like when playing videos with it? I think there are two main issues with the media player and created a Wishlist request for each:

No support for video chapters (clickable timestamps) – see W:Video & audio chapters (jump to timestamp)
Totally outdated audio player with e.g. way to small width, 2000s design, and no button to jump back x seconds which is needed for listening to Spoken Wikipedia article podcast audios – see W:A proper audio player

Prototyperspective (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Can you please describe what kind of features and behaviors you want, from audio player to thumbnail size, to fullscreen ? That's a lot more actionable. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:16, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Most basic stuff: left right keys to jump, up down keys for volume, remember volume setting. RoyZuo (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

btw, if the webm file is directly loaded in the browser, i think these four arrow key functions work for most browsers.

so mediawiki is worse than any browser built-in functions. that is very outdated. RoyZuo (talk) 19:51, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

The overall design is outdated and does not meet the expectations for a 2025 user experience. Even when having a strong internet connection, the player suffers from noticeable lag. Navigation between different parts of the video is sluggish, with prolonged loading times. The transition between video quality settings is far from smooth.. and the buttons as mentionned by RoyZuo. Riad Salih (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

also dont pop up out of the page. why do that? which website does that?

very often, people play the video and simultaneously scroll down the page to read descriptions, comments (on other video websites) or whatever other stuff there may be. RoyZuo (talk) 19:47, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — The Queen presents the 1966 World Cup to England Captain, Bobby Moore

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the Wikimedia Foundation office which should not be undone.

In this specific case, the DMCA was granted because the owner of the picture sent the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal department messages under penalty of perjury claiming that they had never licensed it to the original Flickr upload from where the image was originally taken from. The usage of this image may still be fair use in specific contexts, and the legal department encourages editors to do local uploads to that end with an appropriate non-free content justification under local policy, but it is currently too broadly used for that to be the justification the legal department provided in this case. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

File:The Queen presents the 1966 World Cup to England Captain, Bobby Moore. (7936243534).jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#The Queen presents the 1966 World Cup to England Captain, Bobby Moore. (7936243534). Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand — Blessed Virgin Mary

In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the Wikimedia Foundation office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me.

The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

File:Blessed Virgin Mary.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Blessed Virgin Mary. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:14, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Thousands separators

Started a rather technical request here - the person who made this template retired in 2013, so if you can help by adding a function to a template, please stop by. The issue is that the thousands separator added to the output of a template wrecks my attempt to do math with the resulting numbers. Best, mr.choppers (talk)^-en- 19:19, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Enabling Dark mode for logged-out users

Hello Wikimedians,

Apologies, as this message is not written in your native language. Please help translate to your language.

The Wikimedia Foundation Web team will be enabling dark mode in this Wiki by 15th May 2025 now that pages have passed our checks for accessibility and other quality checks. Congratulations!

The plan to enable is made possible by the diligent work of editors and other technical contributors in your community who ensured that templates, gadgets, and other parts of pages can be accessible in dark mode. Thank you all for making dark mode available for everybody!

For context, the Web team has concluded work on dark mode. If, on some wikis, the option is not yet available for logged-out users, this is likely because many pages do not yet display well in dark mode. As communities make progress on this work, we enable this feature on additional wikis once per month.

If you notice any issues after enabling dark mode, please create a page: Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Reporting/xx.wikipedia.org in MediaWiki (like these pages), and report the issue in the created page.

Thank you!

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team.

UOzurumba (WMF) 00:08, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great news! However, the dark mode is just black – that may be suitable on mobile but on desktop that's I think not good. Most dark modes are some dark grey for a reason. It's not good to the eyes, not convenient to use basically and many won't use it. Could you please add a dark-grey dark mode like the one that is available in the Wikipedia app (the third of the four in the color schemes settings)? Again, see how the dark mode looks like for most other large websites and desktop apps, most of these are tones of grey. If there already is an issue about this, please link it, thanks. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:06, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi there!

If I understand correctly you are requesting additional modes be added similar to the native apps. While my team discussed expanding the available options on web during the construction of this feature to include additional themes such as sepia, at the current time we have no plans to add additional modes so that we can focus focus on the roll out of dark mode.

