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See also: Village pump/Proposals • Archive
RfC: Uploads by banned/blocked users (2 March 2020) Movement Strategy Recommendations (latest ver.) (22 January 2020)
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March 02[edit]

Request for comment: Deletion/undeletion of uploads by banned/blocked users[edit]

An editor has requested comment from other editors for this discussion.
If you have an opinion regarding this issue, feel free to comment below.

Is block/ban evasion/sockpuppetry on its own a valid reason to delete media or reject a request for undeletion?

German/Deutsch
Ist die Umgehung von Sperren/Verbannungen bzw. die Nutzung von Sockenpuppen allein schon ein gültiger Grund, Medien zu löschen oder einen Antrag auf Wiederherstellung abzulehnen?

French/français
Le contournement de blocage ou l'utilisation de faux-nez sont-ils à eux seuls des raisons valides pour supprimer des fichiers ou refuser des demandes de restauration ?

Dutch/Nederlands
Is blok/ban-ontduiking/sokpopperij op zichzelf een geldige reden om bestanden te verwijderen of een verzoek tot terugplaatsen af te wijzen?

Portuguese/Português
Bloqueio/evasão de bloqueio/uso de fantoches é, por si só, motivo válido para apagar mídia ou rejeitar um pedido de restauração?

Spanish/Español
Estar bloqueado/evadir bloqueo/crear títeres. ¿son en sí mismas razones válidas para borrar los archivos subidos o para rechazar una solicitud de restauración de un archivo?

Persian/فارسی
آیا فرار از قطع دسترسی/تحریم و زاپاس‌بازی در پی آن به خودی خود دلیل کافی برای حذف پرونده‌ها یا رد کردن درخواست‌های احیا هست؟

Context:

Following discussion at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Jameslwoodward, one thing seems abundantly clear: opinions are sharply divided on the matter of how to treat contributions by users who are evading a block or ban. To attempt to summarize arguments discussed:

Commons should not have such a policy, and such content should normally be retained so long as it is properly licensed and within COM:SCOPE.
Such deletions are already covered in principle by Commons:Blocking policy, and are therefore within the discretion of individual administrators.
Commons should have a such a policy, as retaining the contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry.

As far as I can tell, while these views are strongly held on all sides, there does not currently appear to be any broad community consensus to rely on in such cases. GMG ^talk 13:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Survey[edit]

Oppose Deletion of content when the only reason is that the user has been banned (unless the ban is for mass copyright violations). Support Undeletion of such content that has already been deleted. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 14:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Weak support of deleting uploads by banned or blocked users. G5 policy would help protect admins since this would always be contentious. Abzeronow (talk) 14:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Making a policy so that anyone with sysop tools could "teach a sockpuppeteer" a lesson would be courting disaster. Free in-scope content is always valid, regardless of who pressed a button to upload it. With such a policy in place, to disrupt the project any half-witted troll could set up a throwaway account, do nothing but upload valuable public domain archives for a month, then go on the admin noticeboard and confess they are a sockpuppet and dare administrators to delete the content. A scorched earth policy may fit the needs of the English Wikipedia, but it makes no sense when we are talking about perfectly valid media files. If anyone feels it's worth it, the uploads could always be automatically anonymised, or even post hoc marked as uploaded by a trusted user (or an Official Dummy Account); but that again feels like creating work for good faith volunteer just to make a point. --Fæ (talk) 15:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Support I welcome free content, but am not willing to pay such a high price for it. --A.Savin 15:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose It really really does depend on what the "content" is. Vandalism, attack images, utter garbage etc goes. Other images might well be kept if they are validly licensed of of genuine potential use. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Same as above. When there are copyvio problems, vandalism, etc.. sure. But deletion just because the uploader was banned is ultimately counterproductive. Also note that despite claims, there is no proof that keeping files that are properly licensed and in scope would encourage those banned users. Given how long some LTAs continue to disrupt, we clearly have no idea what the source of their gratification exactly is. For all we know, it's the deletion that gets them off. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 16:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose though it's certainly a strike against, and on anything where there is doubt about copyright, scope, etc. it's a strike against the file. Agree with Fæ that anonymization would be acceptable if someone is willing to take it on. - Jmabel ! talk 16:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Support - Sock edits at EN are always reverted instantly and IMHO we should follow that practice here, Allowing socks images just encourages them to keep returning which we don't want, We must remember socks were banned for a reason ..... If they've been wrecking havoc on other projects for quite some time then why we should we allow them here and most certainly allow their images here?,

In short for me allowing the images just confirms socks are welcome here and that no matter what problems they've caused elsewhere they're basically welcome here regardless.

Also just to clarify the original 'sock's accounts images should remain but anything after that IMHO should be deleted. –Davey2010^Talk 17:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose, except where there are consistent problems with the actual images, eg copyvio. Johnbod (talk) 17:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Support - The Commons community is much more reluctant to block/ban than on Wikipedia. Only when there are very serious or very long-term problems do I see it happen. The case is therefore even stronger here than on Wikipedia for discouraging socking by those who have managed to get banned/blocked. Keeping the files means continued motivation for socking. That said, I also Support something like a waiting period whereby another user in good standing can take "ownership" of the uploads if they are indeed of use to Commons. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 17:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Support En.wiki G5 grew out of the blocking policy and documented existing practices from its conception...not the other way around. A blocked user is a blocked user and their edits and creations may be removed. Further, their failure to abide by community policies is a breach of the Terms of Use which also allots for the removal of their contributions. It disincentivizes those who would evade their block and sockpuppet. Again, this should be at the admin's discretion and they do not have to always delete but they should have the ability to do so when the need arises.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 17:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Support. Blocks are not, or at least, cannot be symbolic. Allowing a blocked user to continue collaborating with the project take away the seriousness of our rules and procedures. If someone wants to review their block, they must use the available mechanisms. Until then, all contributions must be removed. Érico (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose per Johnbod and others. Let's not make the same mistake like folks on enwiki, where even a quality, referenced article can be deleted just because it was created years ago by a now-banned user.-Darwinek (talk) 21:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

That is mis-characterizing because only articles/files that were added after they were blocked are eligible for G5. It is not applied retroactively to delete someone's creations prior to the block.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 22:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) That's not how it works on enwiki. If a then-banned user created an article in violation of that block/ban and nobody else has made nontrivial edits to the article, then yes, it would be deleted. When someone gets banned, their old work from when they weren't banned is unaffected. If someone's behavior is egregious enough to get banned, they can't just pick up where they left off with a new account. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 22:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: An upload by a sock that has to be deleted and another day the same upload by a non-sock that has to be kept is patent nonsense. --Achim (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit: To come to the point: I'm the 1st volunteer for re-uploading images. Hey socks, leave me a note. :)) --Achim (talk) 22:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose per above. We should only delete files if there is a problem with the content itself. Just deleting because the user was banned even if the files are still useful seems very unnecessary. 0x9fff00 (talk) 23:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - Gone Postal has expressed it well, there should be no deletion of "content when the only reason is that the user has been banned (unless the ban is for mass copyright violations)". Commons is about freely licensed content, the individual users uploading it are not in focus - actually, we import lots of content from flickr and similar sources; that is, content made by people who aren't even part of the Commons community. Just look at the content. If the content and its licensing is fine, I really don't care who uploaded it. However, I Support blanket deletion of content by users who are blocked/banned because of massive copyright violations, as the licensing then can't be trusted. That's then a matter of efficiency and cost-benefit ratio: If we must assume that a large part of a blocked/banned user's uploads will be problematic, we don't have to check them all individually. If, however, the reasons for banning/blocking hadn't to do anything with copyright/licensing, there are no grounds for blanket deletion. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose deletion of potential valid media just because the uploader is dubious. — Speravir – 00:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
If really his/her own work, and oppose if uploaded from external links, and not his/her own work. Flickr/YouTube, it's really difficult to re-upload a video if once deleted.//Eatcha (talk · contribs) 03:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Support If you wanna get rid of trolls, you have to block them and delete their content. Everything else never worked and never will. --Mirer (talk) 03:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Keep in mind that there is no evidence that this works as a deterrent. The testamony from many long term disruptive sockpuppeteers is the reverse, and most of those spending siginficant time playing whack-a-mole say that bigger hammers that bang harder is not the social solution we need to help reform and educate. The truth is that if an anonymous account is happy to get on with categorization or uploading of content and stay unnoticed, it's actually bizarre that we should invest time trying to trip people up. --Fæ (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, maybe no evidence, but years and years of experience (ever since the usenet). What testomonies trolls give, doesn't get my attention. I'm only interested in their actions and which actions (from us or any moderator/admin on any system) stop certain behavior. --Mirer (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose unless there is a specific reason to suspect that the uploads themselves may be problematic. We are here to archive all useful (educational, informative, historically interesting) media that is freely licensed, not to engage in this kind of personal pettiness. Tokfo (talk) 06:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Es ist völlig unwichtig, von wem eine Datei ist. Bei den meisten ist die wahre Identität doch sowieso unklar, sollen wir deren Fotos nun auch alle löschen? Wir haben hier auch Fotos von einem Nazi und Kriegsgewinnler, von anderen suspekten Personen. Es gibt keinen Grund, Bilder gesperrter Benutzer zu löschen. --Ralf Roletschek 09:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose The question is unclear: is this deletion of content added after the ban? (there is some justification) or all their content? The latter is ridiculous, and yet we've seen it done (especially on WP this has been a problem).

Furthermore, we don't need this as a policy: if content is of no use to us per COM:SCOPE, we can delete it already. We don't need anything more. This is just making a policy which will be waved around as 'blocked content must be deleted', as an excuse for the self-aggrandisement of a handful who like deleting stuff, because they've created nothing of their own. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Following Achim and others. Pro the argument 1 of context above. --Wilhelm Zimmerling PAR (talk) 12:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Any content should be treated equally regardless the contributor. Commons is for reusers in the first place. We can't deal with banned users at the expense of our content. ~Cybularny ^Speak? 18:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. If the content is OK, it should be kept and used regardless of the uploader. Deleting content solely because it's been added by banned users (especially because the exact same content can be re-uploaded later by another user and then it would be fine just because it would have been another person doing it) may inadvertently instill the idea that the files belong to the users, which is far from true. I understand and respect the concern about possible (and undesired) encouragements for blocked users, but it's really not the case. Victor Lopes (talk) 18:15, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I was going to oppose, however, after reading and thinking about the above arguments, I'm leaning Weak support. If the policies would be to nuke a banned/blocked user's contribution or a wholesale deletion of such, I would be fully opposed. I believe the question is whether their contributions post-ban (i.e. uploaded after they were banned) would be welcomed. I would not welcome such contributions. As Berean Hunter has stated, and correctly so, "their failure to abide by community policies is a breach of the Terms of Use which also allots for the removal of their contributions. It disincentivizes those who would evade their block and sockpuppet. Again, this should be at the admin's discretion and they do not have to always delete but they should have the ability to do so when the need arises." --Ìch heiss Nat ùn ìch redd e wenig Elsässisch!^{Talk to me in EN, FR, PL, GSW-FR(ALS).} 21:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose, by arguments like those of Gone Postal and others. Don't fight symptoms, try to get a better system to track sockpuppets. Eissink (talk) 22:18, 3 March 2020 (UTC).
Oppose, When content is ok, the photographer and/or uploader does not matter. What if I get blocked because of a 'heavy PA' (or something). I've never been blocked here and I think it won't happen, but I made hunderds of photo's of monuments and sculptures, also a few hundred photo's that could be missed and hundreds of photo's of places nobody ever uploaded a photo from, etc. Totally (also under old usernames) 1200+ files. So, if I take myself as example, 450 images used in lemmas will disappear. This is not real, I'm not blocked, but if this happens to someone else, the work should be kept. Something else is if someone is blocked for uploading copyvio, for more than 60% (p.a.). To make it short: just keep the files. - Richardkiwi (talk) (talk) 23:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose If we are to be a credible source of free media, it makes complete sense that we should provide the best we can make available. Deleting good content on the basis that it is "from a poisoned well" is a self-defeating argument and makes us look petty, spiteful, and more concerned about punishment and revenge than actually fulfilling our mission. Pointless. Rodhullandemu (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose if the uploads are not copyright violations, out of scope and vandalism. I do however see the point some have when it comes to serial sockpuppets but deleting valid and in-scope files isn't going to stop the sockpuppets from returning. Bidgee (talk) 05:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose If the uploaded content itself is clean, I see no reason to delete it. --Uoaei1 (talk) 09:35, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose, if a user is a blocked/banned for uploading copyright violations and then socks to upload free educational images we shouldn't punish literally everyone who could benefit from these images because of past mistakes. Users are rarely unblocked and we need to reform the unblocking/unbanning system, not double down on the bad policies that are anti-content. While I would understand why deletion requests by evaders might be unwelcome, restoring copyright violations out of spite can actually put the entire website at risk. We should not import bad Wikipedia policies. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Support. contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry. This is the point in blocked/banned. We do not want their contribution her. They already crossed the line. Their copyright statement cannot be trusted. Our deletion policy already covers the issue. -- Geagea (talk) 23:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. If all other requirements for retaining a file have been met, we should not be deleting usable content simply because of a user's status. We are not like a Wikipedia where sock puppetry can be used to insert strange points of view into article prose. Either the file is freely licensed (and meets the scope) or it isn't. It is for individual projects to decide whether they will use files that have been stored here, which acts as a filter for any fringe content. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Strongly support: This loophole in the system has allowed long-term trolls to game the system for well over a decade. Once a user is banned, their so-called "contributions" should be deleted on sight to prevent further disruption. We ran into precisely this problem just a few weeks ago when I nominated files created by a GLOBALLY BANNED user for mass deletion: as usual I was shouted down with the standard refrains of "censorship" and "in use, therefore in scope", with no regard for how much damage the images could do to the community's reputation.

