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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/04. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

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Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Commons_talk:Freedom of panorama#Proposal to abolish acceptance (2 March 2025) Categorization of SVG files (13 February 2025) Costumed character files (14 October 2024) Third-party images published by the National Weather Service (26 August 2024) Commons:Requests for comment/Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) How do we organize categories by date (14 May 2024) Should PD-CQ Roll Call be used for recent images? (5 January 2024) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

March 13

March 2025 update from WMF Legal on "Vogue Taiwan and possible Copyright Washing" discussion

Hi, I’m LRGoncalves-WMF, from Wikimedia Foundation’s legal department, and I just wanted to provide an update to the Vogue Taiwan situation discussed here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2025/02#Vogue_Taiwan_and_possible_copyright_washing. We reached out to Condé Nast to give them a heads-up about the CC license in their Vogue Taiwan videos and specifically asked them if the content posted on their YouTube Channel is in fact CC-licensed. A couple of days ago they replied confirming that all videos on their Vogue Taiwan youtube channel were not available for reuse. In their words: “All copyrights are owned by the Condé Nast global network. The CC license was applied due to an unknown error. We have immediately fixed it and updated all videos and settings on the Vogue YouTube channel back to the "Standard YouTube License.”

Based on their answer, the Legal Department can’t confirm that the stills of Vogue Taiwan videos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are openly licensed. As Condé Nast’s counsel and some commentators above pointed out, the attribution of the CC-license was made in error, and not a deliberate choice to freely license these videos. LRGoncalves-WMF (talk) 12:09, 13 March 2025 (GMT-3)

@LRGoncalves-WMF: Thanks, I started Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/03/Category:Screenshot images from VOGUE Taiwan YouTube account.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:59, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

@LRGoncalves-WMF: Thanks a lot. I am deleting these files. Hopefully, they will be more careful about their license in the future. Yann (talk) 16:37, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

For the record, there are still videos on the Vogue Taiwan channel with the CC license as of today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJmSD03kJ0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir8ALM3zIs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq37b2GZzGQ  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   16:41, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Given that they had mistakenly included CC license in their videos for many years, it isn’t far fetch for them to also missed removing the license for some videos. Maybe we can include a note somewhere for uploaders in the future, so they don’t mistakenly upload the copyrighted images here? Tvpuppy (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Side note, can some edit (or delete) {{Vogue Taiwan}}, since the license template is not valid anymore? Tvpuppy (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Vogue Taiwan. Yann (talk) 20:37, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Since we forgive licensing mistakes by Condé Nast it may be worthwhile revisting other cases like this Auckland Museum marked cultural permissions deletion case that was closed as "Kept: no valid reason for deletion -- CC licenses are irrevocable". Maybe it was a different scenario though? Commander Keane (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

IMO the opinion of WMF Legal here is quite equivalent of a DMCA by the copyright holder. It means to me that WMF Legal would accept such a request if ever they would send one. Unless we have a similar legal opinion about other cases, I don't see any reason to change our decision. However I very much like to know the answer to PHShanghai's question below. Yann (talk) 21:28, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

As would I. Are Creative Commons licenses non-revocable or are they revocable when the licensor is a giant corporation with a team of expensive lawyers? I agree with Yann that WMF Legal seems to be saying they'd agree to a DMCA and thus I believe Yann's actions to be correct in terms of protecting our site and protecting our reusers (although we should also alert our reusers to this situation with Conde Nast). Abzeronow (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I second this. Not protecting the copyright on Night of the Living Dead was also a mistake (and a far easier one to make than positively choosing a CC-BY license!) and we don't just all agree "Whoopsies: we'll just take this out of the public domain for you". It's disappointing to see us taking free use media down that is clearly valuable for our mission. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:52, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

@Koavf: IMO there is a big difference between Night of the Living Dead or similar cases, and Vogue Taiwan. There should have been a copyright notice for the film, as it was the distributor's duty to add one. While as Vogue Taiwan is not the copyright holder of these videos, the license was never valid. These licenses were not more valid than the ones added by license washing people we often see on Commons. I would not accept Condé Nast argument (We made a mistake.) if the free licenses were added by them. The whole point is to determine who is the copyright holder. Yann (talk) 19:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

That's a valid concern and I'm not suggesting that you did the wrong thing as such. I respect your decision-making, in case that was not clear. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:52, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't really buy this "mistake". Unfortunate mistake, true, but these were under a CC license and if we are now deleting these it means CC licenses are revokable, which would set a dangerous precedent. On the basis of good faith I would support prohibiting uploading new Vogue Taiwan files from now on (even if CC licensed on YouTube), but those already uploaded on Commons or still CC licensed on YouTube as of 13 March should unmistakably be kept. Bedivere (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

The question to me is whether Vogue Taiwan actually had the legal authority to release the videos under a CC license. If the copyrights are owned by some other part of Condé Nast, and there was never internal authorization for Vogue Taiwan to release the files under a CC license, then the license wouldn't even be valid in the first place. To me, it's equivalent to the situation where a PR employee of a company uploads the company's logo to Commons without their company's legal department authorizing them to do so. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:22, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

There's always the possibility that someone went rogue on his last day of work and slapped "we license everything CC-BY" on a bunch of media, but if the holding company that owns them is just so big or mismanaged that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, that's not something anyone else should have to adjudicate. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:34, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

@Koavf It shouldn't have anything to do with anyone going rogue. If Condé Nast owns the copyright and does not share ownership rights with VT, then VT putting a CC license on it may be invalid, period. VT could even have a good faith belief that they fully own the video--doesn't matter. If that belief isn't actually true, then any licenses they issue are likely invalid. I do not believe that this is a case of joint-ownership, but look at this family of cases for an idea of how a court would treat a situation like this, unless VT clearly had sole ownership rights over the video. You said above "It's disappointing to see us taking free use media down", but I don't think this was ever free use media. Alyo (chat·edits) 21:52, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

"If" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. We can make some perfectly reasonable assumptions here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:42, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

What are those assumptions? I see no one in this thread putting forth legally reasonable assumptions that result in a world in which VT had the authority to publish those videos under a CC license. Is is theoretically possible? Sure. But it makes no sense legally, it makes no sense given the IP policies on all CN sites, it makes no sense from a business structure standpoint, and we have a direct statement from the copyright owner saying otherwise. And for what, screenshots from youtube videos? I don't think this is a fight worth fighting. Alyo (chat·edits) 23:16, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

But these are big companies, not a single individual, who left videos with a CC license for years. It's technically possible Condé Nast doesn't even own footage from their photographers (just example), but we assume big companies know what they are doing when they create, publish and license content.  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   05:40, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Bedivere that this is setting a dangerous precedent. I believe the WMF legal department's communication with Condé Nast has helped clarify the situation. We can be confident that, moving forward, even if their videos are mistakenly CC-licensed again, these will be considered errors and should not be used. However, CC licenses are supposedly non-revocable, meaning that videos licensed as such within that timeframe should remain free to use, regardless of the reasons Condé Nast published them this way. 👑PRINCE of EREBOR📜 09:38, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

@Bedivere and Prince of Erebor: It doesn't matter if the CC licenses are revokable or not. The files should be deleted so that we aren't endangering our reusers with lawsuits (meritless or not). This is the same reason we shouldn't be hosting images by copyleft trolls. "Welcome to Commons! The repository of technically free-license images you'll probably get sued for trying to use!" Is it any wonder that people prefer paying $40 for public domain images on Alamy rather than getting them here? Nosferattus (talk) 01:11, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. For the record; just want to clarify how the non-revocable part of Creative Commons licenses work in this case? What is the official statement of WMF Legal regarding that? Thanks. @LRGoncalves-WMF: PHShanghai (talk) 20:43, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I will reply to @Yann's DMCA comment down here. Looking at the original post WMF Legal doesn't say to delete all photos, just that an error has been made. Rewarding companies that have hypothetical DMCA capabilities and disadvantaging organisations (and regular people) that don't is weird to me. Commander Keane (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I'd +1 to the PHShanghai's question in a personal capacity, although I do wonder if the Foundation's Legal folks would even be able to offer an opiniongiven that this isn't an attorney/client situation. Associated with that question, I'd opine that Yann's administrative decision to delete all of these images without additional discussion of this new viewpoint was made too hastily. As I've done previously, I'd encourage Yann to be much more careful when taking unilateral administrative actions—especially in a case like this, where deletion means that images have been removed from probably dozens of Wikimedia projects and cannot easily be restored. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Dozens if not hundreds of articles are now imageless because the Vogue Taiwan images were hastily deleted, with A list articles such as Adele and Billie Eilish. May I remind you that this decision to delete hundreds of images was done without any consensus of the community and was just a broad action applied. I also don't like how Yann is going about this, they templated me on my talk page for uploading some of those Vogue Taiwan images despite knowing WHY those pages were deleted. Quite rude. PHShanghai (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I think that's just the automatic behavior in VisualFileChange  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   05:32, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Editors are responsible for the edits made by the tools they choose to use. If the tool is wrongly templating people in such cases, it shouldn't be used for them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:18, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I still agree with the argument Yann made previously; what court or judge will accept "Sorry, but the license which was published by our subsidiary company there for years is wrong."?  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   05:34, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

If the license is actually invalid/VT didn't have the authority to publish it? All of them. Good faith belief/reliance isn't a defense to copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is a strict liability tort. You either did it or you didn't. Alyo (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Come on, these videos were up with a free license, by a company with apparent authority to do so, for years during which anyone could find them on YouTube and use without knowing about whatever internal situation Condé Nast had. No judge is going to tolerate a claim of copyright infringement against users for using the media under the terms of the license.  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   15:49, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

@999real: Do you really want to expose yourself to that risk?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:58, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

@999real, I have limited experience in copyright law, but do not agree with this assessment of the situation. More importantly, even if I did agree with your assessment, I have no idea how that supports keeping the files, rather than just being thankful that users wouldn't be on the hook for damages accrued before the WMF/CN statement.

Regardless, predicting that a judge will decide that a 50/50 error leans to your favor is very much "we can get away with it", and so we must delete these files per the precautionary principle. Alyo (chat·edits) 13:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

@999real: I think most judges would have no problem following Restatement (Second) of Agency to find there is no apparent authority. Agents have a scope of employment, and VT's scope does not include licensing the content of other CN entities. If you had a reasonable and honest belief that VT could grant a free license (e.g., you did not know other CN websites did not use free licenses) a few months ago, you might escape liability. Given the current discussion about VT and CN's actions, your and Common's apparent authority defense has evaporated. Glrx (talk) 01:50, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I suggest you refrain from playing copyright lawyer -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 08:55, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

 Comment Opinions seem versatile. Previously, a number of people argue for deletion of these files. Now that we have an opinion from WMF Legal department, people want to keep them... Yann (talk) 09:24, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

There was obviously a mixed consensus on the actual previous discussion. It was not a broad consensus to delete the files unless we heard from CN themselves. PHShanghai (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, we did heard from CN now. Yann (talk) 13:48, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Yann. And I say this as someone who uploaded 46 images for probably as many articles that were deleted due to this, and that makes me very sad. Yes, technically we could argue that the license was there on the files for many years, that we had every right to take the license as good, that many different articles are visibly the worse for losing these images, all that. But we're here to do a good deed, to make the single largest source of knowledge in human history, and not to be copyright trolls. If there is a reasonable chance that a good faith error was made - and that is what Conde Nast is asserting to WMF - then I can understand us forgiving the error, and letting the images go. So it goes. --GRuban (talk) 19:00, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Don't forget about downstream reuse, either. Displaying these images on Commons with a CC license is an assertion that "yes, you can use these images freely given these conditions" - if we have reason to believe that the images may not actually be CC licensed, and that reusing them may actually pose risks, we shouldn't offer them. Omphalographer (talk) 19:17, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I made a list of files, just in case: Commons:Deletion requests/File:陸弈靜.png. Yann (talk) 19:02, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

 Comment there's also Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with Vogue Taiwan Diddykong1130 (talk) 19:24, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

 Info I restored this from the archive.  Comment I think this is the case of "license laundering" on Vigue Taiwan's part. As per Alyo's comment below, "licenses are only "irrevocable" if they are properly granted. In this case, those of us arguing for deletion believe no valid license was actually granted. If we are correct, then this situation never reached the question of irrevocability." If this is the case, Vogue Taiwan committed COM:License laundering, because they had no authority to grant license in the first place. That authority comes from their parent firm or their "superiors": Condé Nast itself. I endorse deletion of all Vogue Taiwan files. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:21, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

DMCA suggestion

@LRGoncalves-WMF: hello. Can you also inquire Condé Nast if the revocation of CC license applies to Vogue Taiwan content hosted here before March 13, 2025? If so, can Wikimedia suggest them to file a single take down notice vs. all of the said files through COM:DMCA? Without a DMCA notice, there is uncertainty whether those files should be deleted too or not. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 16:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I believe WMF Legal messaged it this way so we would understand that they would agree to a DMCA request if it was ever issued, and they would rather have us deal with it so a DMCA notice would be unnecessary. Abzeronow (talk) 19:58, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I think us and everyone who's been through this whole debacle deserve a clear cut explicit answer from WMF Legal instead of doing guesswork. I will be very disappointed if we do not get clarification because all of us have been busting ourb butts off here trying to get a proper consensus on this issue. PHShanghai (talk) 23:43, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

As I understand it, WMF's lawyers cannot provide legal advice as such to the Commons community. We are not their client. What they can do, and have done, is to communicate a legal position on behalf of WMF. - Jmabel ! talk 01:00, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

We are not asking for *legal advice*, we are asking for a comment regarding how Creative Commons Licenses worked in this context. We can't actually do anything anymore but I feel the community is at least owned a little more in depth explanation, *especially* regarding irrevocability of Creative Commons licenses and how it would work in this context. PHShanghai (talk) 04:41, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@PHShanghai The application of legal principles/rules to a specific fact pattern is legal advice. CN is going to say "the CC license was a mistake, we retain all rights to the videos and any derivative stills"--repeating their previous statement. What you are asking for is for the WMF's opinion on whether or not that argument would hold up in court in a situation where we keep the files and CN issues a DMCA, which is legal advice. Again, licenses are only "irrevocable" if they are properly granted. In this case, those of us arguing for deletion believe no valid license was actually granted. If we are correct, then this situation never reached the question of irrevocability.

