Commons:Village pump

Shortcut: COM:VP

• Community portal
  • introduction
• Help desk
• Village pump
  • copyright
  • proposals
  • technical
• Administrators' noticeboard
  • vandalism
  • user problems
  • blocks and protections

↓ Skip to table of contents ↓       ↓ Skip to discussions ↓       ↓ Skip to the last discussion ↓

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 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/2026/01. 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. For questions about copyright, technical matters, or help that does not relate to the general Commons community as well as proposals, please see the other discussion boards linked in the blue panel at the top. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

Legend
In the last hour
In the last day
In the last week
In the last month
More than one month
Manual settings
When exceptions occur, please check the setting first.

Turkey Beypazarı district Hırkatepe Village pump. [add]

Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands#Replace images with .svg version (5 August 2025) Category talk:Heroes' Cemetery in the Philippines#RfC: Cemetery name (18 July 2025) Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 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.

December 22

Are we starting to misunderstand the point of license reviewing?

I've been going through the requests for people to become license reviewers and noticed how extremely stringent people are about ensuring that a person understands every nuance of copyright law before they can be a license reviewer. Sometimes presenting massive lists for prospective reviewers to go through and show they understand copyright violations, and then still failing them anyway when they get them all right because people are skeptical that they "really" get copyright law.

The point of being a license reviewer is not supposed to be that you certify that an item is 100% free of copyright violations. It is supposed to be that you have confirmed it was uploaded under another license elsewhere, as a record to prove that it was available in case the item is later deleted or the license is changed.

For more evidenced rationale, consider that we created the FlickrReviewerBot to do this with Flickr uploads. Basically create an instant record of proof in case the item is later modified or deleted. It has no ability to evaluate if the upload is a copyright violation. Similarly, we don't require every upload to be reviewed. Someone could just as easily upload the same copyright violation here under a creative commons license, and it would never need a license review at all.

I think we should really reconsider what we expect of license reviewers. Considering we have such a massive backlog of items needing a review, our current system clearly isn't working. This isn't saying we allow copyright violations, others can still nominate an item for deletion (including the license reviewer themself), but rather that we should expect a license reviewer to do what their name says: just review that it was uploaded under the correct license, not catch every copyvio. Aplucas0703 (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

As one of the people who is engaged in inventing test questions for prospective license reviewers: You, Aplucas0703 rightly noticed a huge lack of manpower. But I steadfastly think that moving on to reduce the expectations about LR work is a wrong move, simply shifting the issues downstream.

We must be lucky in that a small amount of files get a human review at all, so, when a reviewer actually touches a file, nobody can think that that file will get looked at again after them. So, this unique check has to be thorough, encompassing observances of COM:FOP, COM:TOO, legitimate derivatives, AI slop and Commons' scope. Especially the first 2 points, being copyright-related, entail the need for sufficiently deep knowledge about the subjects.

Making human reviewers do the same thing as the Flickr review bot, mechanically confirming licenses and disregarding other circumstances, is factually advocating for deliberately neglecting copyvios. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I partly agree that this somewhat advocates for neglecting copyvios, but only in the if we were already reviewing all of the files needing a license review. The fact that they aren't being reviewed right now essentially means that we've decided to both neglect copyvios and neglect license reviews. I think this argument is fine in an ideal situation where the license reviews have a very small backlog and are easily maintained by current reviewers.

If these license reviews are so incredibly valuable for checking for copyvios, then we should deactivate the Flickr reviewer bot by the same logic.

Your argument really only works if we're maintaining our current backlog, which we aren't. We're neglecting copyvios either way, it's just that now we've decided to also neglect license reviewing. I tagged an image I uploaded for a license review almost 2 years ago. No review yet. Aplucas0703 (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

There was an incomplete template in File:Kalen Allen in 2017.png, it somehow lacked the video ID. I fixed that while making the review, Special:Diff/1129644856/1135218179; but such incomplete review templates may deter some reviewers.