Trolls, socks and meat puppets have no place on Wikimedia Commons. As pointed out above, we should not encourage their continual attacks by tolerating the re-uploading of their "work", especially it has already been previously deleted. As I've been saying from the start, ban the trolls, delete their "contributions," and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process. That's the only way to deal with this kind of abuse. AshFriday (talk) 04:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose -- xZFF; 08:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Valuable works published under free licenses should not be removed whatever the user would later do. -- Jakubhal 09:18, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Why "later"? Maybe you misunderstood the essence: it is about deletion of recent uploads of already banned users; what they submitted before the ban, is not in question. --A.Savin 14:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Reason of file deletion should be based only on violations in this file. Not on user's violations and other reasons. Лапоть (talk) 18:13, 5 March 2020 (UTC).
Oppose content should be reviewed individually; my opinion is n. 1 (" Commons should not have such a policy, and such content, etc.") . Veverve (talk) 18:58, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose No. I make socks do all the ~~dirty~~ not-interesting work for me, and then block the socks to stop them from doing anything other than ~~dirty~~ not-interesting work. encouraging socking? meh, if they are closely supervised and doing valuable work I don't care. I don't care who you are, only what you do and what you can bring. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 19:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Sockpuppeting and any form of block evasion is harmful to our projects and normal practice is to remove/delete their content. That being said, flickr transfers are not their work. Sure, they may have initiated the transfer; but deleting transferred flickr uploads is a waste of time for the project and not worth pursuing. I am opposed to deleting content that would have otherwise been transferred, just for the sake of having an uploader with a different username if and when it eventually is re-uploaded.

Those in favour of preventing those evading blocks from keeping their content/contributions on the project come from projects where the majority of those contributions would be in article content. Having a sockpuppet facilitate flickr transfers versus writing original content is an unfair comparison and one that shouldn't be made. It may 5 minutes of work to find a flickr photoset, slap a category or two on it, and transfer it. There's nothing particularly unique or attributable to the user who facilitated the transfer - completely unlike the creation/addition of information in an article.

I do support deleting original content from those who are evading blocks, as not doing so would be condoning the evasion. Jon Kolbert (talk) 05:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: As a general principle, I think that the usefulness of files should mainly be judged based on the files themselves, not by who uploaded them. If images uploaded by a now-blocked user are educationally useful (in scope) and have a valid license, they should not be automatically deleted. If the license of a file is questionable due to the uploader committing frequent copyright violations (or past actions of the uploader suggest other problems with the file), it can always be deleted based on a specific reason such as violating copyright, this doesn't require "uploader has been blocked" to become an automatic reason for deletion. GFJ (talk) 09:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose per Gestumblindi. --Rosenzweig τ 12:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose: Each case should be evaluated on its merits. In most cases the uploaded files will be OK. Although if just about every file from that user has a problem it may justify deleting most. I would suggest that files in use should be evaluated more carefully before any mass delete. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Even they are blocked/banned users, some of the files are good in quality and educational value. Unless the files are copyvio/vandalism, they should stay on Commons. --A1Cafel (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Decision should be depend on content. If the file has educational value, it should be kept regardless of uploader's problems. – Kwj2772 (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose in all circumstances unless the files themselves should be deleted as if they are uploaded by normal users.--GZWDer (talk) 16:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose automatically assuming that a blocked/banned user was 100% bad is a poor assumption. Each case should be evaluated on its own merits. It's easy to start a deletion discussion about the banned users' uploads and the files would start with a large strike against them in the discussion. Royal broil 06:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose for the various reasons mentiones above. I would prefer though, that a user could delete pictures he uploaded him or herself. I don't know though, if this topic has already been discussed. Yomomo (talk) 18:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose on Gestumblindi's grounds unless the user has been blocked for copyright violations. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 02:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose, per Gone Postal, Johnbod, and others. Unless the images in particular are copyvios, they shouldn't be deleted simply because a user is banned. Otherwise we're simply deleting images because we don't like the editor (s). I've had my share of grievances with editors and administrators, but I'm still not going to call for bans on any of their images over those grievances. ----DanTD (talk) 04:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose --DALIBRI (talk) 11:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Images/Files should be judged by what they are and not by who they were uploaded. Evaluation of images on a case by case bases should be done if needed. If the images is licensed correctly and complies with all other rules, why should it just be blanked deleted without being checked because someone who is blocked/banned uploaded it? If they image/files in question are in violation they should be/have been deleted regardless from if the user is banned/blocked or not... --Redalert2fan (talk) 13:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Those files should have a special mark to be reviewed one by one following banning or blocking of the uploader, but not automatically erased.--QTHCCAN (talk) 15:14, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose This is a terrible idea, obviously files on this site should be checked a case-by-case basis. Files don't suddenly become tainted when the user who uploaded them has disciplinary issues. Elspamo4 (talk) 00:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Files should be viewed on their own merits and not because they were uploaded by a blocked user. Captain-tucker (talk) 01:18, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Support I believe the whole process of the upload should be viewed. An upload carried out by a blocked user should be considered a violation of the guidelines/policies, since one of the main elements of the upload process, i.e. the user, is severely problematic. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose per Gestumblindi. Minorax^talk _{(formerly 大诺史)} 13:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose: We’re here to curate media files, not to discipline unruly former co-workers. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 17:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Per above. Images should be judged by themselves. If a image is ok, there's no reason to delete it.--SirEdimon (talk) 20:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Not another potencial battleground for petty revenges. Let images be judged by their merits. Tm (talk) 20:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose This is foolish: we should take the media and ban the user (assuming the media are in scope, etc.) If someone thinks this is some kind of tacit reward for sockpuppetry, sockpuppets are going to be sockpuppets: it happens. When they actually contribute to our free knowledge ecosystem, that's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The sort of person who makes serial sockpuppet accounts will probably keep on making serial sockpuppet accounts because that's the kind of thing he does. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Support – If a user has been blocked/banned or engages in sock-puppetry, their contributions ought to be rejected/reverted/deleted. Otherwise, what's the point of a block/ban? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose If the media is appropriate (in scope, properly licensed, for example), I don't see a reason to refuse it. Blocks and bans can be for bad behavior, not just for inappropriate uploads. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:23, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Deleting/undeleting files must be based on copyright only. Раммон (talk) 06:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Wouldn't deleting their "productive" contributions actually encourage LTAs to further engage in sockpuppetry? And they could also use those deletions as "proof" that Commons removes useful, educational content. I don't think we want that as our image. It seems either way we lose. So I say we uphold the status quo for the sake of the ultimate goal of being the free media repository of the world and delete their images only if they violate other policies (like copyright). In fact, if they have to create another sock just to upload some productive content, I'd say we win, because they have to waste some time just to do something productive. It's their fault why they can't upload consistently, so give them their deserved punishment. --pandakekok9 10:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose for two main reasons. First, the proposal is too vague: proponents have suggested that it applies only to files authored and uploaded by the blocked user, to all files uploaded by them (even if authored by others), or to all files authored by them (even if uploaded by another user). The boundaries of the policy need to be clear. Second, the blocking policy is quite clear that blocking is preventive, not punitive. So the reason we block someone for evading a block is because we expect the behaviour that led to the block to re-occur. On the other hand, once we've blocked the sock-puppet, we can check if it's contributions are actually problematic: there's nothing left to prevent. This doesn't mean the previous block needs to be entirely ignored, mind. If someone was blocked for claiming copyright violations as "own work", it might be reasonable to assume that their later uploads are copyvios. --bjh21 (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
It's effectively this message: "You are not allowed to evade blocks but you are allowed to upload stuff even if you are blocked, and we will let it keep." No way this should be allowed. If you are confused, I am saying blocked editors should not be able to upload stuff, and things should be automatically eligible for CSD if they are found to be evading their block/ban. — regards, Revi 17:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose --Derbrauni (talk) 20:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Files should be deleted only if the file itself violates policy. Deletion should not be used as a punitive measure. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 22:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Weak support as long as it isn't applied to creations before the block/ban (something w:G5 already says), that anyone in good standing can ask the pages to be restored (including the uploader when their unlocked), that pages don't have to be deleted just because they were created by a blocked/banned user and also that this should be applied lighter for blocked users than banned users (there aren't many at Commons anyway but there is some listed at Commons:Editing restrictions). Also it shouldn't be limited just to files uploaded but can also include other pages such as categories and also edits to existing pages. 08:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - the criteria for whether or not content should be kept should be based entirely on the validity of the content itself, not who contributed to it. If the content is within our rules and potentially useful to other people then removing it would be a case of cutting your nose off to spite your face. Waggers (talk) 20:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Let's keep banned users separate from their useful work DPC (talk) 08:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose The idea that contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry doesn't seem to be supported by anything substantial. --bdijkstra (overleg) 09:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - Deletion of the picture seems to be some sort of punishment to the problematic uploader, but if the uploads are otherwise ok, it is just punishment to the community. --Pugilist (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - Deleting media just for the reason, that the uploader was banned, leaves a big backdoor for misuse. Imagine some user decides after 20 years of uploading media to commons, that he doesn't want his media to be on commons or in public domain in general anymore. Someone wanting to achieve that could misuse such a policy by getting himself banned (maybe multiple times with sockpuppet accounts) and therefore resulting in his media being deleted. I understand, that this is not the intention behind such a policy, but imo you always have to look at such extreme cases (which can be in the far future). And as I understand it uploads by sockpuppet accounts from banned users are already covered by Commons:Blocking policy --DavidJRasp (talk) 12:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Support deletion of sockpuputters' uploads. Oppose deletion of main accounts' uploads. Otherwise it is just too easy to create multiple accounts to upload when the main account is already blocked. But there is a certain banned user with 700,000 uploads. Obviously nobody wants to delete these. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Yann: Your comment is confusing. Do you mean sockpuppets' uploads? Sockpuppeteer and main account are the same. And OP only wants new uploads to be deleted, not the old ones, so don't worry about the certain banned user getting nuked. ;) pandakekok9 08:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose images are collections of pixels, not persons. As long, as they are not breaking any other rules, they should stay. Macuser (talk) 10:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
Support: Trolls, socks and meat puppets have no place on Wikimedia Commons (see above). Creuzbourg (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion[edit]

When imported files are deleted, importing them again becomes more difficult as UploadWizard will refuse them and Special:Upload would warn against uploading. The former would stop most genuine users dead in their tracks, the second would make them think "oh, I guess this file copyright problems then" and also stop them. We really, really shouldn't give blocked users the power to "ban" properly licensed in scope files from Commons this way.