If I'm misstating your position, then please say exactly what question you think the WMF should provide an answer to. Alyo (chat·edits) 17:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I do hope that WMF Legal does answer your question, but as Jmabel says, they cannot provide legal advice to us. Abzeronow (talk) 01:26, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Bumping this as we still have no answer from WMF Legal. PHShanghai (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Why not? As the legal arm of the Wikimedia Foundation, they ought to be able to at least give an advisory opinion with a disclaimer that it does not constitute formal legal advice. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:16, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

March 29

T390302: concerning Wikipedia app uploads

I just saw Phabricator task T390302: Native iOS App upload flow to Commons.

It seems to be a way to upload files directly to Commons from the Wikipedia iOS app, a bit like the cross-wiki upload feature on desktop (note current meta RfC to restrict that feature).

I brought up the issue of iOS and the HEIF format on Phabricator.

I imagine the barrier to entry for Android users of downloading a specific Commons app for uploading means we don't deal with a bigger influx of dickpics and selfies.

The task quotes Wishlist and Village Pump requests for a dedicated iOS app. This is not a dedicted app, and it is unclear to me what advantages this flow would have over the regular mobile upload process.

I am not sure if it is just an idea or resources are being allocated. @HNordeen (WMF) started the task. Commander Keane (talk) 16:12, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I would really like to have this. I would not use it as uploading from mobile is not part of my workflow, but I think it is very good to get new people. Especially for the Wiki Loves contests people already see the banner in the app if they could then directly upload their photos to Commons could lead to many more participants. If that is combined with the map the app already offers it is a really great way fill photo gaps for locations. GPSLeo (talk) 05:21, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi @GPSLeo thanks for responding I agree that it would be powerful to connect actions like uploading images to campaigns. This is something we've thought about, so it is helpful to know that it would be a welcomed feature. Just so you know, folks who read Wikipedia using the Apps do not currently see Central Notice banners like those for Wiki Loves contests. Central Notice is not optimized for display in the app, and most of the links that are included in banner lead to Web pages which we've learned is a confusing experience for App users. We have thought about investing in the creation an announcements system for all types of announcements, events and campaigns in the Apps that would lead to a user friendly experience. While we continue to think about an announcement system, what are your thoughts about sharing about events through other methods like the recent Community Updates module, or the Collaboration list?

Also, great idea re: leveraging the map the Apps already have - I mentioned that below too :) HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Something I would definitely oppose is having an upload feature for media files in the Wikipedia app for iOS but not Android.

I think an iOS Commons app next to the Android app would be good but not overly important and only as long as it doesn't take too much resources (note the Android app is so far developed just by volunteers).

Adding an upload-only feature for iOS and Android to the Wikipedia is something I'm unsure about. It's not something I'd consider important and the downsides may outweigh the positives – people may upload lots of copyvios and mundane useless low-quality pics. Generally, smartphone photos are less likely to be useful than other kinds of photos. Nevertheless, it could make it much easier to upload media and bring new Commons contributors and smartphone cameras have gotten much better. Not unlikely it could be quite a good thing but I'd suggest to first implement proposal m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Bots detecting copyvios on Commons (image reverse search etc) and maybe also some work in regards to (semi-) automatic categorization but this the importance of such in this context may depend on how many files will actually get uploaded that way. There's thousands of copyvios that lingered on Commons for years undetected. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective I agree there are tradeoffs between making it easier and more discoverable to upload from Mobile for folks who genuinely want to contribute, and the risk of making it too easy for folks to upload low-quality images, or copyright violations that cause extra burden for moderators. I’m aware of the history of quality issues from mobile uploads, and we would not move forward with something like this before coming to an agreement with the Commons community on a threshold for access, and how files coming from this source can be identified. I am imagining the flow could have similar steps and checks to the Upload Wizard, which has been improved recently to reduce copyright violations. Do you think that the user flow for upload wizard mobile version is a good place to start? HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

It may be best to reuse (or adapt) the code used for the upload wizard. The functionalities it has such as autocompletion of categories are useful and important. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective I beg to somehow disagree on the aspect of photos taken from phones, as a user who currently takes photos using a Samsung Galaxy A20 (see File:Pulilan Church 20230410-2jwilz.jpg, for example). However, I do agree with the possibility of several people using the app to upload copyvio images. We have been battling copyvios every day (Category:Copyright violations never gets empty for at least 24 hours), and new WEBP uploads are being uploaded at almost every hour. Some may be decent, like faithful PD 2D works or from freely-licensed Indonesian government sites, but the majority are questionable uploads.

I am not against the app or the WEBP uploads. What I mean is that there should be more effective, proactive mechanism to discourage or at least slow down the uploads of questionable files. This seems to have been discussed at Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/06#Uploading while editing wikipedias: beneficial or problematic?, though the flow of problematic files hasn't slowed down. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:58, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Wasn't saying there aren't many good-quality / useful photos uploaded taken by smartphone cameras (I don't think we disagree in principle – I just would implement methods for spotting copyvios first if possible). This photo of yours of the object would be a better example btw. more effective, proactive mechanism to discourage or at least slow down the uploads of questionable files agree and most of these could be spotted via bots, mainly using image reverse search but possibly also using other methods to identify likely problematic files – these bots could also set speedy deletion templates or make it quick and easy to solve DRs. There could be more methods, yes – like not allowing webp uploads from mobile. Prototyperspective (talk) 08:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo: as far as I can see, in the Wikipedia app you can't visit Commons without opening a browser tab. I'm not sure what happens when you click the Wiki Loves banner to find out about that project. If it makes your browser visit Commons, and you decide to upload a photo why would you need to upload in the Wikipedia app? Or you mean they see the banner and later when using the app they upload. The dynamic between mobile web and mobile app is interesting; you can't browse Commons categories for example to see if a location is already photographed. Having said all that, the Wiki Loves contests generate lots of new interest and anything to aid that is important. Commander Keane (talk) 12:07, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes if you click on a link to Commons inside the Wikipedia app it opens a browser inside the app and it is possible to upload files using this browser. But a native app is always much smother than a web browser. The most important feature would be to have a map like the Android app has. GPSLeo (talk) 13:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

What would the map be used for? Maybe it makes more sense to integrate Commons into the existing Nearby/Places map of the Wikipedia app so you have some toggle option somewhere to include Commons things and probably some filter functionality to enable narrowing down the type of Commons/Wikidata content you'd like to see (such only images set on Wikidata items vs all images with coordinates vs items with coordinates missing a photo etc). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:48, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I would use it for confirming location and direction where photo has been taken. Another use case could be that if we are adding depicts then use map for selecting depictions and for filtering categories. Zache (talk) 09:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo, @Prototyperspective I'm curious what you think about a similar idea, but that utilizes the existing map on the iOS Wikipedia App: The “Places” map on iOS currently shows a placeholder “W” icon if an article doesn't have an image. I can see a potential flow being: users click on an article without an image on the map, they're prompted to add an existing image from Commons to the article (similar to our current media insertion flow). They could use Commons search, or see suggestions from the image recommendations algorithm. What do you think about that idea? Another possibility is that if there are no image suggestions already on Commons, only then do we surface the upload flow to users (something like this would be possible if we've invested in the upload flow already). HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Could be a good idea and may get more people to edit Wikipedia, it may depend on how difficult it would be to implement this: I think it would need to smoothly show the images in the category (but also consider subcategories) so the user can select one of these or if finding no suitable one select upload new photo. Currently, adding photos to articles is something basically too complex than what I'd do on a smartphone because it requires some browsing and searching around but if the app makes it smooth and easy it could be good. However, I don't know how many and why would use the map to do something like that; maybe few use it with the intent of making sure all nearby articles have a photo but I don't know how many that would be. Media suggestions more broadly nevertheless would be good and I think currently missing is considering which media is set on the Wikidata item which usually is a fairly representative or useful one. Also: do they enable some 'add missing images' mode in the map or do they tap on the placeholder image to add images? I think more users at least of the Wikipedia app who tap on an article item would like to use the map for discovering places and getting info about places etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the more important feature would be to have an upload link for all objects on the map also if the are already linked to a photo, many photos are bad or outdated. Taking photos has to be done outside where people are around with the app. The management for existing photos is something to be done at home at the desktop computer. I also see participation using the app only as an entry step for people to join our project. Later I want them to move towards taking photos with real cameras and editing them in a more professional way. GPSLeo (talk) 06:35, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Commander Keane, thanks for tagging me in the discussion here! I’m a product manager on the Mobile Apps team, working a lot on the Wikipedia iOS App. The task to Prototype Native iOS App upload flow to Commons is a proposed project for the 2025 Hackathon, so it’s just an idea at this point, and we’ll have to see if there are enough folks interested in working on it at the Hackathon. I’m happy for it to continue evolving as we hear feedback in this discussion & on the task.

The reason we are suggesting iOS first is because a few members of the iOS team are going to Hackathon, and because we were recently talking with volunteers about their ideas around an iOS Commons app. It focuses on the upload flow, because my understanding is that the primary pain point for iOS users is the lack of an easy way to upload media from their iOS device to Commons (let me know if you disagree).

I want to stress that if something is developed at the hackathon, it will just be a prototype, and we would not move forward with something like this before coming to an agreement with the Commons community on a threshold for access, and how files coming from this source can be identified.

This would not preclude a separate Commons app for iOS, but rather would be a simple way to give some iOS editors easier access to upload to Commons from mobile devices. It could also make it easier for image uploaders to add their images to Wikipedia articles. HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

March 30

BBC News article: "Amateur photographers hope to fix Wikipedia's 'terrible' pictures"

BBC News recently published this article which may be of interest to the community. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

It's just about portraits. In my personal opinion I find it boring and unimportant. Celebrity pictures can simply be released under CCBY by the celebrities if they wished to.
They could release a pic they took themselves or pay/ask a photographer for it for example. It's also not the type of content that is missing much. On the other hand, Wikipedia articles about famous people seem to get read a lot (however many entirely unillustrated articles as well). I wonder why there are essentially no (or nearly no) media coverage about broader issues of missing free media, for example in subjects of science to name one broad domain. Also I think at least one of the photos on the left of that article could be considered better than the new one on the right. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:52, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

In many cases there are photos in articles taken with compact cameras from the time Wikipedia was founded. There are already many much better photos on Commons but there are not enough people checking if there are better photos available as these articles are not on the missing photos lists. GPSLeo (talk) 13:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

There is something ironic about a news site who cant tell Wikipedia and Commons apart complaining how the site is run Trade (talk) 17:52, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

"[Wikipedia is] full of notable people with very old or unflattering photographs"... Oh really? :)) --A.Savin 15:01, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

It was good coverage. No mention of Wikimedia Commons as Trade eluded to, we need to work better at making obvious links from Wikipedia. I was more concerned that the BBC didn't seem to meet file licensing requirements, unless they got permission from the authors? Commander Keane (talk) 23:31, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

"we need to work better at making obvious links from Wikipedia" What? Trade (talk) 19:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It's sort of weird. We have to acknowledge that these images are made by volunteers, where you cannot expect to have always high quality footage and hardware (fortunately, many professionals are thankfully contributing here). It's also kind of funny, because many images of agencies are potentially worse --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

March 31

Excessive use of Permission pending

Hi, For some time now, I see many files tagged with {{Permission pending}}, where they won't obviously be any permission, e.g. File:Sean PNG.png. This last case is typical: no license and author is said as "unknown" and other nonsense information, so no one could send a permission. How brand new users got to know that adding this template might delay the deletion?