We're IMO not neglecting copyvios by letting a backlog grow, as the marking of an outstanding review signalises that a check is assumed necessary but not done yet. So, any copyvio hidden in that backlog is not neglected, but simply unknown (that is an important caveat, as any hosting provider privilege or DMCA-style laws usually requires previous knowledge of violations to make someone liable for them). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 21:51, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

No wonder that the backlogs grew... I just spend nearly half an hour while reviewing only 3 files from assumed problematic queues (tasks and reasons in parentheses):

• File:1969 - làng tị nạn người Thượng (9680602234).jpg (translating the file name, thinking, wording a DR)
• File:17th Field Ambulance with horse drawn ambulances World War I (48114647937).jpg (trying to identify the unit with Google, thinking about the case, deciding that it's likely a British unit based upon my googling, researching the correct Crown Copyright tag)
• File:(V-2) rocket engines in an assembly workshop at the Mittelwerke underground secret factory in a mountain range near Nordhause 1944. (48479649481).jpg (looking up potentially relevant tags, in that case, the {{PD-US-alien property}} of which I knew the existence but not the exact spelling. In fact, Google was faster than going through the tag categories by myself... Still, sent it to DR for quality assurance)

Then, there's a huge backlog of audio and video files that you just can't review everywhere, as you need to actually hear the audio. And it's time consuming too, you can't make a sound check (pun not intended...) without going to several positions in the multimedia file (to catch possibly protected background or stage decorations or protected audio not perceptible at the file's beginning).

These examples may serve why license reviewers must have a good understanding of these reviewing tasks and copyrights. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:02, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I think these are perhaps good reasons to rethink it. The fact that we basically expect license reviewers to sit down and listen to hour long audio clips before doing what they're actually supposed to -- check that it was uploaded under the correct license -- is contributing to this insane backlog that is inhibiting the purpose of license reviews: to verify that it was uploaded under that license as a record for if the file is later deleted or changed at the external site.

So far, there has been nothing to address the main concern, which is that we are neglecting the core purpose of license reviews by creating such an intense process. Aplucas0703 (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

So, what is constituting a correct license to you, Aplucas0703? In my opinion, that is one where the licensor did not ignore foreign copyrights, as otherwise, that license would be null and void for (parts of) the uploaded media. And with that, we're back to the expectation of listening to longer audio excerpts while doing reviews... And yes, bots like the one for Flickr or iNaturalist don't do that (and that's both not good and unavoidable), but it's absolutely no reason to make humans, who HAVE the technical ability to do deeper checks, behave like bots. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

There is a reason to allow humans to act more like these bots. From my comment you replied to: So far, there has been nothing to address the main concern, which is that we are neglecting the core purpose of license reviews by creating such an intense process. Aplucas0703 (talk) 00:06, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

It would really help if the YouTubereview bot were to be fixed--Trade (talk) 00:51, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

The license review is most often the single moment when a file gets actually seen by a human. It's a totally bad idea to remove mostly every chance at copyvio checks for the sake of reducing backlogs, as the "core purpose" of reviewing licenses is to guarantee valid licensing terms. Reducing backlogs may rather be undertaken by reducing the amount of uploads in need of license reviews, that could be done e.g. by throttling the uploads, either by a fixed amount per day (the site unlocks X token at 00:00 UTC, whenever that amount of token is used up on a first come, first served principle, no new uploads to be reviewed will be possible until next midnight) or by a relationship to the actual backlog (similar to what some torrent sites do with a need of having a positive upload ratio to continue downloading) and/or by restricting the use of automated tools and imports. Don't tackle the symptoms (backlogs) by introducing measures designed to reduce the work quality, tackle the causes (lack of manpower, too large amounts of uploads for the available crew). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:04, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Wondering if we can try to establish some consensus on this proposal in some way or reach some mid-way agreement, probably by fully splitting patroller/image-reviewer rights (and then adding current members into both automatically). It's worth noting that admins, who also have this permission, aren't even expected to have a perfect understanding of copyright either, per our advice pages to them. Aplucas0703 (talk) 03:27, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with Aplucas0703. A more in-depth review is always welcome and often necessary, but the license review process should be straightforward and not require more than checking whether a work is actually licensed under the given license at the source. Whether the licensor has actually licensed the work correctly; whether they had the right to do so etc. - that can be a complex question, but shouldn't be part of the basic license review. The license review is a first step, an important step. But if it were meant to encompass a full review of the copyright situation of any given file, we certainly wouldn't have the manpower to prevent an ever-growing backlog. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:56, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

The license reviewed template also doesn't say anything other than "X has checked that file was available at source website under the stated license". Nakonana (talk) 22:09, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

And I think that's really the crux of the issue too! It just seems like we're expecting way too much. I did the math on this, given the large size of our backlog, it would take a collective 43 working years to review all files, if each license review took just 3 minutes. We're making this worse by restricting the license reviewer right and by making the job of current license reviewers more intense. I think maybe we should codify in policy for the user right that it is NOT a "copyright reviewer" and should only be expected to review the actual license, given the following:

• User still shows a basic understanding of copyright law by not showing unreformed uploading of copyright violations (early mistakes considered but not disqualifying if reformed).
• User understands the process of searching for license and that they should ensure the listed license is the exact license which it is available under.
• User understands the deletion process and how to nominate for deletion a file they believe failed a license review.
• User shows trustworthiness and general experience. Aplucas0703 (talk) 22:53, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

@Nakonana: But if any license was fraudulently applied at any source, then a file affixed with such a license was never rightfully available with that license. So checking the availability means always a copyright check. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:09, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Of course, but the community can always check that by nominating for deletion. Many licenses are fraudulently applied on Wikimedia Commons all the time, but we have editors patrol random and new files for that purpose. Aplucas0703 (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Might there be a "happy spot" somewhere between? Nakonana and Aplucas0703 certainly have a point, but I'd still like to see human reviewers be people we would trust to do better than a bot here. I would hope they would at least be capable over time of spotting "bad" sources we should not trust and help build up a blacklist of these. (Also: license reviewers have all the rights of patrollers, so unless we are going to change that, they need to be at least qualified as patrollers.) - Jmabel ! talk 02:28, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

I think this is pretty balanced. Maybe just that we don't expect literal perfection in copyright knowledge (like someone being expected to know every Freedom of Panorama law), and ideally knowing also how to spot very obvious copyright violations and add them to the list (like understanding that a random upload of a clip from CNN is not eligible, but not expecting them to know that light shows of the Eiffel Tower filmed at night aren't eligible).

Or maybe we should restrict the rights of license reviewers to be more tailored to this task. Is there a technical reason they need the rights of patrollers rather than just assigning the patroller right individually? In that case we could enroll all current license reviewers in with the patroller right and then restrict the actual license review rights for new requesters. Just some ideas because I'm not the most aware person of how all these things work. Aplucas0703 (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

The other issue is that by the time a license reviewer finally gets to a file that needs license review the source link may be dead without an archive link being available. In such a case we are forced to delete a file just because the potentially valid license has not been reviewed in time. Nakonana (talk) 19:58, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

I also agree with Aplucas0703. We have a huge backlog of files needing license review. We should grant this privilege to anyone with half a brain, and kick the harder cases downstream if necessary. Nosferattus (talk) 23:12, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

+1. In short, I support having more license reviewers. Yann (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

My official proposal would probably be that we separate the user rights for license reviewer, patroller, and autopatrolled. Each one serves a different purpose and it makes sense that individuals with different levels of trust in different areas may be trusted differently with each right. Those with license reviewer rights currently will be given patroller and autopatroller rights, and current patrollers will be given autopatroller rights.

This means that the rights are separated and can be granted individually instead of bundling the rights, as this is often why it is so hard for people to get the license reviewer right (because users do not yet trust them with the other sets of rights with being a patroller).

We can also then change official policy to be more lenient with who gets to be a license reviewer, adding that a user "should show basic competency around copyright, especially as it relates to what types of licenses are valid on Wikimedia Commons, but should not be expected to have an in-depth knowledge of copyright law." Aplucas0703 (talk) 07:18, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Don't expect to convince me to support a proposal that does contain a lower threshold of showing a "basic competency around copyright, especially as it relates to what types of licenses are valid on Wikimedia Commons", if no further details are given. The knowledge about permissible licenses is basic, yes, but actually rather the basic prerequisite to be able to contribute here at all and far below anything in regard to license checks. Furthermore, any propective license reviewer should be at least aware about the plethora of different law systems and statutes and unfazed by contradictions and incompatibilities within them, occurring e.g. when looking at FOP and PD-Old statute differences all over the world. While that may still be seen as "basic knowledge" within any group of laypersons interested about copy- and intellectual property rights, I doubt that it's that what you meant with "basic competency" about copyrights (but, please, prove me wrong!).

Last but not least, I doubt that the issue is within the rights bundling. No patroller can do as much harm to the integrity of our collections as a faulty license review can. As far as I'm aware, the single tidbit that having the patrol rights entail is an access to a somewhat faster edit reverting tool. It's handy, sure, but you can't do much harm with it.