And when talking about other (original) content, even Wikipedia's G5 doesn't allow the deletion of educational content unless it is directly related to the block reason. So if a user would be blocked for edit warring, that could never be a reason to delete an article they write about chicken soup with a sock account. Wikipedians are bad at writing clearly worded policies. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 14:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This is wrong. See my comment below.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 18:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The goal of Wikimedia Commons is to collect educationally useful media that is in public domain or is released under at least one of the acceptable free licences. It is not about creating a forum for some users or for blocking of a forum for others. As such, unless the person is blocked for mass copyright violations, the user that has uploaded some content is irrelevant in judging if some file should remain here or not. Currently there are people on this project that I do not wish to communicate with, but I would be brain-dead to propose that this is a reason to delete their educationally useful contributions. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 14:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm torn on whether Commons should have a G5-like policy. I don't think Jim was particularly wrong in not undeleting a bunch of files from a sockpuppeter. UDR most of the time doesn't undelete files uploaded by LTAs unless there is a compelling reason to undelete. On the other hand, if there is a educational use for a file and we don't have a freely licensed file of a particular person or if we only have a handful of them, I don't want to shut the door on restoring that either. I'd rather not continue giving a wide amount of discretion as a policy either, because while I don't think Jim did anything wrong with that UDR, resolving a matter like that was always going to be contentious and I'd rather see policy back up the admin. So I'd reluctantly support a policy of not retaining contributions by banned or blocked users unless it would do more harm than good in deleting a file. Abzeronow (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Abzeronow: G5-like policy would be something else. G5 requires "To qualify, the edit must be a violation of the user's specific block or ban. For example, pages created by a topic-banned user may be deleted if they come under that particular topic, but not if they are legitimately about some other topic." What some people here want is to blindly delete anything without exception if uploaded by a blocked user. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 16:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

No Alexis Jazz that sentence only applies to topic-banned editors. The correct clause taken from the same section states quite clearly, "When a blocked or banned person uses an alternate account (sock-puppet) to avoid a restriction, any pages created via the sock account after the block or ban of the primary account qualify for G5 (if not substantially edited by others); this is the most common case for applying G5." Your assertion in the first paragraph above as well as your assertion here is incorrect.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 18:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Berean Hunter: That makes both G5 a more problematic policy and Wikipedians bad at writing clearly worded policies. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 18:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Herbythyme: At least the intention of the original wording ("on its own") was to specifically address files that did not otherwise qualify for deletion. GMG ^talk 16:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm about as tech savvy as a brick, so I don't really know the this works technically, but anyone who could work out a translation and make this open to non-English speaking users would be greatly appreciated given that it considers site-wide policy. GMG ^talk 22:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@Davey2010: "Also just to clarify the original 'sock's accounts images should remain but anything after that IMHO should be deleted."

Do you mean something like forcing a m:Right to vanish onto the sock accounts? I'd be okay with that, but that's not what the proposal is. The proposal is to delete all the files.

Also note that Commons is special. There is a user, can't remember the name right now, who was banned from Commons. (by the WMF IIRC) But not elsewhere. So this user continued to upload (own work) photographs to dewiki, an depending on import method by whichever random person imports those photos to Commons can appear as the uploader here. Despite exactly that account (no socking here) being banned. Obviously we're not going to delete any of that. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 08:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

To this and the comments by @Andy Dingley:, yes, the original discussion and the intent of this one was specifically uploads by sock puppets, where the uploads themselves were violations of their block or ban. GMG ^talk 10:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mirer: "you have to block them and delete their content. Everything else never worked and never will."

I've heard this mantra being repeated over and over. Is there any proof or even just a really strong theory as to why this should work? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 08:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't have (and won't search for) links to studies on this topic. Twenty-plus years of experience in usenet, forums, wikis is just enough for me. Theory behind it, is that people like to see what they do/did. Therefore it isn't enough to delete content and to block them, the ignore part is in much cases just as important, since the mention of their names in discussions is almost enough for some of them to get feeded.

I don't expect the communities to adopt a system like that, since we have always a bunch of guys, who think you can educate and change every person. From my experience that almost never worked with trolls und never will be. It's not their intention to be a "good" contibutor. --Mirer (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mirer: If we are going to throw experience around, I have the same as you plus I have been a moderator or asked if I could please be a moderator on several large sites. (but I only have so much time) This discussion isn't about trolls uploading attack images. This discussion is about alternative accounts who upload properly licensed in-scope files.

And this whole "ignore" theory has a lot of ifs, ands, or buts. It's exactly the same advice that is given to people who get bullied: ignore your bully, they'll stop! Let me tell you: no, they won't. Why? Depends on the individual case probably, but actively ignoring someone is a response. By actively hunting socks and deleting their contributions, you're playing their game. If you don't want to encourage them, you have to actually ignore them. Delete contributions if they are problematic, as you would do with problematic contributions regardless of who the uploader is. Ignore the rest. They're not uploading their files to imgur.com, and that may in part be because imgur.com won't even try to hunt them down. Where's the fun in that? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that you have to explain me about the topic of the discussion. I have made a different decision than you - deal with it without talking to me like a 6 year old. --Mirer (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I didn't do that, but this response shows beyond doubt you actually do require to be addressed like a 6-year old. Oh, the bitter irony. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 15:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

re en:WP and only articles/files that were added after they were blocked are eligible for G5.

Maybe G5 is only applicable to content after a block. However that's not how en:WP works: stuff is regularly tagged G5 incorrectly, or it gets listed at AfD, and then some admins (usually the same small handful, one now thankfully defrocked) will delete it anyway. It's also happening on en:WP that creations by a sock wil be G5ed, then someone starts to go through the original account's additions (pre-socking) and get those too. None of this is a constructive outcome and we shouldn't make such things policy here either. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Would you please list some examples where someone went back and retroactively deleted creations made before they were blocked?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 11:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I would also find this interesting. In German-language Wikipedia, my "home project", such behaviour is unknown. But then, many things are handled differently in de-WP compared to en-WP (for example, we don't even have a real distinction between "blocking" and "banning", and users who are known socks of blocked/banned users are usually tolerated if they don't continue doing what caused the ban/block). Gestumblindi (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

When a user has been banned/blocked, if they create another account (a sockpuppet) and edit while they are blocked/banned, I would say such edits are not legit. We don't block/ban an account, we block/ban an individual. When an individual is blocked from uploading files (as well as other things), I would say that they must not create a sockpuppet and begin editing/uploading. And if they do, I would say such edits/uploads should generally be deleted, because those individuals are not allowed to upload files at the first place. However, if they request undeletion after the duration of block, I'd say we should undelete the file/page if it isn't problematic for another reason (e.g. copyright violation), because they are now allowed to upload the file or create the page. Also, if other user(s), obviously not sockpuppets, request undeletion of files deleted based on this reason, I'd say such files should be undeleted if there is no other reason against undeletion (e.g. if the files aren't copyright violations).

I do understand the aim of Wikimedia Commons, and I do understand that this might^[1] sometimes be counterproductive. However, even blocking sockpuppets can be counterproductive, and it's not directly a part of our aim, as far as I'm aware. But we do it to maintain a non-toxic atmosphere for the community. Ahmad^talk 12:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

References

↑ I used "might", because I don't expect a sockpuppeteer to upload high-quality files that are not copyright violations. If they do, then maybe it's time to review their original block and see if it can be lifted; why should we prevent a helpful user from editing/uploading?

There are many past examples of blocked or even WMF banned sockpuppeteers using accounts for perfectly good uploads. It cannot be presumed that someone that is capable of finding and uploading valid content, is capable of behaving well with others and of itself is not a rationale for an unblock, neither does it invalidate valid content. --Fæ (talk) 12:44, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but we have partial blocks. Users can now be blocked from some namespaces, but they can still have the ability to upload files. Ahmad^talk 12:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Keep in mind that according to Commons policy nobody actually "owns" the files. We are not a free webhost. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 12:42, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Gone Postal: "Take ownership of" in the sense of "Take responsibility for". The idea is that another experienced editor wants to save them from deletion, that user becomes responsible for those files meeting Commons policies, etc. It should be explicit rather than just defaulting to keeping whatever a sockpuppet uploads. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 12:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and that is specifically against the way Commons operates. Everybody is able to edit the file description, modify categories, even suggest renaming of files on this project. It is not a place where one individual is "responsible" for some file and others simply reuse it. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 12:51, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

No. You're missing the point. That is the same on Wikipedia. Anyone can edit. Taking responsibility for the creation of an article/file doesn't change who can/will edit it. What changes is that if it was a copyvio, the person who took ownership of the upload is held responsible for it, and not the blocked/banned user; if it's out of scope, it's the user who took responsibility who's to blame. If it's a form of harassment, revenge porn, defamation, etc. it's the person who took responsibility for the upload who is, well, responsible for that being on our servers (by saving it from deletion). It's nothing to do with who can/should edit it. It's a question of creation or deletion -- skipping a step so that someone can say "I would reupload that, so don't bother deleting it". — Rhododendrites ^talk | 14:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

What you are saying makes no sense. If a file that I import fails a licence review, I mark the DR for undeletion at an appropriate date and move on. I would do the same thing if the file that I have "taken responsibility for". Are you suggesting that we disable an account of a user who has "taken responsibility" and then after that the file fails a review? This is completely inappropriate approach. As it looks right now, your approach seems to be to find somebody to punish, even when a person has tried to help out. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 19:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Gone_Postal, wrt 'nobody actually "owns" the files'. You couldn't be more wrong. Except for images in the public domain, all our content is owned by someone, merely licensed freely. That someone might be the uploader, blocked or banned user, or might be someone else. I agree that Rhododendrites has the right idea with someone else taking ownership/responsibility for the upload. The uploading of content (especially copyright content) is a legal act and Commons very much is a place where an uploader is responsible for that file ending up on our servers. If, for example, I upload some Disney frames to Commons, I'm breaking copyright law. The folk who categorise and describe those JPGs aren't responsible for that law-breaking upload and wouldn't be blocked for copyvio - they are just editing a wiki record. I think this is what Rhododendrites is suggesting: that someone else take responsibility for the uploads as though they had done it themselves, with all that entails. -- Colin (talk) 15:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Regarding undeletion requests: If this repeats several times by such a user account, especially for files where the deletion reason was obviously valid, one could argument with COM:POINT. — Speravir – 16:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

~~@Speravir:~~ While I think that Rhododendrites is mistaken about our policy, what you are saying here is actually illegal. Rhododendrites suggests that we have some sort of system where a person is punished for a file being a copyright violation beyond what copyright law says, I took "ownership" to meen that in that discussion. You, on the other hand, define ownership as owning the copyright, and then suggest that somebody should take ownership of the files. Although you claim that you were simply quoting Rhododendrites, that is false, they didn't ever imply such an absurd thing. Let's be blunt, you can ban a user, you can disable their account, you can disallow them creating other accounts, you can even go and wipe something that they contributed, but at no point are you allowed to transfer the copyright to another user without the author's permission. And for that permission to be acceptable under the rules of our project here, it needs to go through COM:OTRS. No OTRS permission, No transfer of owership! But this has nothing to do about deleting the files that are not copyright violations simply because a user has been disallowed from contributing further. Please stop muddying the waters. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 19:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, I have pinged the wrong person, I menat to @Colin:. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 19:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