Another examples: [1]. "Permission pending" but no license, where no permission is needed. File:Ian Veneracion2025.jpg: promo shot with bogus license. Yann (talk) 08:04, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I was able to replicate this in a test upload. The template is automatically added in the upload process when when "This work was created by someone else and is free to share" and "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work" are selected. Ciell (talk) 08:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

OK, this should not happen. So now, we have obvious copyright violations pending for one month. Bad, very bad... Who can remove this "feature"? Yann (talk) 08:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a good feature requested from us for cases where people have permission the problem is that some people seem simply lying when clicking the button that they have permission. Maybe there should be a large warning like "When you click this button without having the permission (or if the email is not sent in time) you might be blocked". GPSLeo (talk) 08:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes. And it should not be possible to add this template if the author is "unknown". Yann (talk) 10:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) who is responsive about Upload Wizard improvements. Or someone could post at Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements. Commander Keane (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, I'll investigate it and let you know. Just FYI, we have a competing discussion about {{Permission pending}} at Commons:Upload Wizard feedback#VRT scenario. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

All these files still get tagged by the bot, right? So after 7 days some admin will come along and just delete it. Multichill (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I tested it and when clicking the "I have the permission" option it is not possible to select a license. This is definitely wrong, choosing this option should always require to set the license. GPSLeo (talk) 20:14, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo: exactly what I said in the discussion that Sannita (WMF) linked above. - Jmabel ! talk 23:16, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo @Jmabel What would be the correct outcome in this case? I can file an urgent ticket to fix this, but I need to know what should happen instead of what happens. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:20, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I think simply adding the same license list from the own work licensing to the permission option and requiring the selection of a license from the list would be fine. GPSLeo (talk) 18:55, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

My inclination is the same as GPSLeo's here, but I'd like to see a little bit of data before making a decision: I'm afraid of flooding the field with junk uploads that look more plausible than before.

Do we have any data on how many uploads per month use "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work"? (I have a few other questions, but they are only relevant if that one has an answer.) - Jmabel ! talk 20:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

@GPSLeo Maybe I am wrong here, but if the work is already under a CC license, or any other free license, it would just be better to use another option and to clarify which license the media is released under. So maybe we can rework the prompt here, and make it more clear. Would it work? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): If the work is already published under a free license, then they won't be under the "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work" case. This is about the case where they are going to have to use VRT. Commons requires that in addition to marking the file as "permission pending," they also must indicate what license is forthcoming. Right now, the latter requires them to edit again after uploading. Experienced users know to do this, but it is very opaque to relatively new users. - Jmabel ! talk 17:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel I see. I'm in contact with the designer, we'll think about a solution. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Videos from public broadcasting by country

Anything missing in that new category?

Not familiar with all the public broadcast channels, there may be more – e.g. in Category:Videos by source.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 13:49, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Have you checked Category:Videos by state media and Category:Videos by governments Trade (talk) 11:37, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective: --Trade (talk) 11:37, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

No I hadn't, thanks. The latter cat is kind of a different scope – I think some of its subcats maybe should probably be moved to the former. The former only has few subcats and seems very incomplete. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you think the Algerian categories from Videos by state media belongs in Videos from public broadcasting by country? Trade (talk) 11:49, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Maybe. I was asking others. Could somebody please clarify things and if possible populate the categories more? (Videos by state media misses most items that belong there and Videos from public broadcasting by country needs checking and misses many if not most subcategories). Relevant info:

• Entreprise nationale de télévision (ENTV) is the national entity that oversees public television broadcasting. It manages the television channels Canal Algérie, Algérie 3, Amazigh tv 4 in Tamazight and the religious channel Coran tv 5 which broadcasts Islamic religious programming. ~Mass media in Algeria#Television
• State media are typically understood as media outlets that are owned, operated, or significantly influenced by the government. They are distinguished from public service media, which are designed to serve the public interest, operate independently of government control, and are financed through a combination of public funding, licensing fees, and sometimes advertising. The crucial difference lies in the level of independence from government influence and the commitment to serving a broad public interest rather than the interests of a specific political party or government agenda. ~State media

Prototyperspective (talk) 12:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

April 01

Default signature

Default signature looks like this

[[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]]) Example (talk)

However, also by default, users initially have no user pages.

So, what's the point of default including a red link to the user page, which often is non existent? An effect of this can be seen on Commons talk:Abuse filter, which is full of new users and hence many red links.

Instead of user page, a link to user talk page and a link to Special:Contributions are way more frequently used and useful.

(previously raised: Commons_talk:Administrators#c-RoyZuo-20241101115500-Commander_Keane-20241029164200.)--RoyZuo (talk) 10:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The fact that they don't have a user page is informative. - Jmabel ! talk 23:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Most people who lack a user page abandon their accounts shortly after creating one, or participate only very sporadically. For those who do choose to engage long-term, having the user page in their signature provides an easy and natural prompt to create one, and in a way it serves as your "face" on this site - neither the contributions nor talk page serve a purpose similar to this. Removing the user page link from signatures would diminish its visibility, and by extension its role in encouraging community participation. You could make an argument to have the contributions page added to the default signature, but I strongly oppose removing the user page from it. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:16, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

that sounds like circular reasoning for including links to non existent pages. why not let users choose to include the links only after they have created the pages? why make that decision for the users themselves? RoyZuo (talk) 13:06, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

People can already set their signature as they wish, with quite a bit of latitude. But I am saying that I find the current default useful, (and I believe ReneeWrites is saying the same). - Jmabel ! talk 15:22, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Red links

Any red links on commons should not open that page in the editor automatically. unlike other wiki projects, commons users dont ususally create pages by writing a text but by uploading a file. as Special:Statistics shows, the majority of pages are in file namespace.

on wikidata, for example https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q124150929&action=edit&redlink=1 is what i get from clicking a red link to an item. the url is "action=edit" but it doesnt open up the wikitext editor, i guess due to wikidata's special page structure and some local mechanisms?

(previously raised: Commons_talk:Administrators#c-RoyZuo-20241101115500-Commander_Keane-20241029164200.) RoyZuo (talk) 10:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@RoyZuo: what you are saying is true of "File" space on Commons, as on any other project. Of course, we use "File" space a lot more than other projects, but is there any other page space on Commons of which this is true? - Jmabel ! talk 23:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Another use case is red link categories. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Example without opening the editor automatically, you can start using hotcat, but hotcat doesnt work if you click Category:Example and land on the editor.

This could even become a setting, so users can choose the default behaviour of opening red links. RoyZuo (talk) 05:15, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Re:Hotcat, since I always create new categories by hand-editing, the current behavior is better for me. - Jmabel ! talk 20:24, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I also use redlinks to create or sometimes mark categories for future creation (and it sometimes irks me when those are removed because it makes it more difficult to create the category when I'm ready). Abzeronow (talk) 23:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

April 03

Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices/2022–23

Can I split this into two separate archives (one for 2022 and the other for 2023) for consistency of archived pages, despite 2022 only having one listed DMCA takedown notice?

Note that I first archived both 2022 and 2023 notices into one single page for practicality, even if it may not be consistent with other DMCA page archives. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:26, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Just a note, the since 2022 action had a comment from 2023. So would depend on if we archive based on first post date, or by last comment date. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 12:22, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps this is the only instance of a comment that dates the next year (haven't seen such instances in other DMCA notice talk page archives). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:02, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Clarification on OECD's new licensing policy and compatibility with Commons

Hello everyone,

After a brief discussion] on pt.wikisource, I'm bringing this question here for the Commons community to weigh in. I’d like to clarify the compatibility of OECD publications with Commons’ licensing requirements, particularly for documents published before July 2024.

The OECD recently updated its Terms and Conditions as part of a wider policy change toward Open Access, retroactively applying the following permissions for pre-July 2024 content:

   Use, copying, and distribution: Free for commercial and non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is cited: "OECD (year), Title, URL."
   Adaptations: Allowed (commercial or non-commercial), but without the OECD logo/visual identity. Must include: "Adapted from OECD work. The views expressed do not represent the official OECD or its member countries' views."
   Non-commercial translations: Permitted without prior authorization (no OECD visuals). Requires: "In case of discrepancy, the original text prevails."
   Commercial translations: "you must request authorisation to translate OECD written content published before 1 July 2024 for commercial purposes.  Please send your request to comrights[at]oecd.org with the title of the OECD publication and the name and address of the entity requesting authorisation. If granted, authorisation will be free of charge. No exclusive rights will be granted."

For post-July 2024 content, the OECD now uses CC BY 4.0 as the standard. Questions:

• Do pre-July 2024 documents (e.g., 2007 Open Science Declaration) meet Commons’ licensing standards, given the non-commercial restriction on translations?
• For post-July 2024 CC BY 4.0 content, are there any additional requirements for upload? Should there be a specific license tag for OECD files?

Thanks in advance for any insights! Parzeus (talk) 18:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The restrictions on reuse - even just for commercial translations - place this squarely in the category of "non-free". Omphalographer (talk) 19:46, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Recordings more than six days long

Not really long

These files are officially more than six days long. However, if you play them, you hear a single word or phrase, then the recording stops playing. Can anyone guess what's going on with them? Based on the descriptions (which match the recording) and the file sizes (7 KB in each case), the length is erroneous; I'm not concerned that we've lost more than six days of sound. Note that all three are uploads over originals that were 0.0 seconds long (but each original sounds the same as the one that overwrote it); all six versions should probably be something like a second or at least half a second. Nyttend (talk) 19:24, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It looks as though @TheDJ just fixed these three files. I'll run a Quarry query in a bit to look for other files with similar issues. Omphalographer (talk) 19:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I've found a few more files with similar issues, mostly pronunciations as well. (I wonder if there's an issue with the mobile application which is causing these files to have corrupted lengths.) See quarry:query/92525 for a list. Omphalographer (talk) 23:16, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Apparently really long

This one, on the other hand, may be as long as it says. However, the original upload and the current version both begin with a few words and then go to silence. I don't feel like listening to 163 hours of silence; is there some way to review the file to see if it's just silence the rest of the time? And if it is just silence, is there a way to "crop" it (not sure what the right term is with sound) to just the first few seconds? Note that the file history claims that the original is 0.0 seconds long, but obviously it's not. Nyttend (talk) 19:24, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

This file wasn't actually 163 hours long; it was merely 15 hours and 40 minutes of silence. I've trimmed that off. However, the contents of the file don't even remotely match with the filename - the user reads the words "rondo, sango, sédio, speco", then makes some comments in Portuguese about "How do you pause? Am I pressing the right button?". It would appear that they didn't. Omphalographer (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Related: phab:T376137 (FLAC and MID files display a duration of 0 (zero seconds)). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

NOAA services going offline soon

Apparently "Services for NOAA will be going offline as soon as tomorrow night. (april 4th)".[2] Some groups are already working on scraping the pages. It would be great if folks could look through the following sites for media and datasets that are worth transferring to Commons (before they disappear):

• https://www.noaa.gov/
• https://research.noaa.gov
• https://epic.noaa.gov
• https://adp.noaa.gov
• https://ci.noaa.gov † → Error 404
• https://oeab.noaa.gov
• https://orta.research.noaa.gov
• https://testbeds.noaa.gov † → Error 404
• https://qosap.research.noaa.gov
• https://oss.research.noaa.gov
• https://eeo.oar.noaa.gov
• https://globalocean.noaa.gov
• https://cpo.noaa.gov
• https://seagrant.noaa.gov
• https://researchprojects.noaa.gov → endangered in operation
• https://pier.seagrant.noaa.gov
• https://drought.gov
• https://viz.pmel.noaa.gov

If you don't live in the U.S., here's some context about what's going on: [3][4][5] Nosferattus (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

A mirror of climate.gov (subpage of NOAA.gov) can be found here: https://climate.govarchive.us/ --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I am batch downloading some images. I am happy to see people joining :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Files can be found here: https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES18/

"DownThemAll" can batch download the links --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:59, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

• Additional useful links:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvi7dtWVn6c (Downloading through API via PowerShell) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 08:55, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Shutdown has been averted, for the moment: https://www.axios.com/2025/04/04/noaa-research-websites-go-dark-saturday-night

I already saved >1,6 TB and more than 530,000 files --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:07, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@Nosferattus But the danger does not seem to be over yet --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

April 04

Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted

The proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the U4C Charter are now on Meta-wiki for community notice in advance of the voting period. This final draft was developed from the previous two rounds of community review. Community members will be able to vote on these modifications starting on 17 April 2025. The vote will close on 1 May 2025, and results will be announced no later than 12 May 2025. The U4C election period, starting with a call for candidates, will open immediately following the announcement of the review results. More information will be posted on the wiki page for the election soon.

Please be advised that this process will require more messages to be sent here over the next two months.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Architectual style

is there a name for such kind of wall? or what is this pattern called in geometry? RoyZuo (talk) 06:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

They aren't the exact same thing but it looks pretty similar to diamond rustication. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

It reminds me of structures that could be found in the German Democratic Republic, some sort of large commercial building --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I just created Category:Bauhaus Berlin Halensee, with two sources as proofs. The sources may give hints to the architectural style and category improvements. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 02:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh "sheesh", just found out that there already exists Category:Bauhaus Kurfürstendamm. I'll merge the two. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 02:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Help update wikis to 4.0

Hi! I have noticed that many wikis still mention CC-BY-SA-3.0 and some even still mention GFDL. I have tried to fix all the wikis I noticed but it is a big task to check all 860+ wikis and it is easier for someone who speak the language to check and fix.

So if you speak Foo it would be a big help if you could check foo.wiki and check if the relevant pages mention CC-BY-SA-4.0.

I imagine there can be pages like m:Meta:Copyrights, Template:File_license and v:it:MediaWiki:Edittools. So there are several namespaces that could be relevant to search in.

I also started Phab:T390898 and someone was kind and suggested https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=%22License+3.0%22&namespaces=&title= but other ideas are welcome too.