On the other hand, when doing license reviews, you're actually signing a quality check with your name. So, it by any bad luck you're making a mistake and failing to spot a IP rights violation, you're exposing yourself to a (surely quite small) risk of being treated as... [is there an English legal term for de:Störer? In the context of civil law, it means any individual disturbing the rightful exploitation of things, "disturber" or "interferer" would be a literal translation. Convictions as "Störer" happened against DNS resolvers like Quad9 and CDN like Cloudflare as they were seen as kind of accessories to IP rights violations].

So, my guess that the lack of candidates is due because anyone interested is likely deterred by their imagination of being in front of a wall hiding an unknown amount of needed knowledge and an unknown amount of risks, despite that amount in fact not being as large as some people may see it and that imagined wall is rather only a little stepladder, regularly climbable with only a bit of reading in Wikipedia and the pages COM:CRT and COM:CSM themselves...

@Aplucas0703: I don't know if you looked through archives of LR candidate requests, at least from 2024 and 2025. If yes, you surely came across my "questionaries" proffered to some candidates. I think that it's possible that you had such things in mind while writing [...]how extremely stringent people are about ensuring that a person understands every nuance of copyright law before they can be a license reviewer. Sometimes presenting massive lists for prospective reviewers to go through and show they understand copyright violations[...] in your opener. But if you could review such postings again, like Commons:License review/Requests/Archive/2024#Di (they-them) or Commons:License review/Requests/Archive/2025#Randompersonediting 2, you'll certainly see than each and every of my questions is answerable simply by perusing either COM:CRT oder COM:CSM and sometimes a relevant English Wikipedia page (e.g. for an explanation of FOP or post mortem auctionis) - in fact, I built them in this way, just flavouring them with a bit of backstory to avoid dullness. I doubt that it's unreasonable to expect a knowledge about the content of our very own help pages. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 08:22, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

A discussion was started at Village Pump Proposals with the input of this discussion. Aplucas0703 (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

December 30

Do you want to help, to categorise 34,000 media needing categories as of 2020, please?

We are currently categorizing all media needing categories as of 2020. Progress is good so far, as shown on Category talk:All media needing categories as of 2020, but the task is getting increasingly more difficult, because the 'low hanging fruit' have been harvested by now. Do you want to help us? If so, please leave a comment about your approach or your achievement either here or on the discussion page.--NearEMPTiness (talk) 08:21, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

One way is to categorize the trees in the pictures. Example File:954I8789 نمایی از زن و مرد گردشگر در درکه - تهران.jpg and File:954I8790 زن و مرد گردشگر در درکه - تهران.jpg. However I cannot read Arabic, so I dare not place it in a country category.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:44, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

But, please, if all you can do with an image that is clearly supposed to depict a place is to categorize a tree, don't remove it from Category:All media needing categories as of 2020! - Jmabel ! talk 19:22, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

A few months ago I went there, categorized a few images (spent quite some time geolocating them), provided some ideas at the talk page which were fully, totally ignored by that community as if I do not exist. Not going to do it again. Ymblanter (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that you should feel ignored, keeping in mind that "no criticism is praise enough." Implementing procedures to fight the backlog will take some time. It's a task for unsung heroes, who are sufficiently self-motivated to categorise files or to motivate uploaders to to it themselves. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I completely agree with the comment “don't remove it from Category:All media needing categories as of 2020!“, but the problem is that when using Cat-a-lot it automatically removes it. Wouter (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

This is false – in the preferences there is the setting "Remove {{Check categories}} and other minor cleanup" which one could uncheck. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Cat-a-lot makes it easy to add the category Unidentified people to all photos of people, for example. The user can be proud because now so many images have a category added. Another user has then to solve the problem with "Unidentified people" with over 31,000 images. I've personally noticed that there are images with the person's full name in the description and that also have a Wikipedia article. Wouter (talk) 10:10, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

This is a very good comment, indeed. I have subsequently categorized some of these people and found that this is easier than categorizing those grouped by dates. Thus, I think it is helpful, to put them temporarily into this category. You may skip the mass uploads starting with a number, if you want to categorize them manually. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 03:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

You can combine the research of several people and get a result: File:Bakkikayam.jpg The description is in the Malayalam language. This limits the picture to the Indian state of Kerala, or the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district). This is a dam on some river. But I dont want to speculate.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Sometime the research is incomplete. File:Bernard Becker & wife Janet.jpg, There is an Wikipedia article about Bernard Becker. One problem is that he died in 2013, so this picture cannot have been taken in 2017.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Based on the metadata and image quality, I have the impression that the photo was not taken in 2017, but that a scan of a photo was made in 2017. Wouter (talk) 19:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I have added a before date.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:54, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this effort. However, I think it's not nearly as useful and needed as for example categorizing files in Category:2020s maps of the world in unidentified languages (complete) or Category:Renewable energy charts with unspecified year of latest data (under construction) or Category:Diagrams in unspecified languages (under construction) or Category:Renewable energy charts in unspecified languages (complete) for example or any of the requested tasks in Commons:Categorization requests.