?? In each instance here, it seems like you're responding to things that have not been said. I think you're getting hung up on these "ownership"/"responsibility" words. How about "vouch"? An example. Let's say User:Example was using Commons to upload revenge porn and gets banned for that and for generally being a jerk to people. User:Example has lost editing and uploading privileges not just for that account but for any account they create. When they create a sockpuppet and upload another pornographic image, they get caught and are blocked. The default at that point should be to delete the file, but if you, as a Commons user in good standing, see the file and think it's both valid and beneficial to Commons, you can step in and say "no, I think that image is useful". You are, at that point, vouching (taking responsibility, or taking ownership -- not necessarily in the legal sense, and certainly not in the transfer of copyright sense, but in the Commons community sense) for that file on Commons. Therefore if it turns out to be a copyright violation, revenge porn, or whatever other inappropriate material, we would hold you responsible for the upload. We don't even really need to bring legality into it. You vouched for the file that shouldn't have been uploaded, and it's on you if it turns out there's a problem with it. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 20:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of assuming good faith? A person finds an image that is useful, they "vouch" for it, and then rather than correcting them, you are suggesting somehow to hold them "responsible". Once again, when my uploads (i.e. the files I have actually uploaded) turn out to fail licence review process, I am not punished, I simply mark the deletion request with the appropriate undeletion date and move on. Why would somebody get held "responsible" in any other manner. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Further point of clarification. The question is "Is block/ban evasion/sockpuppetry on its own a valid reason to delete media or reject a request for undeletion?" The question is "are our policies currently written to say exactly this". I say yes to the question because of course when we revoke someone's uploading privileges, we've revoked their uploading privileges for that person, not just until they create a bunch more accounts. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 20:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Rhododendrites, >Gone_Postal you do appear to be arguing about things nobody said. Can you entertain the possibility that "ownership" has more than one meaning. I wanted to make it clear that files really are often legally owned by someone -- any time someone on Commons makes a foolish claim otherwise needs to be corrected, because that way leads to disrespect for those who have donated their work. But also clearly Rhododendrites was not using the word in the copyright sense but in the "responsible for uploading it to Commons" sense, and that responsibility is a big thing. -- Colin (talk) 08:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Colin: Did you not utter these words in this discussion: "You couldn't be more wrong. Except for images in the public domain, all our content is owned by someone, merely licensed freely."? ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes. And you uttered the words "Keep in mind that according to Commons policy nobody actually "owns" the files." Commons has no such policy. You are confusing the files with the file description page, which is freely editable, and the file history, which can be freely overwritten with additional versions. The actual "files", unless they are public domain, are owned by someone, and Commons respects that. I've made this clear and Rhododendrites has made it clear what they mean. Arguing about how mistaken someone's position is, when you don't understand their position or even basic policy, is just wasting everyone's time. GP, it is clear you think folk who disagree with your position are, as you put it "brain dead", so I'm not sure you are here to find consensus or understand and respect other people's position. Time to find something else to do, you've made your point. --Colin (talk) 11:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

«The actual "files", unless they are public domain, are owned by someone, and Commons respects that.» So you do mean copyright when you were talking about the ownership. In that case your suggestion of somebody else taking ownership of another person's files without their consent is illegal as I have already stated above. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 12:21, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

As has already been pointed out, everything you've claimed other people are suggesting is in fact your own misinterpretation of what they said. Please stop putting words into other people's mouths in order to disagree with them. You made a factually incorrect claim and I corrected it. Move on. -- Colin (talk) 14:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia ist the encyclopedia everyone can edit. But actually few do. In the case of commons this means that many events and motifs that wikipedia could use images of are not covered at all by images. Every day billions of photos are taken but most end up in social media while wikipedia has collected less than 60 million in 19 years. If the 500th photo of the tower bridge is deleted for the reason, that it was uploaded by a blocked user than this will do no damage to the project. But if for the very same reason an image is deleted, that will probably never replaced by another image of the same event/motif than this does do damage to the project. Therefore a rule that does not take into account other arguments than the blockedness of a user does not favor the project. --C.Suthorn (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

"Their copyright statement cannot be trusted." @Geagea: you think there is a problem with File:USFS Fire Station Ground Breaking (32486022715).jpg? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:03, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, this is not copyright statement by blocked user. I meant the cases when file claim to be work by blocked user. -- Geagea (talk) 10:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Geagea: the survey is not limited to those. Also see my discussion with Mirer above, there is no proof that mass deletion of contributions discourages socking in any way. (it might in some cases, but it's far from a universal truth) - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:36, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: I want to clarify. From the point that user is banned or blocked, nothing should be accepted. If it is abour socking, I thik their contribution from the period when sock puppetry is started should be subject to DR. We definitely can't assume good faith. For banned contribution before, it should be checked carefully. Blindly deletion of thousand of file may be harm to the project more then a benefit. -- Geagea (talk) 23:34, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz:, ping again. -- Geagea (talk) 23:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Geagea: I hear what you're saying, but the survey is not limited to own work. The survey says "if an alternative account of a blocked user imports https://www.flickr.com/photos/sacramentodistrict/31445802114/in/photostream/, we must delete it". In addition to that, I think we should always look at things on a case-by-case basis. There is a user who is banned from Commons and continues to upload own work to dewiki, which other users import here. There is nothing wrong with those works. Would you delete them? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 00:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, if the user is already banned all his contribution should be deleted. Otherwise the ban is nonsense and it won't be fair with the good contributors. Banned is banned. There's is no need to encourage them. -- Geagea (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Geagea: First, there is no proof that deletion of properly licensed in-scope files would discourage socks. Second, deletion of files that were imported by socks means giving power to those socks. The power to make it harder to (re-)upload the files they uploaded. Third, I'm glad I can't remember the username otherwise you'd be deleting thousands high quality photos now. That user is not blocked on dewiki and uploading their own work there locally is 100% valid. And they don't have control over who imports what. You want those files to be forcefully kept local on dewiki and stop file importers because the author has been banned from Commons for reasons not publicly known? So every Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc has to create local copies of those files because Commons would be acting petty? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:59, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@AshFriday: "we should not encourage their continual attacks by tolerating the re-uploading of their 'work', especially it has already been previously deleted." This would seem to be an argument for application of speedy deletion criterion G4 (Recreation of content previously deleted per community consensus). We don't need to introduce a new and broader speedy deletion criterion to cover something that we already have. Also, can you please expand on your point of, "and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process"? How would this be applied in practice? Do you have some proposal for distinguishing people who are trying to circumvent a deletion from those who are unwittingly restoring previously deleted content? If you are meaning the same user account is circumventing the deletion process then we go back to G4, which says repeated reuploads may lead to a block. From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore: AshFriday seems confused. What this proposal really says is: "if an alternative account of a blocked user imports https://www.flickr.com/photos/sacramentodistrict/31445802114/in/photostream/, we must delete it" which is imho just dumb and also giving a stupendous amount of power to LTAs. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 15:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

"Can you please expand on your point of, 'and block anybody who attempts to circumvent the deletion process'? How would this be applied in practice? Do you have some proposal for distinguishing people who are trying to circumvent a deletion from those who are unwittingly restoring previously deleted content?" @From Hill To Shore: Yes, certainly. I have two proposals: one is called Check User, the other is called common sense. When a user is indefinitely blocked, their contributions should be automatically deleted, as they've proven themselves untrustworthy. If someone begins reuploading the banned user's work, they should be subjected to a CU to make sure they aren't a sock/meat puppet. If the sock is using a proxy, then they'll be judged by their behavior, and blocked again. If a new user is disruptively uploading previously deleted files by a banned user, then common sense dictates that they are either a sock or a meat puppet trying to circumvent the deletion process, and should therefore be blocked on sight. Thanks, you're welcome. AshFriday (talk) 10:19, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@AshFriday: If I am understanding you correctly, your concern there is solely over reuploaded works where a blocked user is the author of the file. Is that correct? I am in opposition to the current proposal because it would also delete public domain or other free files created by someone else but just happened to be uploaded by a blocked user's account. Does this RFC need to be expanded to see if there is consensus for deleting new files only where a blocked user is the author? From Hill To Shore (talk) 11:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
- A blocked/banned user is not necessarily untrustworthy. They may just be ill-behaved (insulting, constantly edit-warring, etc.). If someone who is blocked were to (for example) upload content from the Seattle Municipal Archive before I got around to it, that shouldn't taint that content. - Jmabel ! talk 16:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@From Hill To Shore: my main concern is with trolls deliberately gaming the system. Case in point: a certain user was globally banned for uploading out of scope cartoons. After his ~~fecal matter~~ "art" was deleted by near-universal consensus, he posted it to flickr and used a small army of sockpuppets to re-upload it to Commons. The images were then immediately inserted into various wikipedia articles to give the false impression that they're somehow "in scope".

This particular scam has been going on for close on a decade, involving mass license laundering, meat puppetry and constant disruption to the project. Meanwhile, the troll in question has been having a good long chuckle at our expense, knowing that he's successfully turned the community into a laughing stock. Sheer common sense alone should dictate that we don't tolerate such obvious gaming of the system: the instatement of G5 criteria would rid the project of this kind of vandalism once and for all. As previously stated; ban the trolls, delete all their contributions and block anyone who tries to circumvent the deletion process. AshFriday (talk) 00:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Conversely -- trying to think like a troll here -- let's say I'm a banned user, and this rule is adopted. I start uploading PD images from an important 19th-century work previously missing from Commons. Didn't I just make it much harder for those images ever to be uploaded successfully to Commons? - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Irregardless of the circumstances, we should not accept contributions from any banned user. Geagea stated the case quite succinctly here: "...contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry. This is the point in blocked/banned. We do not want their contributions here. They already crossed the line" (my emphasis). AshFriday (talk) 00:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is not about porn as not all sockpuppets are used to upload porn. This is a general discussion that includes all types of content. Bending this vote around your one interest in being here does not really work. If you want a vote focused on mass deleting nudity and sexuality uploads or punishing porn related sockpuppetry, then make a specific proposal. --Fæ (talk) 17:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a rather odd remark, Fæ, considering that I haven't mentioned the word "porn" anywhere in this discussion. As stated several times above, I'm concerned about trolls gaming the system to the detriment of the project. Please try to stay on topic in future; the issues involved are complicated enough as they are and going off on irrelevant tangents will only add to the confusion. AshFriday (talk) 23:42, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Really? Your obsessive contributions on DRs have been disruptive on sexuality topics since you created this account. You are a single purpose account, as stated on your user page and as literally anyone can see from your edits.

Anyone doubting the facts can check the report User:Faebot/SandboxF which shows the single purpose behaviour of 197 deletion requests over 100 days. --Fæ (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

My posting history is not the subject under discussion here, Fæ. As previously stated, please try to stay on topic and consider staying mellow; it tends to promote a more collegial atmosphere. Thanks, you're welcome. AshFriday (talk) 00:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Is there any research that shows that indeed contributions of blocked/banned users effectively encourages further sock puppetry? --bdijkstra (overleg) 09:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I asked Mirer for the same thing in this discussion. It's all based on nothing but gut feelings. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 14:50, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

That's a plain lie. I spoke about experiences over 20 years not feelings. And of course there a studies/research - I just told you, that I won't search them for you. So please stop "citing" me, it appears you're not able to do it correctly.

What you could do instead, is deleting your personal attack above. It's a shame that (even after a week) neither you nor any admin in here is caring about that. --Mirer (talk) 15:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

"I spoke about experiences over 20 years"

So, you feel it works.. in your gut.. but it's certainly not a gut feeling. I have the same experience as you if not more, and my experience is pretty much the opposite of yours. Deletion could discourage some LTAs, but it's everything but a one-size-fits-all.