If the wiki allow upload of files then MediaWiki:Licenses should also mention 4.0 instead of 3.0 (and if possible not GFDL-only). --MGA73 (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

A new Phab:T391176 has been created and as I understand it a few pages on Commons may be deleted because of it. For example MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning/sk. --MGA73 (talk) 12:44, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

List of Endangered US Gov resources

Connecting to older posts, The ArchiveTeam has a list with endangered US Government websites. These shall be downloaded and archived with higher priority: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/US_Government

--PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 20:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

April 05

Partial Spoken Wikipedia audio

Please help moving files from Category:Spoken Wikipedia articles by language subcats into Category:Spoken Wikipedia of parts or simplified versions of articles subcats.

I noticed the former has audios of the narrations of only parts of articles such as their lede mixed with no distinction whether the audios are a (near-)complete read only a small part.

If these are separated, one can for example more easily see which articles have (not) yet been read in full and signify for the uses of the respective audios that it's just a part of the article – e.g. if they're used in Wikidata items or Wikipedia articles.

If you know of a way to more easily find them, that would be helpful.
Apparently one can't sort the files by duration (also note that it may take a day or so until the short Dutch pronunciation audio aren't in the search results anymore of deepcategory:"Spoken Wikipedia articles by language").
Also copying files to the Category:Audio files of 2005 etc cats would also be useful to enable querying for the year they were made.
Maybe I'll also add this to Commons:Categorization requests.
Prototyperspective (talk) 13:07, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

External archive of Commons

Please download the file

https://p-7.eu/MW/H.ASCII

This is an ASCII file of 6.2 MB in size. It contains the MD5 and SHA1 hashes of the backups as of 20 March 2025 of 1007 public wikis of the Wikimedia Foundation (including the German-language and English-language Wikipedia, Wikidata, WikiCommons and all other WikiMedia wikis).

If Wikipedia unexpectedly disappears completely, or if there is a suspicion that Wikipedia and the backups are being falsified, it is possible to use these hashes to verify that backups of Wikipedia from 20 March 2025 are authentic.

Please archive on a data carrier (SDcard, USB stick, DVD, mdisk, paper printout, MicroFiche) that is not connected to a computer, preferably in a fire and flood-proof safe.

Please also follow the account @Data_is@no.pony.farm which is about external archiving of Commons outside the USA. --C.Suthorn (@Life_is@no-pony.farm - p7.ee/p) (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for you effort. But it feels a bit exaggerated to me. To have free online works like Wikipedia disappeared is very hard (especially when it has a rather handy size). There are several hoarders who keep copies and backups of Wikipedia snippets or as whole. Kiwix distributes ZIM files that are like snapshots of Wikipedia. Caution is good, but we should not fear the worst :). Anyway I downloaded all featured pictures on Commons some weeks ago, which make up around 350 gigabytes. For example, the university of Erlangen in Germany has copies of Wikipedias that are up-to-date (https://ftp.fau.de/kiwix/zim/wikipedia/) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If Wikipedia unexpectedly disappears completely, or if there is a suspicion that Wikipedia and the backups are being falsified, it is possible to use these hashes to verify that backups of Wikipedia from 20 March 2025 are authentic.

Backups aren't public: they are kept in private by WMF (for a good reason, since they contain truly private information). Public dumps can be downloaded by anyone, and are copied to several mirrors worldwide. The problem is that media files are excluded from them, and there are no media dumps for now. But maybe an important part of the files in Commons is already stored offline by people even more paranoid than me :-)

This page contains useful information for mass downloading files from Commons, if anyone is interested.

In any case, both these current worries and the AI bot activity that is affecting Commons (I don't know if anyone has already talked about it here, but it might be an interesting topic), are good reasons, I think, to have media dumps in place again (Commons size has increased a lot, but it's sad to think that for a brief period around 2012 there were media dumps, and now there aren't). MGeog2022 (talk) 15:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Commons is already on the radar of the archive team, but I don't have information about the status. But it's true, the remaining of files and data must be discussed broadly, as they are very precious. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:00, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

It feels like data hoarders could soon be the heroes of tomorrow, when many people realizing how many files are/were at risk --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:08, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Copyleft enforcement - concern about stretching of a guideline

pings

I'm going to ping some past participants of these discussions. Pings from the DR (probably folks from that previous VP discussion should be pinged, too, but I think the DR covers most people? @Colin, Eyavar, Aristeas, W.carter, A.Savin, Julesvernex2, Jeff G., Adamant1, Chris.sherlock2, SHB2000, Nosferattus, Ikan Kekek, Yann, Normanlamont, Diliff, Cmao20, Юрий Д.К., GPSLeo, Pigsonthewing, Acroterion, AFBorchert, MichaelMaggs, Thincat, IronGargoyle, Nil Einne, Bluerasberry, PARAKANYAA, Pppery, Glane23, Zymurgy, A1Cafel, JPxG, Dronebogus, NinjaRobotPirate, Glrx, Deb, Mackensen, Huntster, Enhancing999, Jmabel, and Wilfredor:

I am concerned about a few users who seem to be trying to extend existing consensus about "copyleft trolling" to apply to a much broader swath of copyleft enforcement. Most directly, this has taken the form of straightforwardly renaming the guideline "copyleft trolling" to be "copyleft enforcement". At least on the surface, this seems to say "if you upload to Commons, you can't enforce your license unless the most aggressive enforcers of this guideline approve it", which is well outside any sort of consensus we've established thus far.

Discussions about this subject have thus far been filled with well-intentioned but incorrect/misleading information which has left us in a confusing position. For example, there was this long thread, where a closer found consensus for the creation of Commons:Copyleft trolling and a procedure about CC4, but that stuff about CC4 was based on a false premise -- that CC4 provides a grace period to fix attribution, which it doesn't, and nobody supported it after that was clarified.

Many of these disputes regard Diliff, a difficult case in that he was/is a Wikipedian who contributed photos, not someone who uploaded photos in order to make money like others we apply the label to, and doesn't have e.g. an overly complex attribution statement to try to trip people up. He nonetheless does use Pixsy, a firm associated with copyleft trolls, and seems to demand money even when there's no real damage to him. He's in a gray area where someone doesn't seem to be acting in line with the spirit of openness this project tends to endorse, but also not trolling, so we're left with an uncomfortable question: how do we prevent such behavior without putting a big banner up saying "if you upload here, you give up your right to enforce copyright"? I don't have a good answer to that, but it seems a few users are intent on pushing forward with taking some action on 's images, despite a DR finding no consensus to do so.

To my eyes, it's hard to see a clear consensus for anything beyond a consensus that (a) Commons does not like "copyleft trolling", (b) Commons wants to take some sort of action where there's consensus that someone is engaging in the practice, and (c) we need a guideline explaining the concept and possible actions.

I will not be sad if Diliff's images get watermarked, but I will be sad if we take a vigilante approach to this problem, and I'll be sad if we can't better articulate expectations for enforcement to our uploaders. At minimum, before any of the remedies outlined at Commons:Copyleft trolling can be enacted, we should require have an explicit discussion at COM:ANU with formal consensus that the person in question is engaging in behavior that runs afoul of that guideline. Then it's time to sort out remedies. That consensus may emerge, but we don't have it yet, and process is important. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  20:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If we are going to ban any enforcement of CC licenses, we may as well bar any CC licenses besides CC0. They are licenses. They come with rules, and if you break them the rights holder has the right to payment. If we bar enforcing the terms of the license, then why are we allowing people to upload using them? PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. As you point out, there's been multiple discussions and proposal having to do with this already. So I don't really see how the process isn't playing out or what exactly you think should have been done differently. From my perspective there's two issue here. 1. Diliff's actions 2. How the project deals with it and similar issues. From what I remember there was no consensus to sanction, ban, or otherwise deal with Diliff or their files. So watermarking images is really the only other option left outside of just throwing our hands in the air and allowing uploaders to extort re-users. I would have supported just banning Diliff and deleting their uploads myself, but there clearly isn't a consensus for that. So what other option is there outside of watermarking images or letting people get tooled? Because it doesn't seem like anyone has proposed anything else. Renaming the guideline is a separate issue IMO, but there should at least be an alternative if what people are currently trying isn't adequate for whatever reason. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@Adamant1 If we are going to prohibit people enforcing the license on CC licenses, why are we allowing people to upload using the licenses? The only way to protect reusers who refuse to read the actual license is to only allow licenses that require no attribution or share alike status, e.g. CC0 or public domain. It makes no sense to ban people or watermark images for doing what is well within their rights, unless we want basically to treat it like they have no rights, in which case why do we lie about what licenses we accept? PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:51, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If we are going to do this to protect reusers, we should ban all licenses that require attribution. Nothing else will protect people who just grab the image off of Wikipedia. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: There's obviously a difference between someone enforcing the license and them enforcing the license in a way that puts users at needless legal risk. I maybe wouldn't say it's our job to protect users more generally, but there is an expectation that if someone uses a file with a CC license that it won't lead to legal issues. If it were me, everything on here would be PD though. Anything outside of that is just needlessly complicated and obtuse. What are they on now, like the 5th version of the CC license? The whole thing is totally ridiculous. But we have to deal with people who take advantage of it or the site somehow. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that is what enforcing the license is, short of legal action there is little one can do. It would be nice if they asked first (and newer CC licenses do have a provision regarding that) but usually people will ignore it until legal notice is brought.

That expectation is false, and if we are doing that then we should ban the licenses altogether because it is against the spirit of the license. Punishing the content creators for enforcing rights that we allow them to have is absurd. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:08, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Copyleft trolling isn't allowed. That's kind of whole point here. Your acting like this whole revolves around a normal enforcement of a license when that's not what happened. No one cares if an uploader enforces their license by following the normal precedures to do so. That's not what this is about. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

"short of legal action there is little one can do"

You can send a message asking for the attribution or removal of the image, though a formal cease and desist letter is probably more effective. Immediately demanding lots of money is not essential. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:28, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Strange. I was under the impression that you would embrace such a change of tone, Rhododendrites? That we stop calling those people "trolls" (thus vilifiying them), when they aggressively send bills to re-users of their images without giving them chances to fix it? Our page "Copyleft Trolling" states that such an enforcement practice is out of step with our community's ideals of media that is free to share; and I wouldn't dream of changing those statements. Just, to stop vilifiying them.

It's not ANY form of Copyleft Enforcement that our guideline is intended to act against. The page lines out that there is a grey zone, and that we have to carefully consider each case. But we SHOULD act against those forms that directly ask for high lump sums of money due to minor licencing errors based on outdated CC licenses. We can still act against actual trolling while still calling it by a "nicer" name.

@Parakanyaa, I think you might have come upon this without prior knowledge of the cases. If you add up the money that the specific cases have allegedly "made" from their targets, you're talking about really large sums of money, enough to keep a florishing industry of full-fledged lawyers busy and expanding. The guideline in question is not a broadband remedy to get rid of everyone who checks re-users. It is intended to stop the worst excesses. --Enyavar (talk) 21:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If it's not any form of enforcement that is the issue, then why would we move the title, indicating that it is all forms of enforcement?

I participated in the Diliff discussion. If we can ban users for enforcing rights that we give them then why allow those licenses at all? Why not ban all of the licenses that require attribution instead of doing it piecemeal? I do not think enforcing the rules on people who broke it is the "worst excesses", unless it's someone without a presence here who was clearly doing it as part of some scheme. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

That we stop calling those people "trolls" (thus vilifiying them) I do appreciate this intention, to be clear. Regarding aggressively send bills to re-users of their images without giving them chances to fix it being out of step with our community's ideals, there is absolutely a conflict there, but you're talking about a very broad scope that's more akin to the Flickr community guidelines that require contributors to the Commons to give people a chance to fix attribution. We can absolutely do that, but there's no consensus for that at this point. This section is trying to head off an assumption that such a consensus exists, and to steer folks who want to go in that direction to a formal proposal to achieve said consensus. It would be a profound change in our guidelines. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:36, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with watermarking Diliff's images. If the basic terms of CC licenses need to be clearer, they should be put in big red letters on every file page. I don't believe in damaging photos because reusers who don't do any kind of due diligence reuse images at their own risk. A big red warning could also appear at the top of every Commons page, if we think that's necessary, stating that people who reuse Creative Commons-licensed images without attribution may risk legal action from the authors. But at a certain point, it isn't our job to protect people from themselves.