There also is the issue that most of the files in these needing-categories cats are of low quality and/or low usefulness/relevance so what categorizing them does is

• cluttering categories
• creating work for those contributors who keep these categories clean and well-subcategorized

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:41, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

We are making good progress: 28,000 media needing categories as of 2020, but we need more volunteers, to clean the backlog by reviewing these files one-by-one or by semi-automated procedures. NearEMPTiness (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

January 01

Happy New Year

Happy New Year 2026 to everyone!

This is the year of Wikipedia/Wikimedia's 25th anniversary, and, so, a good moment to think about what can be done to help keeping, in addition to carry on building, this wonderful work that we are creating together.

In the year that has just ended, I wrote 3 essays related to this topic (1 in Commons and 2 in English Wikipedia), that you can read if you are interested:

• Digital preservation
• Past and future of Wikipedia
• The hidden encyclopedia that resides in the article histories

In the year we have just left behind, there was also very good news in this regard: for the first time (as far as I know), Internet Archive publicly confirmed that, unlike 10 years ago, it has copies around the world, so the many contents preserved there (including many Wikipedia articles and many Commons files, among many other WMF pages) are not exposed to the natural risks that a single location like San Francisco may face, so now there are far better preservation guarantees for legitimate files or wiki pages that, for one reason or another, may be removed from public view in WMF sites in the future (I think it's a good practice to also save in Wayback Machine those Commons files that are worth of special value). MGeog2022 (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a much better policy to establish data centers for Wikimedia projects in additional and safe countries? That would also mitigate the risk. --Enyavar (talk) 08:06, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

I think that WMF backups in countries other than the USA would be fine, but probably they could only host offline backups, since US copyright law is always considered for Commons media, and US-only fair use law is considered for many media files hosted in Wikipedia itself. I'd like to see fair use and fixed-term (since publication) copyright expiration in the European Union and other countries, but, sadly, it isn't the case for now (the current interest in promoting AI in the EU could be a good reason to change the laws, but I fear they won't change, since it seems that, sadly, AI companies are given permission to ignore copyright laws where others wouldn't be allowed to do the same).

Here, I wasn't thinking about possible censorship or political issues. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often, and administrators make a great work, but, for one reason or another, a Wikipedia article or a Commons file (there are more than 130 million files in Commons, we need to be understanding) may be mistakenly deleted (false copyvio claim, controversial out of scope discussion, etc). I'm not saying it's something that usually happens, only that it is something that could happen with some files, and, if they are of special value, it's good to include them also in Wayback Machine, where, to ask for deletion of content, very strong evidence of the copyvio is needed. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:15, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

I think there is some confusion above:

• Besides three sets of servers in the U.S., Wikimedia already has servers in Amsterdam, Singapore, Marseille, and São Paulo.
• Not all WMF projects follow U.S. copyright law. For example, de-wiki as far as I know completely ignores U.S. copyright law, but follows the copyright laws of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which are almost completely harmonized with one another.

Jmabel ! talk 18:37, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the info in the second point, I wasn't aware of it.

WMF does have datacenters out of the USA, but they are caching ones only (source). As far as I know, only 2 of the 3 US datacenters store the full contents permanently. But good point also to talk about the non-US WMF datacenters: if there can be caching datacenters out of the USA, perhaps there would be no problem in having application datacenters also (I don't know enough about it, but I always thought that the reason for both application datacenters being US-based was WMF following USA copyright law). MGeog2022 (talk) 19:51, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Having whole datasets outside the US (preferably in stable, democratic countries), would be good. We have to be prepared --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 20:33, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes. While having more than 2 production copies isn't probably needed, and would add technical complexity, if only the backups hosted in the 2 application datacenters were copied to, for example, each caching datacenter, it would add cross-country redundancy, at a cost that seems very affordable to WMF budget (several backups of less than 2 PB should not be a big problem for such a budget). MGeog2022 (talk) 11:21, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Internet Archive doesn't have much of Commons. Re that & Commons:Digital preservation, see m:Community Wishlist/W213 (physical Wikimedia Commons media dumps). Prototyperspective (talk) 00:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