"And of course there a studies/research - I just told you, that I won't search them for you."

You want to prove something. You provide the evidence. Or just data. Or anything. Can't be bothered to even try? Don't expect people who disagree with you to try and hunt down a black swan that you claim exists.

"What you could do instead, is deleting your personal attack above."

Don't make me laugh, you accused me of talking to you like a 6-year old. I treat everyone with the same respect they treat me with. Go look in a mirror. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 15:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

March 05[edit]

Category for cycling people in the Netherlands[edit]

In the Netherlands we distinguish between people who are using their bikes:

for transporting or recreation purposes, "fietsers" in Dutch; and
for competition sport purposes, "wielrenners" in Dutch.

"Wielrenners" could be a subcategory of "Fietsers" (all wielrenners are fietsers but not all fietsers are wielrenners).
For (2) wielrenners the Category:Cyclists from the Netherlands is in use.
Media with (1) fietsers are now in the main category Category:Cycling in the Netherlands, but I would like to make a subcategory for them, however I don't know how to name it.

My question: What would be a good name for cycling people (in the Netherlands or elsewhere) who are not using their bike for competition sport purposes? Could it be: Bicyclists in the Netherlands or Bicyclers in the Netherlands? Or would another name be appropriate? I guess this new category could be used for other countries as well, especially in flat areas. JopkeB (talk) 10:34, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@JopkeB: just cyclist, I think bicyclist is less common. The category you were looking for seems to be Category:People with bicycles by country. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

It's confusing. Can we move Category:Sports cycling in the Netherlands (unique) to Category:Cycle racing by country and rename it Category:Cycle racing in the Netherlands to match the peers there? Our system is confusing because we have Category:Cycling (general) and Category:Cycling (sport) (competitive racing), but the latter has subcategory Category:Cycle racing by country‎ (not Category:Sport cycling by country) and we have Category:Cyclists (but no Category:Sports cyclists). I wonder if we shouldn't follow swimming and use Category:Competitive cycling and Category:Competitive cyclists? - Themightyquill (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

My answer to the first question of Themightyquill: Yes, I agree that we can move Category:Sports cycling in the Netherlands to Category:Cycle racing by country and rename it Category:Cycle racing in the Netherlands. There is no description in this category and, as far as I can see, it should indeed be Cycle racing. JopkeB (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

This issue has been carried out by me. JopkeB (talk) 14:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Bicyclers is not generally considered an English word.
Cyclists is much more common than bicyclists.
We certainly use the terms "recreational cyclists" an "competitive cyclists", but I can't think of a term that generally covers people who use bicycles for transport. If they are going to work and back, they are "bike commuters" or less often "bicycle commuters"; if they are working professionally they are "bicycle messengers" (a term which generally covers even people who might be moving rapidly through a city transporting medical material, even though that is hardly a "message"). There are probably some other specific terms, but I can't think of anything in English that embraces all of these and excludes competitive cyclists. - Jmabel ! talk 17:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jmabel: isn't this the case with just about anything? What about fishing? Some people fish for fun/relaxation and throw back whatever they catch. Some people fish non-professionally to eat fish. Some people fish for a job and sell their catch. And some people fish for sport in a competitive manner. Interestingly, Category:Fishing tournaments is a subcategory of Category:Recreational fishing. Seems wrong? The other thing is at Category:Commercial fishing. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 10:14, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: Exactly. English draws the line in a different place than Dutch. We have no single word equivalent to "fietsers", assuming it has been described correctly above. If it includes everything from a bike messenger to a kid in a driveway, but excludes both amateur and professional racers, we don't have a word for that. - Jmabel ! talk 16:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

No, "fietsers" does not exclude amateur and professional racers, they are also included in it. My conclusion from the discussion above is that [[:Category:Cyclists] should be the correct parent category, not just for racers. But it might be a hell of a job to get there. JopkeB (talk) 19:08, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

The usual phrases used in English (at least in the campaigning world) are "utility cyclist" and "utility cycling". --bjh21 (talk) 10:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz:, @Themightyquill:, @Jmabel:, @Bjh21: Thanks for all your research, suggestions and other remarks. My conclusion for now is to opt for a pragmatic solution: I'll make new categories for "utility cyclists" and "recreational cyclists" (both for the Netherlands and general) and perhaps combine both for the Netherlands because it is not always clear on a picture which of the two has been depicted. "Utility cycling" might have a lot of overlap with "utility cyclists", so I'll leave that for now. Wether Category:Cyclists should have such a profound change as Themightyquill suggests: perhaps, but I think that this first requires a regular discussion of this category. JopkeB (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

This morning I found Category:Cycling people, with subcategories for all kind of people (men, women, children, some occupations). And I found Category:Walking people in the Netherlands. So I thought Cycling people in the Netherlands would be a good solution for my problem. Simple and all types of cycling people fit in it: recreational, utility and racing cyclists. So in the end I did not need to make categories for "utility cyclists" and "recreational cyclists". JopkeB (talk) 17:36, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

March 06[edit]

Import of Canadian weather data, request for comments[edit]

Good day Commons,

At the end of last year, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Wikimedia Canada decided to explore possible synergies between Wikimedia projects and the federal agency. A first reflexion brought ended around the data produced by ECCC and distributed under an open licence on their website.

As such, we have created tools allowing to convert official historical data to the JSON format required for their integration on Wikimedia Commons. The inclusion of weather data on Commons is not a novelty since a similar work has already been done in the United States from the data of nceii.noaa.gov. The basic principle of this import is to reuse the same data structure which will allow to keep the compatibility with existing templates on different Wikimedia projects.

An important point is that those tools are available for everybody and were developed to allow to keep the data updated in the future.

The data proposed to be imported were published on a Git repository. Today, I launch a call for comments regarding the integration of those data on Commons. The structure tree would be comprised as such:

the weather.gc.ca/Monthly/4026175.tab file for example would be imported on Commons as Data:Weather.gc.ca/Monthly/4026175.tab. The identifier “4026175” of the resource is a reference to a stable code given by ECCC for each weather station.

A few notes on the conversion process and the final result:

ECCC distributes its data under four level of details: hourly, daily, monthly, and an almanac^[1]. For now, only the last two are proposed to be imported because they mostly correspond to the needs of the templates on different Wikimedia projects. Nonetheless, if the community decides that the other levels of granularity are pertinent, it is very possible to add them before the publication.
In order to ensure a high level of quality of the data published on Commons, all values are tested before being added. In particular the values that are obviously aberrant (unreal temperatures, negative precipitations, etc.) are eliminated. As such, the data on Commons would be a subset of the data published by ECCC.
The contributors that are familiar with the structured data on Commons may have notice the presence of an unusual field “wikicode”. This is linked to a proposed modification to the JsonConfig Extension that will allow to add categories (as per Mediawiki categories) to the data, among other things. If this modification is rejected by the development team, this field would simply be deleted.

I take the opportunity of this message to mention that not all the descriptions of the columns are currently translated in other languages than English and French. If you are able to make translations into other languages, I would be very happy to include your work before the import of the final data.

(the same topic has been opened today on Common's Bistro - if you're familiar with french language, you can follow it there too)

Peuc (talk) 18:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I personally support the inclusion of weather data on Wikimedia Commons as such datasets have a very high educational value, especially for climate research. But while historically we used to have a bot that uploaded such maps, I think that not everyone would welcome such data. Maybe the request to have such data included on Wikimedia Commons again should be raised at the proposals village pump. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:22, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Donald Trung: thanks for your message and your support. As you've probably noticed, the proposal is not about importing maps/images but raw, structured, and finite historical dataset like this. Following your advice, I'm currently looking for past discussions concerning weather data (in the broadest sense of the term) and I've only found the one you're mentioning back in 2005, and this one. Can you point me to threads stating about this kind of import, that I may have missed? Thanks again for your help. Peuc (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Peuc:, I am honestly not aware of most of these discussions, but if you believe that there may or may not be any "COM:SCOPE" issues with these imports you can always propose it at the proposals village pump (which I would recommend). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Donald Trung: I've opened a topic on Village pump proposals. Peuc (talk) 15:45, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I am not familiar with how weather data is handled, but have you been involved with d:Wikidata:WikiProject Weather observations/en? From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore: In fact, both of this projects originates from the same people, so yes Peuc is involved with it. Thanks for your interest, Dirac (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

References

↑ The almanac is a compilation of record data (i.e. extremes) by day

March 07[edit]

Why?[edit]

Why is the interface recently (today?) changed, so wikidata-properties need to be confirmed on the left side of the box, instead of at the right side? It happened to me every single time that I now press automatically on the "explanation button", opening browser windows I don't want nor need. Who is deciding on these user interface changes? And why are they made. All I can tell that this is absolutely annoying and not necessary. Edoderoo (talk) 17:53, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The first image I wanna change today ... same issue :-( ... please do not change the user interface, unless you want to aggrevate your long term users. Edoderoo (talk) 08:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

About which interface are you talking? Wouter (talk) 16:49, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I assume that by "wikidata-properties", Edoderoo means structured data. I cannot say I had noticed before, but having the save button on the left is the default position in regular wiki-editing. Perhaps they wanted to make structured data editing look more like regular editing? --HyperGaruda (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

They should have done that from the start. After 1000 edits my mechanics click automatically on the wrong box, which is extremely irritating. Edoderoo (talk) 22:38, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

March 09[edit]

How do I make irrelevant tag suggestions go away?[edit]

Special:SuggestedTags#user keeps on requesting that I add: winter, glacial landform, slope, glacier, sky, snow, and mountain to File:Biochar pile in tarp.jpg even tho none of those things are depicted and it also already has structured data that I applied to it upon upload. What weird robot thinks this is a photo of a mountain and how do I make it go away? Similarly, File:Biochar made at convergence 2016.jpg does not depict composting, Earl Grey tea, compost, soil, or plant. This seems like by far the biggest screw up I have ever seen from the Wikimedia Foundation. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@RIsler (WMF): as you seem to be the outward-facing point person for this. Apologies if you're not. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for letting us know. We'll soon be adding the ability to do an "all these tags are incorrect" action and remove the image from your list of uploaded images that have been analyzed. It is an unfortunate side effect of AI image analysis that it sometimes gets things wrong. This is why we don't automatically apply the data to the images, and instead ask users to confirm. If you'd like to opt out of the tool entirely, you can go to Preferences -> Notifications and uncheck "Suggested tags for Review" RIsler (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@RIsler (WMF): Thanks. I am very interested in structured data applied to our media, so I would prefer to be (pardon the language) "inside the tent peeing out" rather than "outside the tent peeing in". Again, I appreciate the efforts being made here but this seems like it is not going very well. I don't want to be negative or dour but this is a very uneven and confusing deployment. I've never seen anything like this in 17 years on Wikimedia Foundation projects (except maybe the Mood Bar). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@RIsler (WMF): Could you please (programmatically) suspend all editing of SDC until all known issues are fixed? The situation is troublesome as it is. My own main issue is a bot adding SDC to files on my watch list. On sunday within 7 hours, while I was away taking photos, the bot made 5 edits each to more than 400 files in my watchlist (>2000 edits). Had the bot also been able to extract the author information from this 400 files (which the bot managee with other files), than it would have been 9 edits per file. This means, that even if I choose "only bot edits" and "only last edit of a file" I will not been able to see, if one of the files in my watchlist was edited by another bot in these 7 hours, if it was later edited by the SDC bot. Important information for me may have been lost forever. It renders the watclist useless (not to forget the more than 400 mails, that were generated). This will repeat with the other 25000+ files on my watchlist, and it will repeat once camera model SDC is addd, once pixe resolution is added, once file size is added, once exposure time is added, oncew f number is added, once iso rating is added, once focal length is added, ... --C.Suthorn (talk) 13:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, @C.Suthorn:. Although we can't suspend SDC edits, we can potentially disable watch list notifications for SDC edits from bots only (no guarantees, but we think this is feasible). If we were able to make that change for SDC bot notifications, would that improve things for you? RIsler (WMF) (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

IMHO that would be a real improvement. --C.Suthorn (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Old upload[edit]

Is there something wrong with the Old Upload? My uploads haven't been working lately. The Upload Wizard hasn't worked any better. Sardaka (talk) 08:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sardaka: try Special:Upload. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 13:08, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

PetScan question[edit]

I tried to figure out how to use PetScan with it's manual. I want see all files that are listed in bot categories (eg. CC-BY-SA-3.0 and CC-BY-SA-4.0). As far as I understood this should work and yet it does not display any result (to switch the Combination didn't do anything for me). Anybody got some ideas?
--D-Kuru (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I must confirm this and opened an issue ticket in Github: Petscan apparently stopped working. — Speravir – 02:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

… for which it turned out that I made serious mistakes myself. D-Kuru you should test with smaller categories where you know you have to expect some intersection results. You made (at least) one mistake I made, too: You forgot to activate File namespace in Page properties tab. — Speravir – 19:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Was about to continue, but get a "504 Gateway Time-out" for petscan :-(

@Speravir: I actually tested it with two categires I know share some images (CC-BY-SA-2.0-AT and CC-BY-SA-3.0-AT). I tested it with the checkmark on the File enabled, but it didn't work again. I have to recheck when petscan is online again.