I do agree that suing small reusers and not giving them a chance to correct their errors for a small fee is mean and disreputable, so I don't dispute the description of Copyleft trolls in the beginning of the article about them (I haven't read the other sections), but that's a different matter from defacing great photos. ---- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

A few months ago someone proposed moving licenses to the top of pages but it was rejected. I'd be supprised if most people scroll down far enough to read the fine print though. And it doesn't help we allow for users to create their own licenses and terms that can be (and usually are) pretry different from the norm. Really though, user created licenses should be banned and the template moved to the top of the page. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

user created licenses should be banne — or they should at least go through some review process for approval. Nakonana (talk) 08:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

100% agree there's a design problem that could solve a lot of problems (actually talked a bit about that in a Wikicon presentation last year :) ), but [how do we stop people from violating licenses] and [how do we articulate and enforce expectations for enforcement within our community] are worth separate conversations. Here I think we're squarely talking about the latter. Specifically, it's about what we do when our uploaders are suing small reusers and not giving them a chance to correct their errors for a small fee, and where to draw the line. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s worth pointing out that all that’s required to attribute a Diliff photo correctly is to include the text ‘Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0’ together with the picture. And that this very short and clear licensing statement is quite literally in bold text on every single image page for every photo he has ever uploaded. Are we really saying that the priority is to ‘protect reusers’ who couldn’t be bothered to follow these simple rules? And that hundreds of photos the community has judged to be of excellent quality should be defaced as a consequence of a handful of people’s failure to do this? Honestly speechless at how little this site seems to value its own contributors’ rights. Cmao20 (talk) 22:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Re-users are really no copyright experts. We see often enough that people misunderstand "public domain" for "image that is publicly accessible on a website". The CC-license templates oftentimes have a quite lengthy text, and as simple as that text sounds to us, it may still sound like complex legalese to a re-user (or at least it did sound like that to me in the beginning). Clear instructions might be more useful than listing license terms. The file description infobox has a "permission" field where one could insert such instructions in a very short and very clear statement, e.g., "To reuse this image on your website or anywhere else you are legally obliged to add the following text underneath or near the image: 'Image by [information from author field]. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0'. Not doing so might lead to legal consequences." Nakonana (talk) 09:01, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I made my position on this issue clear at the time. Copyleft trolling involves uploading images under ostensibly free licenses for the express purpose of trying to make money by fleecing others for minor attribution errors (often in deliberately complex licenses so that correct attribution is made hard). There's no evidence that Diliff did this, what he did do was hire a rather aggressive enforcement agency to chase up offenders because he was fed up of seeing his pictures being used with no attribution. I'm not too keen on what Pixsy seems to do as a company, but all copyright enforcement companies seem to operate fairly similarly, so our content creators don't have much other recourse than to use companies like this if they are interested in preserving rights over their images. (Edit: they could individually try to hunt down license violations themselves and get in contact with offenders, but we are a site of hobbyists and non-professionals who have other jobs and virtually no one has the time or expertise to do this!) If we are basically asking users to entirely give up their rights to enforce proper use of license agreements, then there's no real reason why we should allow licenses that require attribution at all, since we're basically saying the licenses don't really matter and there are no actual consequences for users who don't abide by them properly - we're just making an unprincipled exception so that Commons can still exist at all.

I don't buy the excuse about 'protecting reusers' - reusers have the responsibility to protect themselves by attributing images correctly! Actions have consequences, and where's the consideration about protecting the rights of our content creators, something that I think is just as important if not more important than protecting reusers who cannot be bothered to abide by a simple license agreement.

On the Diliff case, one has to remember that users like Diliff joined Commons very early when its main purpose was to provide images for use on Wikipedia. I can completely understand why it's upsetting to have uploaded a lot of pictures for the reason of trying to support an encyclopaedia project years ago, only to see them all over the internet with no, or even false, attribution. And I absolutely do think he, and people like him, have the right to try to enforce proper use of their images. Otherwise there's zero point in the license. We're basically doing a bait-and-switch on our own uploaders by saying yes you have the right to specify the use of a license, but you don't have the right to do anything about it. So basically you've released your pictures into the public domain, even though we lied about this by telling you that you could reserve some rights.

I thought we'd had this discussion months ago, and yet it keeps coming up - all I can say is that if Commons's policy shifts to deleting or forced-watermarking the uploads of content creators who have produced hundreds of featured pictures for the simple 'crime' of trying to make sure their pictures are not used illegally, then something has gone very, very wrong. Cmao20 (talk) 21:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, something has gone very, very wrong. Commons is part of the dream of creating an open-source, free-to-use encyclopedia. Hundreds of thousands of people donated text for Wikipedia, and also media files. And eventually, a few of those people found a loophole to charge people large lump sums of money, with no prior warning. Those few people are the ones which we have dubbed "trolls". And my suggestion was to stop calling all of them "trolls", and to stop vilifying them. While still maintaining our intended policy to mark those images so that re-users can be safe. Again: Copyleft Enforcing is not a crime, the Enforcers are not villains; and neither are Commons and Wikimedia the vehicles to make the big money. And this discussion will keep coming up until we can make sure that we find a balance between the various interests at play here. --Enyavar (talk) 21:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure, but ‘free to use’ means ‘can be used without paying money for the privilege’, it doesn’t mean ‘you can do absolutely anything you like with it and the original author has no right to stop you.’ Our job is not to keep re-users safe who are illegally using other people’s work. I think it’d be reasonable to punish content creators who are uploading content with deliberately incomprehensible licenses in the hope of shaking money out of violators, but this obviously isn’t what happened here, and yet extreme solutions such as deletion or forced watermarking keep being brought up. Mission creep at its finest.Cmao20 (talk) 22:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Example watermark

Example image, cropped with CSS, so the watermark is not visible.

Why are you talking about "punishing content creators"? As far as I'm aware, over at Flickr people have been getting banned for years already... while we were busy doing endless debate loops. Being talked about is not a punishment, and neither is the suggested watermarking. Please note the example images, the watermarks are benign and you can even still use the images in WP, without average readers noticing anything. The content is still there, it is fully accessible. It just got an extra extension so that people stop and think before uploading the cute birdie onto their school's biology class's project website and getting the shock of their lives a few weeks later. Naive re-users are not criminals either. The single one thing that the watermarking policy would change in the long run, is to stem the guaranteed money stream for content creators. --Enyavar (talk) 22:23, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I am talking about punishing content creators because this is simply what the proposals to watermark or delete photos do. And yes, naive re-users have broken the law. Just because Flickr takes a different stance than Commons is not an argument of any worth. The fact that other sites have an expansive definition of ‘copyleft trolling’ doesn’t mean that they are right or we should copy them. What if another photographer decides tomorrow that they are going to hire Pixsy’s services? Are we then going to spend lots of volunteer effort and time watermarking all their uploads too? Rather than just trust reusers to…read the image page and abide by the very simple licensing rules it literally states in bold text!

Commons should be trying to encourage more contributors to upload excellent content, not putting them off. I agree that this watermark is not hugely intrusive, unlike the previous watermark proposals last time we had this discussion. But it still sends a message that we disapprove of uploaders attempting to enforce their rights over their own pictures, which will rightly put people off from uploading at all. By all means punish actual copyleft trolling but this case only counts as ‘trolling’ if we stretch the term to the point of meaninglessness.

As an aside I note that Diliff’s pictures are currently illegally available on stock photo websites under false attributions at the time of writing. Malicious copyright theft of CC-by-SA images is rife on the internet and for someone as prolific as Diliff in contributing to the project I don’t blame him for a single second in trying to stem the tide. If Commons doesn’t want people to resort to companies like Pixsy then the site should do more to try to defend its content creators’ rights against this kind of illegal behaviour. Instead, we’re debating making it more difficult to preserve those rights. Hence, this proposal does indeed punish content creators, I won’t withdraw that statement. Cmao20 (talk) 22:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

The irony is, if the duck had been watermarked, the (supposedly illegal) uploaders would have to crop the image again before stock photo websites (or any other websites) are able to use it; and it would actually make Diliff's case against that kind of re-use much more valid. By including his preferred attribution right into the image, we would strengthen Diliff's case, not curtail it.

I'm fully unconcerned with my own (much less professional) uploads - so if a stock photo website illegaly profits off them I don't care. But yes, that kind of illegal use rightly concerns professional creators. It should. I support Diliff in combatting large faceless firms who profitteer off of him.

At the same time, the existence of a huge stock photo websites doesn't make it right for him to profiteer off of actual naive re-users who made honest mistakes. The ones that Jmabel calls "some guy with a blog" below. Or school projects and charities. While I can't claim that Diliff ever bankrupted charities: Verch did while boasting to give "free lessons in media awareness". Free lessons costing thousands for those naive re-users, and also costing reputation for Wikipedia where he spammed the predatory content into the articles. Again, to my knowledge, Diliff did not do that. But for sure, he goes after "some guy with a blog". In his defense, Diliff said he punishes the small guys because he couldn't get hold of big business. That doesn't render him criminal, but the morals? Ugh. Ughh.

A little watermark in less than 1‰ of our content makes us more trustworthy, not less. --Enyavar (talk) 23:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we can move past the renaming of the guideline, which seems like a good faith effort to tweak some language rather than to radically change the guideline. I think it would change the guideline, and is still a bad idea, but I understand now that wasn't the point. I hope this can be more of a discussion about the process of forming consensus that something falls short of community expectations, and thus how to pursue a remedy. I think we've seen a couple cases that we know are egregious, and Diliff is a case where opinions seem pretty well split, so how do we articulate the ways in which Diliff does or does not fall short of community expectations such that we can then decide whether or not a remedy is necessary? — Rhododendrites ^talk |  22:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

If you think there is a correct standard process (for verification, I assume), I'm happy to learn about it. You have started a collection of previous debates about this topic before. I too was against quickly doing a rogue action and just watermark away. That was why I started the thread at VP/Copyright. --Enyavar (talk) 22:34, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

No one asked me, but my take: when someone clearly has made a good faith effort to attribute a free-licensed photo, and has not done it quite right, it's pretty trollish to start with a threat of a lawsuit. We certainly would not tolerate someone within the Commons community who threatened a lawsuit every time another Commons contributor got confused as to just how to attribute a derivative work.

The more you are dealing with repeat offenders, professional media organizations that should know better, and/or media that cannot be dynamically corrected (books, movies), the more appropriate it is to reach for the legal hammer. But when "some guy with a blog" accurately attributes your photo to you (or to Wikimedia Commons), and doesn't understand that he is supposed to indicate the license in question (or your name), and there is no reason to think he's been down this road before? It seems to me that the appropriate thing to do is to ask him politely to fix the attribution, not to threaten a lawsuit. - Jmabel ! talk 22:50, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that companies that ask for money for incorrect licensing such as Pixsy are quite authoritarian in their behaviour but I think in practice, given how rife copyright violation is on the internet (note above that Diliff’s pictures are currently illegally available under false attribution on stock image sites), most creators have a choice between: a) do nothing and give up any hope of enforcing their rights, b) spend a lot of time and energy on chasing up copyright violations on the internet and politely asking them to desist, with a low chance of much success and c) farm it out to a company like Pixsy. This is a volunteer site and people don’t have the time or expertise to chase up every copyright violation or to know what to do when they don’t get a productive reply, it’s entirely understandable to me that they would want to get a company to do that work on their behalf. I don’t think it’s fair to call that trolling, even if Pixsy is heavy-handed.

I won’t comment further for fear of being accused of bludgeoning the process but I’ll just add that if Commons is really serious about improving this situation it should provide an option d): have its own portal/mechanism by which uploaders can report copyright violations and Commons chases them up. That would remove companies like Pixsy from the equation. But I am sure people will invent a million reasons why we can’t do that… Cmao20 (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think Commons as an organization can do anything like Cmao20 suggests, but it can help photographers and set up examples of how copyright violations should be handled. Perhaps a warning could also be added to the license templates, about what legal action can be taken if an image isn’t credited properly according to the CC license. Something like “Failure to credit the photo properly, may result in the author contacting you and ask you to correct this. If the credit still isn’t made, the author could have grounds to bill you for the use of the image.” Sorry my “legalese” is very bad, but you get the idea.

When I see one of my photos used without the proper credit, I sometimes take action if it is used in a commercial context. I never bother with educational, small bloggers, charity or things I can support, only with large companies. I contact them, explain the situation and give them the choice to credit me properly or pay me a small sum, usually about what I would get for a photo if posted on Shutterstock or similar sites, for the one-time use of my photo. I don’t need to threaten with lawsuits or anything, we always come to an amicable agreement, the company is happy to be able to use the photo and I get a small compensation. This is the sort of things that Commons could help set up guidelines for if it wants to help photographers and “cut out” firms like Pixsy. It might also give some photo poachers a second thought if they see that there may be consequences. Btw, I don't think watermarking works at all, it's too easy to remove. --Cart (talk) 23:54, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Again, irony. I don’t think it’s fair to call that trolling was my original take that spawned this whole debate today. Sorry for spilling so many words on the topic, on a single day. --Enyavar (talk) 23:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

[undent] I don't believe in using special watermarks for Diliff's photos. If we decide to go down that road, every CC-licensed photo needs to have a watermark. Instead, the idea of putting the license on the top of every file page - and as I have suggested several times, in oversized red letters - is IMO a good idea. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that it matters where on the page the license is. To a photo snatcher they just look like invitations to "borrow" the photo. They only thing that could be of interest to them, is what the consequences might be if they don't follow the rules of the license. That should be made clear on the file page. Today there are no visible consequences. See my suggestion above. --Cart (talk) 00:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Your suggestion is good. Put a warning of legal action for not attributing photos to their authors in big red letters, then. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:08, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree with both Ikan and Cart's suggestions here, this would be great at combating this issue in future by giving uploaders more confidence and providing a deterrent factor. Cmao20 (talk) 00:14, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

You'd just be scaring off re-users that way. I've always been of the opinion that people on here bend over backwards to accommodate uploaders while treating everyone else like they don't matter and should just piss off. This whole thing is a perfect example. Don't put off uploaders by putting something at the bottom of a single users images, but then it's totally cool to warn re-users in big red letters about potential legal action if they don't reuse the image in a 100% perfect way. Right. Screw everyone but uploaders. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:16, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

That's like saying that people would be scared to park their cars for the threat of parking tickets, instead of learning how to park the right way. --Cart (talk) 00:27, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

That's a good analogy. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:30, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

@W.carter: You could say the same exact thing for putting a notice on the bottom of a couple of uploaders images. "That's like saying uploaders would be scared to park their car if there's an address on the curb." It's not an argument. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, as I said before, I'm not for water marking, it's too easy to remove. Second, I don't think we should be discussing this to solve the problems with just one or two users' photos. We need a more overall solution that will work in the long run for many more uploaders. I have never before seen Commons and Wikimedia make rules for just one or two users, changes in policy should be something that works for all users and re-users. --Cart (talk) 00:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

What's your solution, or would you rather just keep things exactly as they are? My main concern is not to deface photos, but I'm fine with clearer warnings. On Wikivoyage, when we have to upload otherwise free images of copyrighted stuff that lacks commercial FoP, I like to put warnings on the file pages to the effect of: "Not to be used commercially. If you nevertheless choose to use this file commercially, you do so at your own sole risk." I wish Commons had a large category of such photos that could be used non-commercially only, with such warnings, but the Wikimedia Foundation will probably never agree to that. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

1. Ban uploaders from creating their own licenses 2. Do what you suggested but maybe as a link to the license section next to the "From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository" at the top of a file 3. Move towards depreciating older CC licenses and consolidate some of the more obtuse ones having to do with public domain. Like there's 18 PD templates for works of the United States government.