January 02

History maps of Europe

Hi, I would like to discuss the description in all categories of the scheme "Maps of <country> in the <x>th century" (see for example Italy, Belgium, Spain, Poland). There are three different points about the current system I would like to invite comments on:

• the wording of the definition in the first paragraph of the hatnote
• whether or not to include "you may also be looking for similar maps" (second and third paragraph) of the description
• whether or not to re-include a distinction between history maps (in this category group) vs. old maps (not in this category group)

For the first point, there are two proposals, the first is the current "Maps showing all or most of the territory (geographic area) of modern-day <country> - as the lands were in the 8th century (701-800 CE)" which I would prefer to replace with a simple "This category is about maps of the history of <country> in the 8th century (701-800 CE)", given that "modern-day territories" are not always the same as they were in the respective century. Another critism of mine is that "all or most" excludes history maps that only cover smaller parts of the country in question.

For the second point, my argument is that these paragraphs are not necessary, since the links to the Atlas project should be included in the respective parent category (i.e. "Maps of the history of <country>"), which is also linked via template.

For the third point, I find it essential to point out that Commons has always distinguished "current", "history" and "old" maps, formulated in Template:TFOMC: "history" maps include this map of Poland in the 16th century (created recently, depicting the past) but "old" maps include this 16th-century map of Poland (created to depict the present, back then). There are certain grey areas where these categories DO overlap, especially "old history maps", but in quite many cases they don't. The respective category names are quite similar and can be confused, so I would suggest to mention this right in the category description.

I've put my own opinion in italics to explain why I think this requires debate, but I would like for people to check out the scheme examples for themselves, and judge on their own. Peace, --Enyavar (talk) 08:11, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

@Enyavar: I'm trying to understand the first point. A couple of questions that may help me understand:

• Would there be no such thing as "maps of Germany" for any date before 1866? Or would we take "Germany" before that date to mean the German-speaking world (and, if so, would that include areas where the rulers spoke German, but most of their subject did not)? or what? (Similarly for Italy.)
• Similarly: would there be no such thing as maps of Poland or Lithuania between 1795 and 1918? If so, what would we call maps of that area in that period?

I could easily provide a dozen similar examples, but answers to those two will at least give me a clue where this proposes to head. - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that question, our categories about "history of" do not really care for nation states existing. Germany's history begins quite some time before it became a nation in the 19th century, and Polish history did not stop during the times of division: Poland in the 19th century is unquestionably a valid category. Our history categories generally imply that people know the limits of a subject without exact definitions.

Your question is getting to the reason why I am uncomfortable with the current hatnote/definition of these categories. I have not checked for all countries in Europe, but I'm quite confident: We do not define the subject of "Maps of the history of Poland" with a hatnote. We do not define "Poland in the 16th century" either. So why would we define the combination subcategory of the two so narrowly and rigidly, that only 6 out of 26 files currently in the category even match that (unreasonable) definition? (And of course, Poland/16th is just a stand-in here, I would argue the same for Spain/12th and Italy/8th and all others)

I would even be okay with no definition at all, besides a template notice (my third point) that "maps of <country> in Xth century" is about history maps, and old maps have to be found in "Xth-century maps of <country>". --Enyavar (talk) 04:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Categories denoted as old, or historic, are not terribly useful. Much better to put dates on them. Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Please read the original post, that is not a comment on the actual questions of this topic. Old maps are not the topic here, this is about history maps (i.e. Maps showing history of specific countries/centuries) regardless of when they were produced.

The term "historic maps" that can denote both, has rightfully fallen (mostly) into disuse. --Enyavar (talk) 16:23, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

January 03

[REACTIONS NEEDED] User:Yug@commonswiki_(importer) - extension

Hello everyone and happy new year 2026,

Following Stewart Xaosflux's guidance and request, allow me to inform the Commons community that I requested a one month extension for my temporary importer rights to finish Lingualibre.org/wiki/'s selected imports toward Commons:Lingua Libre. See the previous discussions and votes there :

• Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2025/10#Migration_of_Lingua_Libre_project_pages_to_Commons - scope and initial approval
• meta:Steward_requests/Permissions/2025-11#User:Yug@commonswiki_(importer)
• meta:Steward_requests/Permissions#Yug@commonswiki_(2)
• Commons:Lingua Libre#Current status