Dark mode requires various on-wiki changes across wikis (that no doubt you'll somewhat aware of as thankfully Commons have adhered to!) but other projects still need to make the recommended changes. When all projects are supporting dark mode, we can consider adding additional modes, which hopefully will not be as difficult thanks to the roll out of dark mode (since we can use CSS variables to theme now!).

As always I encourage experimentation with additional modes via gadgets (dark mode itself started off this way!) and am happy to support developers as needed. Let me know if I can help with that! Jon Robson, WMF 19:41, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikidata links beginning with M

When I edit File:Newspaper_headings.djvu, it says at the bottom of the page:

Wikidata entities used in this page

M163430529: Title

But Wikidata complains that the ID is invalid. What's going on? Marnanel (talk) 13:44, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@Marnanel: I do not see any Wikidata usages on the file description page. MKFI (talk) 07:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Tpt as maintainer of https://ia-upload.wmcloud.org/ — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 08:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

When I edit the page, not on the page itself when you're viewing it. Marnanel (talk) 14:13, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

This is the page ID of the file [7]. That the Commons page ID is listed as usage of a Wikidata item is definitely a bug. Every file page seems to have this. GPSLeo (talk) 14:53, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't show up on all file pages, e.g. File:Pespot na Bellevue - panoramio.jpg (chosen at random) doesn't have it. I think it's being triggered by a template on that page. Omphalographer (talk) 00:09, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

That's probably just that page needing a linksupdate to record the usage. I agree though that this almost certainly comes from a template. I would assume {{Information}} or something has some fallback code to pull the description from SDC if its not directly specified, or something like that. Bawolff (talk) 09:45, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Just for completeness, the link should be Special:EntityPage/M163430529 so likely a module that tries to get local structured data, but incorrectly looks at Wikidata. I looked at the recent uploads of my bots. File:Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (5.3.1696 - 27.3.1770) - Das Martyrium der Heiligen Agathe - 459B - Gemäldegalerie.jpg has the issue, but File:Bales and manure near Green Lane - geograph.org.uk - 7669865.jpg doesn't. Both use a lot of structured data, difference is the template used ({{Artwork}} vs {{Information}}). I think the bug is likely to be in Module:Artwork or one of the underlying modules. @Jarekt: any idea? Multichill (talk) 19:06, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

@Multichill, Marnanel, and Bawolff: , I am searching for any files with "Wikidata entities used in this page" linking to M-id and I can not find any examples. For example I looked at the files mentioned in this discussion, new uploads by BotMultichillT and all new uploads. Are there some examples or did the issue fixed itself somehow? Most infoboxes, like Information, Artwork, Book, Photograph, etc. access SDC as Bawolff described, but that code has not changed in years and I never run into the issue described. --Jarekt (talk) 02:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I see it at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Giovanni_Battista_Tiepolo_(5.3.1696_-_27.3.1770)_-_Das_Martyrium_der_Heiligen_Agathe_-_459B_-_Gem%C3%A4ldegalerie.jpg&action=info . Tbh though i dont see how this is an issue. Bawolff (talk) 06:39, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

It still shows for me (e.g. on [8], which Omphalographer mentioned earlier). Marnanel (talk) 07:37, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T393997

I tested it using Module:Sandbox: Ever page that uses this module to get the caption gets these incorrect Wikidata links on the page information page. This is not a problem in the modules. The problem is withing MediaWiki. I created a bug report for this. GPSLeo (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Wrong infobox picture

Category:Catherine Wolfe Bruce[9] has the wrong infobox picture (it should be no picture at all, not some random Australian). I nuked it everywhere I could but its the thing that wouldn't die. Where did they hide that value? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:01, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Fountains of Bryn Mawr. I don’t see the image anymore, so I think it got sorted out. Sometimes you have to purge the page or make a null edit (submit edit without editing anything) to update the page. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, saw it disappear as well. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:38, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Concerns Regarding Cross-Wiki Conduct and Tone by Administrator Bedivere

Hello community, this is to notify that there is a request for comment on Meta that some users might be affected. You can join the discussion here.

Please do not reply to this message. 〈興華街〉📅❓ 02:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)