At the end of the day there should be one or two PD licenses per country, one general purpose CC license, and that's essentially it. To use an analogy, you get the class you teach. This is just the natural outcome of the substantial amount of licensing options and "old west" mentality towards the whole thing on here. It's totally unrealistic to expect anyone who just wants to use an image for their personal blog, scrapbook, or whatever to sort through or understand it all. You have to design things for regular people though or there's just going to be problems. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Of course it would be great to have "license plates for Dummies" like you suggest. That would be heaven, but I don't think Commons has any say over the the 18 different PD licenses used by the United States government. And good luck with getting this administration to consolidate them. We need to work with realistic goals, things we can actually change. --Cart (talk) 00:57, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

@W.carter: From what I remember a good portion of those licenses were created by users on Commons purely for tracking purposes and aren't actually necessary. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:15, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

My view on this hasn't changed since last year. If there is a problem with reusers being sloppy about attribution, the solution isn't to punish the creators who notice the fact and do something about it. Making the license information more prominent might help, but it's not as though it's hidden. Mackensen (talk) 00:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

+1 - no idea why we should prioritise 'protecting reusers' who are using pictures illegally. No one who used these pictures legally has had any issues - people need to realise that not everything on the internet is free for them to use with zero consequences or requirements. There wouldn't be a Wikimedia Commons without the generosity of our uploaders and as long as the reuse requirements are not ridiculous and don't violate Commons licensing policy, we should support their right to seek to enforce proper attribution. Cmao20 (talk) 01:09, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

For those arguing that this is 100% on the side of reusers, a reminder that one of the only clear findings of consensus we have is to establish Commons:Copyleft trolling at a guideline. There is a point at which the behavior of copyright owners can go too far. This is about figuring out how to better draw lines and/or a process to figure out when someone "goes too far" (to use the most general possible language). — Rhododendrites ^talk |  01:10, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

That is why, while I made my suggestion about warnings above, I also hinted about some general guidelines for how authors should behave if their work was used in an improper way. I don't think we have any such help right now. Photographers are usually not trained in legal matters and they often have trouble writing good letters about the situation to companies using their work, so they turn to services like Pixsy that enforce too much. Even a simple message to copy would be a start. Both parties need some help with this and clear guidelines. --Cart (talk) 01:20, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Cmao. If ever "copyleft trolls" are a problem for Commons, it's surely one of the lesser problems with users. Unlike harassment, hatespeech, and, more generally, human stupidity.

I also oppose any watermarking of Diliff's images, and if we have "copyleft tolls" here on Commons I still don't think Diliff is one of those. For me, he is just a formerly active Wikipedian with lots of useful contributions, who meanwhile ceased to contribute actively. If he is enforcing his copyright via Pixsy, it's still his right to do. As for me, true "copyleft trolling" is some kind of a "business model" including single-purpose account(s) with careless uploads and aggressive pushing of pictures in Wikipedia aricles + Wikidata items -- Livio & socks would be a good example for that, if we had straight evidence that he takes money from re-users (I don't know if he does, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if he does).

But: if that's an existent "business model", I doubt it's a really profitable one, and apart from a few real trolls who are easy to reveal (such as Livio) that's lesser a problem for Commons. The community should appreciate real contributors and acknowledge that they have a copyright and the rght to enforce it if necessary. --A.Savin 04:06, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this. I'd add that people who post blatantly stolen images either maliciously or because they have no understanding of copyright and think it's OK to just grab everything they saw on a website and others who request deletion of images for nonsensical reasons (or worse, improperly speedily delete images for meritless reasons after they were duly kept in discussions) are also much bigger problems than people who aggressively enforce their copyrights. If you violate someone's copyright and they go after you, that's unfortunate for you, but they have the right to do it. I remember back in the 1990s Usenet days, there was a user who went by Muad_Dib who posted thousands of photos stolen from Penthouse.com and was sued and had to settle for some $100,000 in damages plus an online apology. That was a very expensive lesson for him. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:54, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with getting Commons:Copyleft trolling renamed. I find it a misguided term that is embarrassing to link to. Why use neologisms? Call the page Commons:Copyright enforcement and discuss trolls/copyleft/uploader's rights/reusers abuse of license terms there.

A concern seems to about protecting unaware reusers. Education is important for that:

• Redesigning the file page so that licensing is clear
• I don't mind a prominent template on the file page ("This creator aggressively enforces licensing terms")
• Getting Wikipedias to put a credit/license line in file captions - why would an oblivious reuser do that if Wikipedia itself doesn't obviously credit anyone for anything (text or files).

I don't agree with watermarking Diliff's photos. Although providing an on-the-fly watermarking service for reusers would be useful, picking and choosing which images to watermark may be counter-productive. If A.Savin gets annoyed with Commons can they send out a few $900 demands to infringers to get their 1000s (?) of high quality files watermarked? Commander Keane (talk) 07:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

As an example: Norwegian Wikipedia is already crediting photographers in most of their captions, this is what it looks like. They use a template, byline. --Cart (talk) 11:25, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I checked the files of mine that they use. None of the uses had that template. In the articles where I found my images, only some historic images were attributed. –LPfi (talk) 18:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Everything above tldr. i just have one question:

is there an agreement on where the line is, between "acceptable copyright enforcement" and "unacceptable copyright enforcement"? RoyZuo (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure. Acceptable enforcement means appropriate response to the infringement: "some guy eith a blog", charities, and even small-scale private business websites shouldn't get 900-1500 $€₤ bills out of the blue, but a fair warning first. (Sure, big publishers are a different matter.)

Inacceptable behaviour: systematically enforce CC licenses with no warning; usually by abusing loopholes of outdated CC licenses.

Also @A.Savin: yes this is actually a very profitable business model to the point that several agencies/law firms are specialized in enforcement, notably Pixsy. Not addressing this very real problem makes it worse because more people will begin to participate in it, upload photos on Commons just for the money. --Enyavar (talk) 12:32, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

If you upload 100 photos on Commons and do nothing else, then after 5 years and running Google search for all 100 the likelihood of finding ONE of that photos being used somewhere on the Web w/o attribution is ... pretty low. If you upload 10,000 and do nothing else and wait 10 years before the search, then yes perhaps this likelihood is a tiny little bit higher. --A.Savin 13:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure, the 10k approach you describe was what Marco Verch did: pay volunteers to take and upload as many photos as possible, then use those stock images as bait on Commons.

However, we are not talking about any random photos of odd potatoes or nice sunsets... We are talking technically flawless images of popular places/objects. Keyword SEO and used in as many language versions as possible, too. That is actually what Commons expects the perfect contributors to do.

With that in mind, please re-calculate the odds of images finding re-use. And again, the authors of the two images should reserve all rights to bill malicious moneygrabbers who steal the images for posters. Yet they also bill innocent naive re-users in a manner we wish to prevent from happening. --Enyavar (talk) 21:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Here is my experience in copyright enforcement. I rarely check or try to correct uses of my pictures, but when I have done, I usually got attribution fixed within a day. The exception was a French political party using of my picture for their election material, online and printed, and not doing anything even after 3 mails. So I hired a lawyer who got some money from them. I was quite pissed off in this case, as the they are not a poor blogger, but a professional organization which can even bother to hire a photographer for their business. So I disagree with "copyright enforcement is difficult". It is quite easy and straightforward. However I don't know the solution for copyleft trolling. Yann (talk) 10:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

The solution to copyright trolling is to have fair legislation, which doesn't allow it, or at least doesn't make it profitable, The problem is that the big commercial players want to be able to hit hard on anybody who uses their material, and they have quite some lobbying power. –LPfi (talk) 18:34, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

•  Oppose watermarking any of images on Commons. So-called "copyleft trolls" is not a problem for Commons. Hence, we shouldn't delete/damage useful content. So-called "copyleft trolls" is a problem only for goofy/irresponsible "reusers" Юрий Д.К 13:17, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

  And naïve users, i.e. most of the people out there. People in general don't learn even the basics of copyright law, except those who make an effort for professional reasons, or out of interest such as many here. –LPfi (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• I would also like to add that having author's name and/or license in the image caption on Wikipedia's pages is simply a waste of time and space. Every time someone has used one of my images in a less than good fashion, I have got the comment: "But I didn't take it from Wikipedia, I just found it online." Those looking for images to use, do so online and they end up at the Commons file page, or they search directly on Commons for good photos. Our QI and FP categories are like catnip for images poachers. We are literally telling them where the best images to steal are. In any case, they always need to go to the file page to download the image, so any info, licenses or warnings should go on those pages. Those grabbing the image usually also need to download it by clicking on the image or one of the size links below it. A first step could be to place a warning at the top of the page that opens then. That way the warning is not too visible/intrusive for those who just click on the image from an article, but will appear only when you open it larger. Just an idea. --Cart (talk) 13:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Part 2

• This thread is all over the place now. One of the things we do have consensus for is that uploading images with the intention of exploiting free licenses to sue people who use our media is not acceptable on Commons. We also seem to have consensus that this is a very difficult and even divisive issue. What we don't have consensus for is a one-size-fits-all solution and especially what to do in edge cases that we can call something like "aggressive copyright enforcement". There's also pretty clear consensus that we could do more to explain/present terms of a CC license better. IMO I don't think the opinions that "it's all the reusers fault" or "everyone has to agree not to take legal action/give people a chance to fix the error" are that helpful as they're extremely unlikely to gain consensus and thus fill these discussions with emotion rather than working towards a realistic compromise/solution. For anyone who thinks Diliff is exemplary of what people are talking about when they say "copyleft trolling is a problem", you could read something like this piece in Computer Weekly that involves Commons (or any of a number of posts by Cory Doctorow on the same subject, or the statement Creative Commons put out itself condemning "[CC] license enforcement as business model"). This is all to say, the reason the conversation about Diliff is so difficult is because his case is not "copyleft trolling" but a form of "aggressive copyright enforcement" that in some ways looks the same as copyleft trolling. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  14:19, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

  Well, this is the Commons so you can't expect a clear streamlined debate. But if we are to use Diliff's photos as a first case trial, why don't we start with putting a template on his file pages, stating something like "This photographer uses aggressive copyright enforcement, please read the terms of the CC license carefully and follow them." --Cart (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

  All of his files ARE using a template, stating very clearly how Diliff wants his images being attributed upon re-use. This very clear template hasn't stopped people from misunderstanding or overlooking those directions, not the least because Commons doesn't allow license texts at the top of pages. About a dozen times upon receiving bills from Diliff's lawyer without prior warning, people went to Diliffs talk page on Wikipedia and asked questions: That they were sorry; that they honestly didn't know; that they would fix the attribution (actually legally impossible: you have to pay up AND remove the image that was "violated"); and if Pixsy was even authorized by Diliff; and yes also that they couldn't afford the payment.

  Those were not the image poachers who blatantly steal images, those were naive re-users who (rightly) expected to find "free" images on Commons and just didn't realize the catch that they had to exactly reproduce Diliff's licence text including the links. Forgotten the attribution? Minor errors, or creative solutions like maybe alt-text? Nope: PAY UP.

  We also have not a clue how many cases Diliff pursued and settled off-site. The idea of tools to help Diliff* with managing re-users? He has no need for tools, help-pages or guidance to settle his cases. He has efficient and automated workflows, off-site. And so do the other copyleft-enforcers we're talking about. I have read from your statements that you (@W.carter: ) have a much more mindful approach, and as a result there probably won't be distressed calls for help towards the Commons community. Content whose copyrights are gently enforced, with warnings? That won't bear forced watermarks.