--D-Kuru (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Speravir: PetScan is back up again.
Add File namespace in Page properties tab: I thought the tick in place means any and that you can limit the output. If you tick the File it seems to work.
Union seems to be display if files are in category A OR B (it looks like a large category where both are collected). Intersection seems to be display if files are in category A AND B.
So even I was not successfull on my own, with your help I managed to get it going! I think I will add this to the list of examples and sharpen the manual a bit.
--D-Kuru (talk) 08:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, union and intersection are from the set theory concept. — Speravir – 19:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in the Netherlands[edit]

This map makes it look as if all of Drenthe and Limburg is infected.]
This map is better, but these regions are still too large.
This image shows the infected areas on March 5th (fifth), but according to this map Texel could be infected, while the GGD-based map debunks this.
This model would be way more suitable for the Netherlands as well, using the country's municipalities.

I noticed that most maps of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in the Netherlands only depict the infections based on the 12 (twelve) provinces of the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the other map is based on GGD data. Something similar happens to maps of Switzerland about the SARS-CoV-2 there. I would suggest using maps of municipalities (or whatever is the smallest political division) if more accurate data is available.

I noticed that some maps used a country's largest subdivisions while others used its smallest. While preferably both should be included, maybe some people better at making these vector maps than I am could make them all based on the smallest divisions for each country as opposed to using the largest divisions, as this would be more representative of the actually affected areas. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 18:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Should be always the smallest, of course. But this not a matter of Commons policy, is it?, it’s a matter for individual map creators and reuser communities, namely in Wikipedias. (Incidentally, the same concerning this PT map, using the 18 districts instead of the 308 municipalities, and, even wronger, indicating places of hospitalization instead outbreak locations…) -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 13:07, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

March 10[edit]

Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Real-Time-Results[edit]

If you are interested in real-time-results for POTY round 1 visit Commons:Picture of the Year/2019/Real-Time-Results. You can sort the results by clicking on the top row of the table. Enjoy! -- Eatcha (talk) 08:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for setting this up, Eatcha. This came up on IRC (pinging Zhuyifei1999) before realizing you set this up. I think it's a neat page, but I think it would be best not to publicize this too widely or it'll affect the outcome (greater distance between top and bottom, and more significant impact of an early lead). — Rhododendrites ^talk | 19:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to delete the page. You are free to analyze your results yourself or publish your list of results after the end date, but I do not think real time results is acceptable. CC committee @Christian Ferrer, Steinsplitter, -revi: --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Eatcha: Oh if you wanna help: Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Looking_for_someone_to_take_my_part_in_POTY --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 20:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I was planning but this setback doesn't motivates me. There's no evidence that it was affecting voters in an unwanted manner, but action was taken based on opinions only and no evidence was provided.
Does anyone remember PewDiePie vs T-Series ? T-Series was a clear winner considering the population of The Indian subcontinent, but there were various real-time subscriber counters, were they playing the disstrack "Bitch lasagna" ? Yes, some of them. What were the outcomes ? PewDiePie got dethroned as expected, live results couldn't affect the outcome. Peace //Eatcha (talk) 05:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

There is no evidence because you cannot perform a controlled, randomized experiment. However, Does Knowing Whom Others Might Vote For Change Whom You’ll Vote For? - FiveThirtyEight might be relevant. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: Yes, one can think that this page can potentially influence voters, by highlighting certain images, I support deletion. Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 21:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Post-action endorsement. — regards, Revi 17:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposing new section to Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Help[edit]

I'm thinking of something like:

Are there results for contest before a round ends?[edit]

No. We don't want the results to influence voters and cause a more significant impact of an early lead. We will publish all the voting statistics after a round ends. You may however analyze the candidate vote pages yourself in whichever method you like, but we are strongly against publishing such results before the end of the round.

--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

+1 fine Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 21:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

+1 --11:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'll wait a day for any wording suggestions before I mark for translation --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I still think the live results can't influence the voters, the results were accurate (about 4.5 minutes accuracy) and not fake/biased. I'm not asking anybody to vote for my uploads. In reality if you guys were analyzing the results, the number of images with 0 votes decreased drastically in the time-period when my results weren't deleted. The data is publicly available, not that I am getting the data illegally. I remember a similar incident with FPC results, I had created a web-app to display number of FPs per user, incl. nominated + uploaded with percentage. I was asked to take the site down by 2 users, including an admin with similar accusation, the site is still down and I have no motivation to start the service again. Did anything change at FPC ? Certainly not, but it's getting harder to track the number of FPs per user. I am not publicizing anyone's name, not a case for oversight or anything else. If you think that the position in a list is luring voters to vote for a certain image, what about positions of images in Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/R1/Gallery/Settlements all the galleries ? and Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Candidates ? The first image will certainly be noticed by more users. //Eatcha (talk) 03:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Nobody said or consider that you have made this page to influence voters to vote for your uploads, or even for other specific images. We just think that such a ranking can push people to choose their favorites among the images that are most likely to win, a kind of selection before the selection normally made by the round 1.... Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 05:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Position in Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/R1/Gallery/Settlements is randomized per user unless you don't have JS... ~~in which case it is sill randomized but globally.~~ Correction: At one point it was sorted by time of FP; I think I should add shuffling to the Lua code... Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Candidates is not a voting gallery. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 05:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Does it implies if I sort the list randomly then there's no problem with having a live result page. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Then you must not show the number of votes and must not permit sorting, in which case, I don't see the utilization of that. And when you are in doubt, ask. A live contest is not a good place to be bold in. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Fair, but maybe voters should have some more freedom to sort according to their own free will. Aren't we making it harder by asking them to choose from 1000s of random images with no power to sort the candidates by number of votes or uploader. When you buy something online, wouldn't you want to sort the list according to your requirements ? Everyone should have the right to vote easily, sorting makes it easier. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Online shopping is neither a poll nor a contest --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, unless sellers think they are competing on those platforms, in which case, the platforms are not inclined in any way to make the 'contest' fair. Getting more revenue is more priority than making the sellers that think they are a competition platform happy. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Polls on Twitter ? Facebook ? They all display live results or news sites ? Major online surveys have real time results facilities. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

A lot of polls only show results after the person votes. Many of them are just a poll and are not a major one that tries to be fair. No randomization, for example. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Still, there's no evidence that live results creates unwanted bias. The allegations are based on personal opinions. -- Eatcha (talk) 06:51, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I have addressed this. Special:Diff/403296558/403297691. You have not responded and just repeated your point. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 07:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this discussion's outcome, is going to change. Thanks for answering my questions. // 07:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I tend to think that deletion was a bit much. I don't think it should be in the POTY space or linked from the POTY pages anywhere (nor from VP, etc.), but it's well within reason for an individual user to collect/organize publicly visible statistics in their userspace. Anyone can click to each voting page in a category and note the status, after all. — Rhododendrites ^talk | 18:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I also think that deleting that page was too much. The bot was just scraping publicly available data in Eatcha's own userspace. What is wrong with that? If we don't want the results to be publicly available, let's hide them. --Podzemnik (talk) 01:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Rhododendrites and Podzemnik. The table is based on public information and Eatcha is free to publish it in his user namespace. --A.Savin 02:45, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Should I move that to my user space (e.g. [[User:Eatcha]] ?) and start updating the results ? After 22nd March (just 10 days), no one would care about the results of round 1 (including me). -- Eatcha (talk) 05:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
As the page is now deleted and only admins can check that page. Here are past year's POTY list User:Eatcha/POTY-2018-Round-1-Results User:Eatcha/POTY-2018-Round-2-Results -- Eatcha (talk) 06:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead with userspace; I'm not going to break your userspace. However, make it clear that 1. it's not endorsed by the committee 2. it is inaccurate (doesn't check eligibility, for example) 3. and absolutely no advertising. No "linking from the POTY pages anywhere (nor from VP, etc.)". Let's not make the contest a game of cryptography. Yes releasing cryptographically-verifiable results (i.e. you can trustlessly verify the results against the encrypted votes) only after the contest ends is fully within my capability, but it's a lot of work for me and it would be really bad for anyone who don't use the POTY gadget, either because they are on mobile or they don't have JS, and be very difficult to check manually. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 06:27, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think a lot of users will try to cast fake votes (at least I won't), because there's no prize (AFAIK). But as the page is in my user-space and it's not officially part of POTY-2019, I don't need to care about it. I created the page but I will not link that here, someone may consider that an act of advertising. I also requested a bot task because I don't want further disputes or any kind of unwanted deletions in my user-space. I am not linking the BRFA because someone may have an opinion that it's a secondary type of advertising. Peace //Eatcha (talk) 09:31, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
@Eatcha: "However, make it clear that 1. it's not endorsed by the committee 2. it is inaccurate (doesn't check eligibility, for example)" --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:56, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Zhuyifei User:Eatcha/Disclaimer -- Eatcha (talk) 15:31, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. ~~LGTM.~~ Mind including it on the page, before the table? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

"may, from time to time, contain errors". It is faulty. It doesn't check eligibility. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Although it's not a standard practice to add disclaimer at the top I added the important stuff at the top with bigger disclaimer at the bottom of the page . The disclaimer is up-to standards and covers all types of errors. // Eatcha (talk) 16:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Podzemnik: As you wish: Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2019/Committee#Cryptography_proposal --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

PNG files with white borders either side[edit]

I want to upload some high art png files. They come with white or checkered borders either side of the images, think these are supposed to be transparent. Sometimes they are black, usually the original web page host is black too in that case, think they are not transparent. I never see any of the above in commons, should I crop them off? Broichmore (talk) 10:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hard to say without seeing them first, but (assuming copyrights are in order), there is nothing wrong with having two versions under different filenames, as we do on plenty of historical images. You can link with {{Other}} or with {{Derivative work}} + {{Derived from}} in the "other versions" section of {{Information}}. - Jmabel ! talk 17:40, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Cropping PNG is lossless, and since the border does not actually add anything to the image, but you want to keep the history, I would just upload first the initial version, and then right after that upload a cropped version over the top of it. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 21:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Incorrectly Categorised Photos[edit]