  And that is where the watermark comes in: Within Wikimedia projects, we have templates to hide it. Outside of Wikimedia, the naive re-user can simply place it in their social media post or wherever, and be sure that they fully reproduced the correct license. While the malicious re-user who crops the watermark on purpose? Yeah, that last one must fully deal with the consequences on their own. --Enyavar (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, Diliff's files do contain a template about the license, but it's totally lame and information-wise a disaster. To call something "Summary" in very big letters is misleading and makes you just skip that part thinking that it's a summary of the text about the image. The big letters should say: "How to use this file", there should be colors and at least some frame, perhaps a picture. As mentioned above, the warnings about use needs to be so well designed that even the dumbest re-user will notice and understand it. Take a look at some more intimidating pages created by people who are more experienced at layout: Example 1 (heck, even I would think twice before doing anything with that file!) and Example 2. If you redesign the licenses, please let it be done by people who know about such designs. --Cart (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

•  Comment And by the way, since Diliff's files and behavior is causing so much trouble for Commons, can't we simply upgrade the design of his template per above to make it stand out more on the page? I mean that text is under the usual CC here on the site, and even if we are very polite and don't edit each other's things more than necessary, we have after all discussed everything from deleting his files to adding watermarks. Just making that template more noticeable/"legal-looking"/(frightening?) isn't really such a big infringement on his rights, since it is forcing us to have these long discussions. --Cart (talk) 12:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

One particularly nasty detail of Diliff's license text is the Suggested attribution: "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0" - which is technically insufficient as attribution because it only names the license without linking to it. That feels very close to a deliberate trap. If Pixsy is going after users for that deficiency, we have every reason to take action to disarm that trap. Omphalographer (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Omphalographer: I  Support disarming that trap.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 23:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Omphalographer and Jeff G., I went ahead and made a bold move and upgraded User:Diliff/Licensing a bit. Not so much (hopefully) I risk getting blocked or something, it's all very revertable if people think I went too far. It stands out a bit better now. --Cart (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I like the idea, but it's incompatible with the way the template is used in some of Diliff's image descriptions, e.g. File:Skylark 1, Lake District, England - June 2009.jpg. I've rolled back these changes and replaced "CC BY-SA 3.0" with a URL to the license to make it maximally clear that the URL needs to be included. (The name of the license is not required.) Omphalographer (talk) 23:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I think a lot of the above is very unrealistic. Have a look at what I've put in Category:Images by Joe Mabel as a media source. I believe all of the uses mentioned here correctly mentioned my name (I might be wrong about one or two); I would be surprised if more than a dozen or two got the licensing entirely correct.

People—even well-intentioned people—simply do not understand how to properly indicate a CC license. This should not result in hundreds of threatened lawsuits. - Jmabel ! talk 17:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I believe the key is to find a fair balance protecting creators’ rights to enforce proper attribution while not discouraging users or complicating legitimate image use. A clear, agreed-upon process should be established to determine when license enforcement crosses the line providing users with a warning and the chance to correct mistakes before taking drastic actions like deletion or watermarking. The issue also lies in the lack of visibility for license information. Previously, clicking an image on Wikipedia would lead directly to the Commons page where author and license details were prominently displayed. Now, the image opens in a popup for a larger view, which significantly reduces that visibility. This change was made without community consultation, and actions taken outside Commons are beyond our control. Limiting uploads or adding watermarks is not a valid solution; instead, we should work to restore or improve the visibility of license information on Commons Wilfredor (talk) 01:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

•  Comment It was discussed above by User:Ikan Kekek, User:Adamant1, User:Rhododendrites and other to put the license template at the top. I think it would be better to edit the layout of the license templates instead so there is a more clear warning for example mark the words in {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} so it says "YOU MUST..." in bold and red text or a text saying "To meet the requirements you usually need a line like: "Photo/work by <insert author>. License: <link to license added by template>". Perhaps someone could make a suggestion so we can see how it could look? --MGA73 (talk) 10:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I just noticed that such a suggestion have been made at Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Extra_clear_instructions_for_attribution. --MGA73 (talk) 13:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

•  Comment It should be made clear that copyleft trolling and copyleft enforcement are fundamentally different. Copyleft trolling is actually copyright enforcement following a copyleft trap. Copyleft enforcement could very well be encouraged - we could even have a page for reporting wrong attribution and templates in place for easier notification by the community. Note that Pixsy only pursues compensation for CC 4.0 files if the user shows they've reached out to the transgressor to no avail. To be honest, if you've reached out to someone and they ignored you for 30 days, really, it's hard to believe that said transgressor is acting in good faith. Release the Pixsy hounds, for all I care.

Beyond that, I'd also support implementing a much clearer warning on file pages stating that correct attribution is a condition of reuse and that failing to meet this requirement may constitute a copyright violation. This would help ensure that reusers are aware of their obligations up front and reduce unintentional misuse. Rkieferbaum (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

May constitute a copyright violation and could incur legal penalties to the reuser, including heavy fines. That or other words to that effect should be in the warning text. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Cart, Rkieferbaum, and Wilfredor: Putting more warning text on the file pages won't solve copyleft trolling. Many of the people who have been targeted by copyleft trolling were actually trying to follow the rules, but made a mistake. For example, the most recent victim of Diliff apparently did credit him, but the credit was accidentally hidden under the border of the website so it couldn't be seen. Many other victims have credited images to "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia Commons" because they didn't understand how attribution is supposed to work. I myself have incorrectly attributed images by accidentally listing the wrong license. I strongly support enforcing copyrights, but none of those conditions should result in someone facing demands for thousands of dollars without any opportunity to fix the error. Nosferattus (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We have no control over what happens outside the Commons Wilfredor (talk) 02:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

If we watermark an image, the attribution stays with it outside of Commons, thus preventing copyleft trolling. Nosferattus (talk) 04:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Watermarking photos undermines the core principle that images should remain freely accessible. For years, I have personally removed watermarks from images in our commons collection because they introduce distracting visual noise and diminish the photos' natural appeal, encourage self-promotion over genuine sharing, and ultimately contradict our foundational philosophy Wilfredor (talk) 11:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

distracting visual noise is no problem: together with the watermarking, we can add a link users to provide the template that removes the white attribution line (when used in a wiki, see the example image above). remain freely accessible: well, the photos will still be freely accessible. However, once watermarked, they are no longer an instant free money generator for those uploaders who violate our foundational philosophy. --Enyavar (talk) 12:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Wilfredor: If people stop using Commons because it has a reputation for being a trap (which is already the reputation it has on Reddit), what good are our founding principles? Free images that no one wants to use are worthless. Do you ever wonder why people are willing to pay $50 to use a public domain image from Alamy or Getty instead of getting it for free from us? This is why. I have also removed lots of watermarks from photos and am not a fan of watermarking. In this situation, however, it is the least bad solution. Nosferattus (talk) 22:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We’re everyday people who donate our time without expecting any compensation, we aren’t employees, and comparing us to large corporations isn’t fair. Everyone here gives what they can. IMHO every project has a lifecycle, and the mismanagement of WMF has contributed to a decline in its user base factors that are ultimately beyond our control Wilfredor (talk) 22:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Also: the type of watermarks that are being proposed here are a strip along the bottom of the image, not an overlay like some stock image sites use on their previews - see File:Skylark 1, Lake District, England - June 2009.jpg for an example. They don't intrude on the image content, and are trivial to remove if you're attributing the image in another way. Omphalographer (talk) 23:19, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Here's my 2 cents:

1. make a policy or guideline that requires commons users who attempt copyright enforcement to:
   1. first warn or request copyright offenders to rectify the mistakes by any non-monetary methods (re-adding attribution, making public announcements / addenda...) within a reasonable time frame (such as 2 weeks or more?)
   2. only after #1.1 fails can commons users start monetary / legal threats.
2. set up a group of users, who will be tasked with reviewing complaints against commons users who fail to follow #1 (issuing threats without first serving warnings / requests). if the complaints are deemed true, then submit the case for the community to decide whether those commons users should be banned.
3. if banned, delete all uploads.

RoyZuo (talk) 08:48, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• I got pinged. I've read through the above discussion and am pleased it seems more reasonable than the previous one. But then I see Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Copyleft trolling - proceeding to watermark images and despair what a few hot heads can do. Watermarking is a dumb ass solution. Go ask WMF to help you with a better UI for images on Wikipedia/Commons that informs our readers and potential image users of what they need to do. That solution works for all of us with CC licenced images. And you need to stop with the "copyleft troll" immaturity real soon before someone ends up on the wrong side of a libel action and finds out how much being stupid and hot headed on the internet can cost. Trolling is the deliberate posting of supposedly free images in order ensnare those who use them and fail to follow the licence conditions to the letter and dot and crossed tee. Diliff did not do that and we have no evidence (actual evidence, not random posts on the internet) that anyone making a licence attribution mistake has been perused. Diliff created thousands of professional-class images that are very widely used on Wikipedia and elsewhere according to the licence conditions. The previous big discussion involved someone who admitted they thought the images were free to use without attribution. Which had all the intellectual weight of me assuming that since the cookies are free at the church fair, they are also free at my local Tesco.

Wrt Flickr comparisons, Flickr is a community project that exists as long as photographers want to belong and pay. Commons is an image repository. That many of the images were created by people who are users here is a bonus but on Flickr licenced images can only be uploaded by the creator. That isn't the case here. It makes our ability to sanction the image creator harder. Many of the suggestions made are off the cut off your nose to spite your face variety and ignore the many tens of thousands of re-uses of Diliff's images elsewhere that are licence-compliant. The copyleft-zealot-hotheads are only going to end up ruining things for all those users (and potential users) because, what, a mere handful of people were Stupid On The Internet and went to Diliff's user page to complain.

And I repeat that if Commons does something stupid with Diliff's images like watermarking -- the above linked post has the idiocy of a watermark saying this attribution must be retained, and then immediately below, an example of using it on Wikipedia with the attribution cropped off. I thought that level of stupidity was restricted to US presidents -- then all that will happen is Wikipedia will fork the images without watermark and Commons is no longer being used as a repository for them. It might even provoke English Wikipedia to decide to dispense with Commons, who clearly can't be trusted to host an image repository without vandalising the images that don't belong to them.

Please move on with some of the more productive ideas on this page, about informing users of all our licenced images. Rants and vandalism belong on Twitter. Commons is an image repository of images with a valid licence. Those licenced images are still copyright. Users who have a problem with that are welcome to start their own CC0/PD project. -- Colin (talk) 13:54, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

The copyleft-zealot-hotheads are only going to end up ruining things for all those users @Colin: Realistically what's the actual effect of putting a watermark at the bottom of an image going to be? It's not like whomever uses the reuses an image can't just crop the watermark out. Big whoop-de-doo. Your the one acting like people are being "zealot-hotheads" by supporting watermarking. Are you seriously going to act like someone having to edit an image to use it is that much of an issue? Come on. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Content of users who act against Commons guidelines

I think before we can decide how to handle uploads of users who aggressively and with monetary interest enforce their copyright we need a general guideline how to proceed with uploads of users who violate our guidelines in cases where the content itself does not violate any guideline. For new contributions it is clear that a blocked user can not upload new files, but what do we do with existing uploads? GPSLeo (talk) 07:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

"For new contributions it is clear that a blocked user can not upload new files." If that's clear, why did a proposal to delete photos by Livio Andronico and socks get voted down in flames? I don't think it's clear, because the fact that a user is blocked doesn't make the photo violate any policy or guideline inherently, especially if it's COM:INUSE, as many of Livio's photos are. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

GPSLeo, sorry: I don't understand the whole question. We have a guideline about Copyleft trolling. We do not usually block copyleft trolls. Nor do we usually take down their uploads. That is the exact reason in the first place, why we should watermark those uploads that are effectively Copyright traps. If that little can be agreed upon, I have no problem with even known Copyleft trolls continue to upload images - we'd just watermark them. --Enyavar (talk) 13:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Enyavar: Livio Andronico is User:Livioandronico2013. This user was blocked, and then globally locked for harassment and abuse mainly in the featured pictures contest. Nothing to do with copyleft trolling. However we should block and ban copyleft trolls, i.e. people who create content under a free license for the sole purpose of suing reusers. While I don't like people who use Pixsy or similar companies to enforce their copyright, they are not all copyleft trolls. Specifically Diliff didn't upload pictures on Commons for the sole purpose of suing reusers. Yann (talk) 13:42, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Not for the sole purpose, no. Yet acting that way, now. And if we want those pictures on Commons, we cannot just ignore that behaviour that harms our users and our reputation. --Enyavar (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

If a user acts against Commons in a way that we decide that we forcibly alter all uploads of this user (by adding a watermark) I can not imagine a case where we do not block this user. GPSLeo (talk) 14:32, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Specific kind of tiling meant for car parking

what category fits? RoyZuo (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Outdoor car parks, Category:Public car parks shouldn't be totally wrong. --Enyavar (talk) 23:23, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I would call these "pavers": paver (Q3328263), and following the category tree there is actually Category:Concrete paving slabs in Germany with one file already in it! No Category:Pavers by application that I could see though. I don't think it is a public car park, as it has a number so it belongs to somebody. Commander Keane (talk) 00:55, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

thx a lot! i will put it somewhere under such existing cats but not create new ones since there's Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/12/Category:Pavements (architecture). RoyZuo (talk) 07:59, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

April 06

10,000 files to be categorized, please

A small team started in November 2024 to add at least one category to the files that had been shown in Category:All media needing categories as of 2018. We have reduced the number from 40,000 to 10,000, and now we need the help of experienced users, please, to add categories to the remaining files. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 10:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

If you encounter files with Cyrillic descriptions or names add them to Category:Media needing categories (Cyrillic names). That's the category which I'm trying to work through systematically. (Already cleared the sub-categories for Belarusian and Ukrainian language files.) Nakonana (talk) 10:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

FYI: I have been working on "Media needing categories" for years, and my experience is that using Wikidata is very helpful. In the search box you can enter the name of the person or the relevant word of the topic in any language. The result can ideally be the Commons category or a link to a Wikipedia article or a page within Wikidata. If there is no result, it depends on the description of the image what should be added as a category. If there is a positive result, I add the image to Wikidata if there is no image or a very bad image. I also check if the image can be useful on a Wikipedia page if there is no direct transfer from Wikidata to Wikipedia (for example the English and German WP). Wouter (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Added a link to its parent cat at Commons:Categorization requests. One could also build various search queries for that category by which categorization becomes easier for various subsets. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I've gone and categorized about ten files. It might seem little help, but I don't have much time. Anyway, if all readeers entered and categorized some files, a great decrease would be done.

And don't be shy! There are stuff in Cyrillic, yeah, but quite some files are pretty straightforward to categorize. I found one from a football team in Colombia, a place clearly in Chechnya, a monument related to castellers in Barcelona... And a lot of things I don`t know, but maybe you, you or you are familiar with that tree, language, flag or ''chisme''.

Good luck!

B25es (talk) 16:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

One can use the information contained in the image, but one misses the location and date for more extensive categories. Example: File:Homecoming (44495938).jpeg. The only location clue is the German text.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:02, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Please add such images to Category:Unidentified locations or a relevant subcategory, where folks including myself would be happy to try to track it down! Sam Walton (talk) 10:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Fastest way to find the category/item for geotagged photos？

I upload a photo that's geotagged by gps. it shows clearly what the subject is.

now i need to find what the category/wd item for that subject is so i can add it. how do you do that in the most efficient way?

i'm doing this right now and find it tedious:

1. ctrl click coord in {{Location}} (1st new tab)
2. ctrl+f wikishootme
3. ctrl click (2nd new tab)
4. zoom in wikishootme and find the thing i'm looking for
5. click and it opens the category/wd item (3rd new tab)
6. copy the name and go back to my photo to add it.

i think the process would be streamlined if mw:Extension:Kartographer could display "nearby categories" by default, then i imagine i can find the category name by 1 click, at most 2 clicks. RoyZuo (talk) 10:50, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there any definition of the categories that can do that for you? The Wikidata entry may have coordinates, but the relevant categories may be on country, province or municipality level (or something else, like parish) – the neighbouring municipality usually has coordinates closer than the country. For some of these entities, there are geoshapes in OSM, which would tell whether the subcategories of it are relevant for the location, but the tool then needs to find and propagate the "is in" to any (?) subcategories. The category tree often isn't straight forward.

I don't know whether needed computational effort is too big or if this only requires writing the code (categories that cannot be automatically bound to the location would still be ignored – but listing subcategories, like the Upload Wizard, would help).

–LPfi (talk) 07:03, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

for example File:Arrow in Ho's residence.jpg.

i use my 6 steps to arrive at Category:Ho Residence, Pak Sha O Ho Residence, Pak Sha O (Q15936448).

Kartographer already can show "nearby articles", but on commons they show galleries, which are not commonly created, and not what we use for categorisation / depicts.

there's already the coord on the page. i'd like an easier method to get from the coord to a view of items around it. RoyZuo (talk) 14:54, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I assume you won't find Category:Dogs in Hong Kong and its subcategories, as the coordinates for Hong Kong aren't close enough. I was referring to that kind of categories, which in many cases are more important than categories of the more specific location. –LPfi (talk) 10:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

British mailbox outside the uk

i'm not sure how to categorise File:(20250309) Sankt Augustin 10.jpg, or how to set sdc. RoyZuo (talk) 11:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I'd just note that there are cast iron mail boxes with royal ciphers elsewhere in the world (e.g.), so is there a chance that this is from some British colony rather than the UK? Sam Wilson 12:02, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

It's in Germany. Nakonana (talk) 12:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Place it in Category:Red post boxes in Germany, there are other British post boxes like this in that category. --Cart (talk) 12:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Not all red post boxes are British; not all British post boxes are red. There are many British post boxes around the world (even if the many in Ireland are discounted). A specific category would seem sensible. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:56, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

April 07

Syrian flags again

File:Flag of Syria (2025-).svg and File:Flag of Syria (2025-) (stars variant).svg are currently in Category:Flag of Syria (1932–1958, 1961–1963), which seems wrong to me. The former seems to have been introduced at this anonymous edit 11 January 2025 and the latter at this 28 June 2023 edit by Illegitimate Barrister, respectively. The latter at least made some sense at a time when no internationally recognized entity was using the flag, but I think is a poor choice now that this is the current official flag of the country. Either we need to rename the category to include the current period, or we should have a separate category for the current period. - Jmabel ! talk 18:28, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Illegitimate Barrister has now moved the second file to File:Flag of Syria (2024–present, stars variant).svg, which introduces a disharmony in the file naming (something I had been trying to avoid). Abzeronow (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Abzeronow: I think that should be moved back. The 2025 date was discussed, and is the date of de jure adoption. No one user should change that without building a new consensus. - Jmabel ! talk 20:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done Move has been reverted. And your reasoning was included in the message. Abzeronow (talk) 20:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I also added entire protection for move and overwriting to prevent further problems. GPSLeo (talk) 07:28, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Copyright of dioramas

What are the rules of dioramas on Commons. I have a photo of a castle model located in Polish museum, it was based on old drawing and some old documents from XVI century. I see a lot of Dioramas in Category:Dioramas in museums is there some official statement about them? Can I upload my diorama to commons? Jakub T. Jankiewicz (talk) 21:48, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what the general practice is on here, but I've felt like dioramas should have to follow the same rules for freedom of panorama as anything else. If these statues of Nazi soldiers were outside then the photograph would clearly be a copyright violations per Norway's freedom of panorama laws. There's also Commons:Derivative_works#TOYS. But for some reason they get a pass "because diorama." I really don't see any reason why such images should be allowed on here though. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

In terms of FOP, indoor works are not covered in Poland. Abzeronow (talk) 23:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jcubic: How old is the diorama itself? - Jmabel ! talk 23:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel I don't think that it's old enough to have the copyright expired. Jakub T. Jankiewicz (talk) 10:58, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I have some other diorama pictures. The original dioramas are old (1910-ish?), but they were restored and modified to some – unknown – extent in the 1980s or so. These include stuffed animals, arranged foreground landscapes (stones, shrubs etc.) and background paintings. I assume the original settings were respected; would slight improvements be enough for a new copyright (this is Finland)? –LPfi (talk) 07:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I can't say anything definitive, except that usually when something is refurbished, the changes aren't creative enough to generate a new copyright. - Jmabel ! talk 18:10, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand it is hard to say anything more without before/after images. –LPfi (talk) 08:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

April 08

Help with trimming a video

Sorry if this is the wrong place to request this. I couldn't find any other obvious venue...
Would anyone be able to trim the last minute off of this video file: File:The Flower with Seven Colors (1948).webm? The original is at [6] if that helps at all. Nosferattus (talk) 02:38, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The free tool LosslessCut allows to trim the video to the desired length --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: If you need someone else to do it for you, Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop is the best place to ask. - Jmabel ! talk 18:11, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I made the request at Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop instead. Nosferattus (talk) 21:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Weird sorting at Category:Museums in Italy by city

The subcats in this category are sorted by the name of the city they are for. However, when I look at the category, I see the subcats for cities starting with the letter "I" first, before the subcats for cities starting with the letter "A".

I've tried several things to get the "I" categories to move to their correct place -- null edits, retyping the sort key, retyping the entire category with sort key (in case there was a non-displayable character or something), clearing the cache after trying the above -- but I can't get things to sort correctly. Could someone take a look at this? Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 04:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Museums in Iglesias (Italy) has a corrupted sort key in the database which is almost certainly the cause of this issue: quarry:run/965547/output/0/html. I've tried making a dummy edit to that category page but it doesn't seem to have helped. Omphalographer (talk) 20:55, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Omphalographer: It seems strange that one corrupted sort key would make all the I-ones sort wrong. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Omphalographer: I fixed it, thanks to your clue. I deleted the category altogether from Category:Museums in Iglesias (Italy). Then the other I-ones sorted correctly. Then I added the category back and everything looks good now.

How did you determine that the sort key was bad? -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I ran a database query on Quarry to view the internal representation of the sort keys for the category. You can see the query and its results at quarry:history/84386/995708/965547 - notice the garbage in the row for Iglesias. (This is a saved result from when I first ran the query - there's a newer result at quarry:history/84386/995730/965569, and as you'll see there, Iglesias now has a sensible sort key.) Omphalographer (talk) 01:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Omphalographer: Cool. Thanks for your help with this! -- Auntof6 (talk) 02:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Batch uploading

Is Commons:Batch uploading as badly backlogged as it appears to be? Is anyone working on requested uploads? Is it worthwhile to post new requests there? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Too bad we let Fae get harassed off the project :( Nosferattus (talk) 22:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. The problem is sometimes a very sophisticated programmer is needed who is fluent in programming languages, scraping needed information and knowledge about how to build up a bot. So I guess it's highly dependent on what resources need to be transferred --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 14:28, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Feature Pictures 2025, Chronological, February listing is strange

Hi! What is going on here?. February is duplicate, at least partially. Is there wrong code in the sub-template of January?This listing is listing a month and a half.--Paracel63 (talk) 16:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s probably a mistake, I removed the duplicate February listings from the January page. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Consistent author credit in structured data

Is there any way I can get the structured-data "creator" credits for my photos that I've uploaded via Flickr (e.g. File:Fremont Solstice Parade 2024 - participants waiting for the parade to start 009 (53825059864).jpg) to match those I've uploaded directly to Commons (e.g. File:Seattle - Skid Road Theatre 02.jpg)? I would really prefer to be identified as a single "creator", not two distinct creators. It would also be nice if I had a way to mass-apply that credit to the videos in Category:Videos by Joe Mabel. - Jmabel ! talk 18:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it can be done with AC/DC but the first thing is to remove creator (P170) individually (If I try to add the new one and remove the old one at the same time it removes both). Then add creator (P170), right click the 3 dots on the side and select "Some value" and copy/paste the right values  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   21:16, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

It amuses me that a bot has tagged thousands of my photos "creator=some value; URL=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pigsonthewing; author name string= Andy Mabbett" when there is an easily-findable Wikidata item about me, which links to my user page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:07, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@999real: there is no way in the world that I am going to go through thousands of images by hand. I'm looking for an automated method. - Jmabel ! talk 03:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Web page for torrents of US Gov and other free media

If you need already shut down governmental ressources, you may find them at: https://sciop.net/uploads/. The web page offers several terabytes of potentially endangered data, but also frames of Blender films or Wikipedia dumps. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

April 09

Additional wishes in Permission field

I stumbled upon File:Erlend Apneseth Kongsberg Jazzfestival 2018 (181337).jpg which is properly licensed and templated as CC BY-SA 4.0. However in the Permission field in the information template User:Toresetre/PhotoreleaseTore-CC BY-SA 4.0 is used which asks for more favors than the license requires (in particular, making it looking like a CC BY-ND license). As this is under the heading Permission, it may be confusing for reusers. Do we have any documented policy about this? I found an old and slightly similar discussion about home-brewed licenses but this seems to perhaps dodge it by having a regular license template as well. Ainali (talk) 07:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Ainali: Please see the COM:USER#Regarding licenses guideline.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 09:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The licensing seems invalid. The "I kindly ask" seems to apply only to the rest of that sentence, while "Credit […] in the immediate vicinity of the image" seems to restrict the ways to attribute from what the CC licences say (3 a 2: "in any reasonable manner based…"). Additional requirements are not allowed.

Thus, either one needs to comply, in which case the file isn't CC licensed, or one can ignore the additional text. I think we should ask Toresetre whether they want to remove the CC licence or change their template to clearly state its content is a friendly request, not a requirement.

–LPfi (talk) 09:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

See also COM:USER#Not acceptable. –LPfi (talk) 09:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Oversighter not available

Hi, I sent a request by email (to oversight-commons@lists.wikimedia.org) 2 days ago, but no answer so far. What's happening? Yann (talk) 10:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I think they do not prioritize cases where the content is already hidden with regular admin deletion/hiding. GPSLeo (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Still, they need to reply. In the English Wikipedia I always get a reply within 24h, typically much faster, something like a few hours, Ymblanter (talk) 17:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

what's wrong with Special:Transcode_statistics ?

Hi all, in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Video there is a call to -> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Transcode_statistics but no response is received, with following timeout report :

Le délai d’attente du serveur a été dépassé
Le temps de requête maximal de 60 secondes a été dépassé.
[93e526fa-9c6f-4b93-8dd1-12525ff4f3f8] 2025-04-09 10:51:25: Erreur fatale de type « Wikimedia\RequestTimeout\RequestTimeoutException »

Can someone realign or suppress the reference in the page ? Thanks.

-- Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 10:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Wladek92 This query needs that entire database table to be redesigned, the query is super inefficient. There’s a ticket about it somewhere. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Sporadic errors "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBUnexpectedError" on Commons

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T390510

I put the reports on -> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bistro#bizarre_-%3E_MediaWiki_internal_error Maybe someone has seen the same behaviour. Action was when returning back from FR updated translated message page on to the generated FR page of an article. Thanks. -- Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 11:06, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, same here. It was a few seconds around the time of Special:Diff/1019262854 for me. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 12:06, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I saw such problems on other projects too, so it's not Commons-specific. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I've been getting random errors for at least a couple of weeks now. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:55, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Most likely it is https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T390510 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)