What should one do when discovering a photo incorrectly categorised? I noticed which is not of "Tunanmarca" (as per category and I have no idea what it is of. I am worried about just removing the existing category and it just becoming "lost in limbo". But "Tunanmarca" is wrong ... so what sould one do under such circumstances? The general question is what to do about such photos (i.e. for this and any others I notice). This image is used by French WikiVoyage for Hyancayo and Tunanmarca is Jauja not Hyancayo anyway. (which is some distance from Tunanmarca). PsamatheM (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

If the category is wrong then find the closest alternative that you know is accurate. In this case I would go with Category:Ruins of buildings as I can't see what basis either the editor here or the editor at French Wikipedia had for saying this was in Peru. It would have been useful if they had expanded the description with any evidence they found of the location. I'd advise placing a copy of this discussion on the file's talk page so the reasoning for your change is clear to future editors. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

There are also "Unidentified" categories like Category:Unidentified buildings where, theoretically, someone who wanted to do some detective work might look for images to categorize. – BMacZero (🗩) 20:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. Done (Both suggested categories). But mainly now I know what to do in future (i.e. search for an appropriate "Unidentified ..." category) PsamatheM (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

It's probably in or near Maroulas in Crete, judging by User:Rethymnon-Martin's two other uploads listed at de:Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/Archiv:Datei-Logbuch/20041028, namely File:Maroulas.JPG and File:Maroulas2.JPG. --ghouston (talk) 06:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I removed this wrong photo from the fr.Wv page, along with another that shows the map of a river in south Brazil and was yet captioned as being an Andean railway map… -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:51, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ghouston’s assumption is quite reasonable. Note that the username of the original uploader ist Rethymnon-Martin. Rethymno(n) is a city and a region on Crete, and Maroulas is a village in this region. — Speravir – 01:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

March 11[edit]

Wikidata & Commons event in Ulm, Germany[edit]

Hello all,

I wanted to let you know about the Wikidata Wochenende, a week-end dedicated to working on Wikidata-related projects that will take place in Ulm, Germany, on June 12-14. We are especially looking forward to welcome Commons editors, people working on Wikidata-powered templates or Structured Data. The event, held in German, will be the occasion for you to meet other people working with Wikidata, learning new skills and sharing yours.

If you're interested, you can read more about the details and the funding possibilities here. Please help me sharing the information to people who could be interested. Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Categorising of ships/watercraft[edit]

An example of such a category: Green Ridge (ship, 1998)

There seems to be some differing opinions on how categories for individual ships, boats and watercraft should be categorised. The way it has been until fairly recently, is that these ship categories (for each name a ship has had in its lifetime) have been put into more or less all relevant categories: for type of ship, building year, building place (country, city or ship yard), IMO or ENI number or similar where that applies, later also for port of registry, and so on.

Lately a few users have started removing several of these categories, with the argument to "avoid overcategorisation". First the categories for building place and then building year (which, it has to be said, is visible in the category name for each ship anyway) have been relegated to the category for the ship's IMO number. Now one user is also removing the category of ships by country (e.g. "Ships of Portugal") on the grounds that it is unnecessary because there is a category for the ship's home port (e.g. "Ships registered in Lisbon").

I do see a logic in this. In general we try to categorise at the lowest maintainable level. Not doing so is technically overcategorisation. And when a ship has an official registry number, like IMO or ENI, that number will remain the same even though the ship's name changes, so there is definitely a point in connecting that number to relevant categories.

But I still think we are losing some important oversight if we are removing or hiding parts of the categories for vital information about the ships. It won't be obvious to all users that (for instance) Siófok is a town in Hungary and thus making the ship registered there Hungarian. And it certainly won't be obvious to everyone that they'll have to click on the ship's IMO number to find where it was built or when it was scrapped. And at least to me, a category containing just IMO numbers (pretty much like Category:Ships scrapped in Alang) makes little sense. A name and building year tells the user something just on oversight, a 7-digit IMO number does not.

Many of the practices here on Commons come about without discussion. Often individual users decide to start doing things a certain way, and others accept it and follow suit. I do that, too. But in this case I think we need to have an informed discussion before we make any lasting changes. Blue Elf (talk) 11:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle. I'm no fan of over-categorisation either, having said that the development of wikidata is gathering apace.

If these categories are going to disappear because they're caught in the IMO number, then perhaps the Wikidata Infobox should be enhanced to display in lieu the information you want.

On a slightly different note, we don't seem to be taking into account any kind of compatibility with Wikipedia, its ship articles and more importantly it's disambiguation pages. Example: Wikipedia identifies a ship by its launch date and displays a ship's multiple completion dates (If known).

Our role has morphed into providing images for use in Wikipedia, and our catting should be tailored to maximising visibility to that end. Our presence, where we have a category, should be made known there with a commons link, for every ship's article where possible. We need to tailor our categorisations in the certain knowledge that the public's start point for research and reading lies with Wikipedia and not commons. Proof of that is the decline here in the creation of Gallery and Disambiguation pages. We still need to categorize in an attempt to identify unknown ships, by sail or steam, mast and or funnel. bow and stern shape. However we seem to spend more resource catting oil, litho, etching, drawing and watercolour. Just saying...

Of course someone going to say that we cater for others outside of Wikipedia, true, but if we can cater adequately for the Wiki, others are handled too by default. Broichmore (talk) 14:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Captions?[edit]

Hi, I retired like 3 years ago, and just returned now. I see this weird "captions" thing in all File: pages. What's the purpose of this new thing? When did this thing got implemented in Commons? Isn't the description in the {{Information}} template enough? I don't understand. Should we copy-paste the text in the description to the captions (as long as they fit the character limit that is)? If yes, is it possible to automate this (since most descriptions use the language templates like {{en}})? Thanks, pandakekok9 11:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

TBH, it's best ignored. Of course it's a vandal magnet because they don't show up when you hover over the "diff" in your watchlist, so they can escape scrutiny. Rodhullandemu (talk) 11:41, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

They are a huge blot on the project and nobody is even clear why. It's as intrusive as if someone backed up a Coca-cola van to be in shot on every photograph you can take of an open charity event. --Fæ (talk) 11:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Yep, ignore it — that’s what all the cool kids are doing. And welcome back. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 12:53, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

It's described here. I've experimented with it and have found no practical use or added value for it. It doesn't supply a suggested title for a wikipedia caption, and I'm not aware that it has improved the search function either, in fact in my experiments it flatly did not. Perhaps Jean-Frédéric can enlighten us. Broichmore (talk) 13:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Broichmore: The actually useful description is at Commons talk:File captions#A complete and utter failure and its appendix at User:Alexis Jazz/Fixed captions are bloody useless. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 13:39, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Pandakekok9: Captions are part of Structured Data on Commons and were deployed in January 2019. Captions are akin to item descriptions on Wikidata; they are snippets of descriptive wikitext stored in Wikibase here on Commons. Captions serve as both a descriptive and disambiguation tool for structured data; as tools are built to pull out file information from structured data without showing the file itself captions can help make a determination as to what a file is when there is ambiguity. They are multilingual and translatable without needing knowledge of wikitext templates.

As to the question about why captions are not populated by existing descriptions, there are couple of reasons. First, captions are released under a CC-0 license and the creative threshold for a description may be beyond what CC-0 will allow. Files need human review to make that determination. The second reason is that there are a significant number of files on Commons without a meaningful description. For example, the third image returned to me from random file just now. Copying over this description wouldn't help anything, really, so another reason to not trust a bot. I don't think there's a script written at the moment for you to help copy your own descriptions into captions, so a manual copy and paste is the workflow for now. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Is that «the workflow» for now? Let’s say it is a workflow. Another, as said above, is to ignore the whole thing altogether. @Keegan (WMF): Interesting example case by one of Commons’ most prolific uploaders, to exemplify useless descriptions. If you hadn’t said it was random, I’d think it was picked to make a subtle point. Yet the file in question, even though its description is useless and redundant («Photo uploaded by PicBackMan»), has its contents fully identified by means of its categories. And we don’t need anything else: We most often don’t really need descriptions and we certainly do not need “captions”. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 18:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 12[edit]

Full colour 3D models on Wikimedia projects[edit]

Hi all

If you'd like full colour 3D models to be available on Wikimedia projects please subscribe to this phabricator task to show that it is a feature people want.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T246901

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

March 13[edit]

Why mobile access of Commons redirected to https://foundation.wikimedia.org/ ?[edit]

Is this a bug? Note: Main Page only, as visiting any other pages are normal. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: I am not experiencing this behavior, either through my mobile device or mobile web-on-desktop. Are you still seeing the issue? I believe under certain circumstances there are some web error messages that redirect the site during brief communication outages (whether localized or at large scale), you might have seen something like that if the problem has resolved on its own. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I am also experiencing this issue, it's really odd. I load the page as "https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard" and then it redirects me to the Wikimedia Foundation UploadWizard, while I am not experiencing this on my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile), I am (consistently m) experiencing this on my Elephone P8 Mini (Google's Android). On Android I need to go back to the previous tab and then it opens up the desktop version of the MediaWiki Upload Wizard. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 00:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The reverse of "some consensus for removal" for Commons:Administrators/De-adminship?[edit]

Commons:Administrators/De-adminship states "De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible."

This has been an issue for a long time now, because a request effectively can't be started before its outcome is already a foregone conclusion. When there is a serious argument, there are always some people who want the admin's head, some people who think the admin did nothing wrong and (frequently) a majority who either doesn't know, doesn't want to upset anyone or doesn't want to mess up the relation with a fellow admin who probably won't be desysopped anyway, even if they strongly disagree with the action.

In practice this leads to an admin gradually losing more and more support of their fellow admins (if their bad behavior continues) until the bucket tips over and they get desysoppped in a firestorm.

What if, instead of requiring "some consensus for removal", we would require "some consensus to keep the admin" in order not to start a de-adminship request? If almost nobody is willing to defend the admin when the idea of a desysop is brought up, I think it's time for a desysop request. At the same time, the original reason this rule was made in the first place (to stop frivolous requests for de-adminship) would be preserved. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 13:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I've long thought this should be explicitly changed to a "consensus to open a deadmin discussion". I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I might not personally think someone should be desysoped, but that there is enough doubt cast/uncertainty among the community that there should be a formal structured site-wide discussion, this is especially the case when an unstructured discussion at a place like ANU just devolves into protracted bickering among a handful of involved parties.

Many people don't watch the dramaboards, or don't participate even if they do, especially when things have gotten to the point where it requires pages of reading to have an informed opinion.

At the same time, a deadminship discussion is essentially an abbreviated RfC on adminship, and I think that's how we should treat it. You don't need a consensus for the outcome of an RfC in order to open one. In fact, opening an RfC where there is already consensus would be fairly disruptive and time wasting. But what you do need is prior local discussion that raises sufficient issues to warrant an RfC. GMG ^talk 13:21, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The effective double vote process is bizarre. The process should be reviewed, eliminating the WP:Super Mario effect.

At the end of the day, the worst that might happen is a frivolous nomination in a RFA vote. By definition what happens in the community vote cannot be unfair nor of itself frivolous. --Fæ (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - Harrie Smolders Vestrum[edit]

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 WMF 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:Harrie_Smolders_Vestrum.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#Harrie Smolders Vestrum. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

If it was anything like File:Harrie Smolders Vestrum Team.jpg where Thomas Reiner is in the EXIF data as the author, that was a definite copyvio. Nominated the two other photographs for deletion Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Zacumein since EXIF data is not conclusive, but in light of the small picture size and the copyvios, they look suspicious. Abzeronow (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Notification of DMCA takedown demand - The Weeknd[edit]

Affected file(s):

File:The_Weeknd_August_2017.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

To discuss this DMCA takedown, please go to COM:DMCA#The Weeknd. Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Did anyone take them up on their offer to permit use of these substitute files under a CC license: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4nqkih3kho3ji3/_N9A3803.jpg?dl=0 and / or https://www.dropbox.com/s/0scet933xnxppu5/_N9A4174.jpg?dl=0 ? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:07, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

They would not be allowed anyway, SMcCandlish. They specify the license would have to be "limited, non-commercial and revocable". — Huntster (t @ c) 22:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 15[edit]

Any problem with this upload I made?[edit]

Hello, I would like to know if this image I put on the page has any problem, the way I put it. Mário NET (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mário NET: How can it have a different date than the image it was cropped from?

You presumably ought to link User:Pet~commonswiki in the "author" field of {{Information}}.

If attribution to User:Pet~commonswiki is required, that is certainly unclear from your page, where it would look like you are saying you need to be attributed. You should add "author=[[User:Pet~commonswiki|Pet~commonswiki]]" to {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}.

This version and the original should be linked by {{Derived from}} and {{Derivative works}} in the "other versions" field of {{Information}}.

This of course all assumes that the original image is OK. Jmabel ! talk 04:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I put Pet ~ commonswiki as author of the image. Mário NET (talk) 08:16, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

User license tag for a specific purpose, and "machine readability"[edit]

I created User:SMcCandlish/Templates/McCandlish Tartans License, to thwart a particular kind of failure to acknowledge authorship (or even fraudulent misrepresentation thereof). The license is actually more permissive than usual (it doesn't even require individual attribution; either no attribution, or attribution by at least surname, under any spelling thereof; the only thing

verboten

is false attribution to another individual, organization, or family name). This would seem like an unnecessary thing to specify, but there have been various instances of woollen mills and other textile companies stealing a design they like from an individual or small family, and marketing it under an unrelated name of a more numerous group, to sell more tartan cloth and kilts. Concerns about "poaching" or "usurping" of tartans was the main impetus for the Scottish government finally setting up an official register of them in 2009 (taking over from various mostly defunct non-profit organisations).

I've had images like File:McCandlish, red, 1255x1255 square.png flagged for speedy deletion for having an "invalid" license on them (which the tagger removed, which in turn resulted in distribution of the image, including via en.Wikipedia.org, without the licensing information that pertain to it). I've since learned that the license was not in the prescribed section (since fixed, though this is really the fault of the upload form; see thread below), and that a "machine readable" license tag is required, either in addition to this one, or by way of modifying this one somehow.

So, what exactly needs to be machine-readable, and in what way? I know my way around template coding. I would rather not add something like CC-By to this, since that license is technically more restrictive than mine (requiring complete attribution to me, the author, in particular).
— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think I've found what I was looking for: Commons:Machine-readable data#Machine readable data set by non-copyright restriction templates defines some COinS-style metadata spans, which will be easy enough to implement. However, I don't find any policy requiring this, and lack of it doesn't appear to be a deletion criterion. Indeed, Category:Files with no machine-readable license has a bazillion entries in it, and a note atop it that various standard Commons licenses don't yet comply with this metadata scheme. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yep, the metadata tagging instructions at that page worked; the upgraded license is now sufficiently machine-readable to prevent categorization as missing a license or having an invalid one, at least if it's in the right section of the page. It was unnecessarily difficult to find the information, though. Some reference to Commons:Machine-readable data (and to Category:User custom license tags should probably appear anywhere we're mentioning custom user license tagging. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Another, possibly sometimes simpler solution to something like this would be to offer {{Cc-by-sa 4.0}} as an alternative license. - Jmabel ! talk 00:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Covering events - how many files do we need?[edit]

I wonder how many photos we should have about each sporting events. For example Category:2020 - SCCL Chawton House. I would suggest 50-100 of the best but atm. there are more than 2100 and new photos are still being added. That makes me wonder if we have or should have some sort of limit. There are perhaps 10 million events every year and if we add 2000 photos (and some videos) of them all then we will have a huge amount every year. @Ser Amantio di Nicolao:. --MGA73 (talk) 21:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

My own feeling: as many as we can get, from as many angles as possible. I like finding large collections of images from events, sporting and otherwise - I think they can provide an in-depth view that's not always available to viewers and/or users. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

A problem you will have with limiting them is deciding on which is "best." We would have to set up a whole new deletion process to determine which ones make the cut and the consensus could change on a whim. One year a clique forms to protect a set of images they deem as the best and a year later a new clique forms and deletes the previous set in favour of a new set of "best" photos. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I concur with From Hill To Shore and Ser Amantio di Nicolao. WMF isn't going to run out of disk space any time soon. And the premise is obviously fallacious anyway: given ~X number of events per year, and given that for some very small fraction of them we have will have > Y photos, it cannot logically be concluded that we will have > (X × Y) photos of events per year. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2020/02#Excessive number of images? - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 19:37, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Categories should have no limits, except in being divided into subcats.... for the images that someone thinks are worth showcasing create a gallery page then highlight the key aspects and the "best" photos as we do with many subjects. see Perth Gnan garra 02:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Upload form needs a fix, for custom licenses[edit]

The "?" help pop-up at the "Permission:" line in the Upload Your Own Work form instructs those using a custom license to put it in "Permissions:" and subst it. The section below this for license tags, "License:", is nothing but a drop-down selection of existing license tags. Thus, if you follow these instructions you end up with a license tag in the "Permission" part of the "Description" block, and an empty "License" section, and people or bots will flag your images for deletion as not having a license tag despite them having one. So, either the upload form needs to change, or some other process does. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

From your thread above you mention that some editors are removing your licence from the permissions section and then marking your files for deletion. That should not be happening. As a first step, discuss it with the user involved. If they do not agree to stop then take it to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. At worst, the editor should move your licence from one part of the page to another, not remove it entirely.

If it is a case of the editor thinking you are using an invalid licence, then discuss that with them and bring in other editors from the Village Pump if you can't reach consensus among yourselves. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not looking to escalate it as some kind of "behavioral" thing; I think it was just a misunderstanding. My point here is that the upload form says and does one thing, but it seems that the community and perhaps license patrolling bots want another thing, so this conflict should be fixed (e.g. by changing the bot and human expectations of where a user license can be placed on the page, or changing the upload scripts to put it in the prescribed "License" section and change the "?" icons' pop-up help to reflect that change). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC); revised 19:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I agree with From Hill To Shore. No user or bot should be nominating files for deletion simply because the license isn't in the exact spot they expect it. Kaldari (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but that doesn't fix the underlying issue: the mismatch between the form's instructions/behavior, and what is actually expected/wanted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

if you choose in the upload wizard "this file is not my own work" a selection will unfold with the last option a free input field. enter your own license template in this field and klick on the test button on the right side to see, if the license template is displayed correctly. fill out also the input field for source (With {own}) and author (with your name, then go on. the license will be displayed in the license section like a standard license. --C.Suthorn (talk) 12:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I was not using the Upload Wizard (who does, besides noobs?), nor if I had been would I have selected "This file is not my own work" since it is my own work (otherwise I would not be entitled to put a custom user license on it in the first place). So, that comment doesn't appear to relate to this thread. Again, this is about the Upload Your Own Work form. Even if there is a way to "game" the UW's "This file is not my own work" to trick it into properly inserting a license in the right section, for something that actually is one's own work, that's actually another bug! An instruction to use that exploit does not resolve the original bug I'm reporting, is not good advice, and is not a part of the documented upload processes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 16[edit]

Would a RFC on limited time hosting under fair use for exceptionally high value pandemic related files be worth trying?[edit]

Testing the water for whether it would be worth posting a RfC to allow a Wikimedia Commons Fair Use for a strictly limited time and only for truly exceptionally high value media files to inform and educate about the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have in mind exceptional educational videos which may be only available on Non-Commercial licenses or No-Derivatives licenses and even 3D model files for printing respirator valves.

These files could be hosted on a special Fair Use template, with very visible warnings that they are hosted as fair use only, and will be deleted in a few months time when they are no longer considered of immediate exceptional value.

This is a vague description, a full RfC would need more detail and address questions raised here. --Fæ (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I expect this would cause a mess for all sister projects who do not allow fair use, or who allow fair use under local standards that may not exactly match those of most or any other projects. GMG ^talk 16:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

A good point. Thinking this through, I believe there would be no practical conflict if our Covid-19 exceptional rule was actually limited to allowing files with ND and NC restrictions but nothing stronger, e.g. we would still disallow All Rights files. Given the context that thumbs on sister projects would automatically fit their local Fair Use interpretations. --Fæ (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Except that many/most have no local fair use doctrine whatsoever. GMG ^talk 16:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Here's a whacky approach, how about asking WMF dev to enable a transclusion rule that will only allow transclusion display on projects that have opted in?

It might be an easier thing to implement than it sounds. --Fæ (talk) 16:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Even that may be difficult. It's not quite as simple as having fair use/not fair use. The policies are qualitatively different (see the list at m:Non-free content). For example, is.wiki has "no comparable file on Commons" actually written into their fair use standards, of course with the assumption that files on Commons are properly free.

It may be a substantial task simply to develop "a fair use standard" that would be equally applicable across all projects that allow fair use, and then to technically disallow transclusion on non-fair-use projects. That's if there was consensus for it on Commons, which may require an RfC. And by the time we get all that done, it's not clear whether there would be a similar persistent public health crisis to warrant it. GMG ^talk 17:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Fae this condition would exclude the projects, that are the only one's that would actually need this files/profit from this files. The projects, that have not enough man power to come up with a fair use policy, but otherwise would be able to host this fair use material themselves. --C.Suthorn (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we would be better served in the long term by coming up with ways to obtain free versions of the things that would be useful. With respect to emergency supplies like the above-referenced 3D model files, nothing technically or legally prevents us from having a page with external links pointing to such resources. BD2412 T 17:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing as BD2412. @Fæ: no STL file appears to have been made public for that respirator valve. In addition, there's a possibility some part of that valve is protected by patents. (I'm not sure, no expert) Educational videos, we should ask the creator(s) to consider releasing them with a free license or create something ourselves. I'm starting to have some vague idea for an instructional video, but I'm not likely to get much done alone. (read: volunteers are welcome) - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 20:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I seriously doubt we could host 3D models of a commercial medical valve under fair use, as it horribly fails the 3rd and 4th criteria of U.S. fair use analysis. Kaldari (talk) 22:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be a patent issue? Assuming the valve design is purely utilitarian, I'm having a hard time conceiving how copyright would come into it. -- Visviva (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I thought Commons isn't permitted to have a fair use policy, per wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy --ghouston (talk) 22:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. Fair use is not allowed, no exceptions. We either ask the creators of the NC/ND work to release their media under a free license, or we create our own. pandakekok9 09:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Redundancy?[edit]

Category:King Aleksandar Bridge and Category:Most Kralja Aleksandra seem to be redundant. Is this right? Who can merge those? --2A02:810D:6C0:2FB0:5112:F5C:D777:699A 19:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Done Redirected cat. with Serbian name to English one. — Speravir – 21:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Speravir 21:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 17[edit]

Who was San Juan el Real?[edit]

A question to those who know Spain and Spanish very well. There are many Saint Johns, but which one is San Juan el Real? There are a few churches of San Juan el Real in Spain, e.g. es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Calatayud), es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Oviedo), es:Iglesia de San Juan el Real (Llamas). According to the articles, the first church is dedicated to San Juan el Real, but the second to Juan el Bautista (John the Baptist). Is it possible that San Juan el Real is other name of John the Baptist in Spanish? --jdx ^Re: 09:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

San Juan el Real (Llamas) is called "Real" because it was funded by King Ordoño I. "El Real" means "the royal one" and it's more likely due to the particular history of each building rather than what specific John they are dedicated to. B25es (talk) 11:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Irma violense[edit]

And again: New user, copyvio, clearly marked by huge number of wrong cateogries: Apparently 2015 ist Venus Berlin 2018, it is MarilynManson, and so on, and so on. Would be easy for a bot to single out this type of vandalism, but is only catched by chance. --C.Suthorn (talk) 23:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Convenience link: Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Irma violense. - Jmabel ! talk 00:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons:Village pump