Best regards. Yug (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm adding 10 days temporarily while this is open. @Yug: when this closes please drop a new request at SRP. If 2 months is what you need, please express that here. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:06, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello User:Xaosflux,

As discussed here, I'm depending on other users collaboration for Translations pages, we will see if 10 days will be enough. Yug (talk) 20:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

What I meant was that it would be at least long enough for this discussion to come up with a consensus. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:44, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

[EDIT] Please express your position on this userrights extension. Yug (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

•  Support I seem another extension would be warranted given that Yug has already been able to do much of the task. ─ Aafī on Mobile ^(talk) 18:41, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

 Support Given that the project has already been approved and seems to be going smoothly. Chrs (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

 Support per others above, the migration project seems to be going well and the user seems to be using their rights responsibly. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:07, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

January 04

School class pictures

I find very few group pictures of school classes. Most schools had end of the schoolyear pictures of the whole class. Nowadays this is very limited because of of privacy concerns, but in the past this was not a problem. Are there any specific categories for this? In this case the children where born around 1932. I find it very dificult to recognize any childern at this age even if you have a picture of the child at the same age to compare. I cannot recognize my mother with any certainty (two good posibilities) Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:38, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:Class photographs. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I have been categorising/sorting school classes by country. However, this File:ACS School Uniform.jpg has no country info.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:41, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Added to Category:Unidentified locations. Now we wait... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:30, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Google Image Search leads to [1]

ACS may be Anglo_Chinese school in Singapore, or en:Adi Cakobau School, in Fiji. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:47, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Uniform matches the latter: [2]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

The pictures without a country is sorted with an X. These are: File:Elipsis Cole 28.jpg, File:Hala school pic.jpg, File:La promo del cole 28.jpg, File:PCB Batch 2015-16.jpg, File:Sofiemyr NM 2012.jpg, File:Thankyou55.JPG, File:Title005.JPG and File:WUL-i04 02090 0090 集合写真 1.pdf. (the last is probably Japanese, because of the Japanese language). Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

It is abuse of category sorting to use an opaque system like that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:40, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

There is no country with the first letter X. All other files are sorted by category. Many files where placed in country subcategories. (Romania en Belgium categories where created) The number of files has been reduced from around 122 to 62. I want the unsorted files to be together. I want to limit the number of temporary work categories. Maybe using ' X' is better, this then goes to the front.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't refer merely to the use of "X", but to using countries as a sort key in that way.

Sort keys are meant to ensure that files or subcategories with names like like "Barack Obama" sort under "O", "042" under "42" and "The Silmarillion" under "S", not for strings that are not part of file names. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

If you want to classify by country, you can make subcategories ("School class pictures in Transylvania"). No need to use sorting keys as if they were categories. Pere prlpz (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Sort keys have many uses, but the example you mention is the exception rather than the main use. Most times sort keys are used to get the files in chronological order and the file names are very diverse. Example: Category:Trains at Amsterdam Central station. Train material types sometimes get sorted by number such as Category:Intercity Nieuwe Generatie in the Netherlands. There only the trains with visible number get sorted. Example: Category:Intercity Nieuwe Generatie in the Netherlands. This ia practical system as there are many contributors who usualy dont bother to research or mention the fleet number. When sufficient number of files are grouped together by sorting a subcategories can be created as in Category:ASEA Rc by fleet number. For ASEA Rc by livery the Category:ASEA Rc by livery is used. Personaly I find this overcategorisation, but if the contributors specializing in this area are happy so be it.

Back to school classes. I only want to create subcategories if there sufficient number of files. And you get to know how many files there are for each country? By sorting them. When there a sufficient number of pictures for a country a new subcategoryis created. In the meantime one can easily search for a specific country if the sorting is up to date. I wil now mention how the category is sorted.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Using keys to sort chronologically is also an abuse. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:00, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

There are many ways to sort, but sorting by year is less relevant in this case. Furthermore the dating of many pictures is imprecise.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:02, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Additionally, in Commons there is no problem with creating categories with a single file or a few files. Specially, creating categories by country helps finding and organizing school photographs, while just ordering them is obscure and hard to understand to the point of uselessness.

There might be some places where ordering can be useful, but not as a replacement for categories. Pere prlpz (talk) 12:12, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

There is no technical problem with creating categories with a single file or a few files, but is it desirable? It is very frustrating when you scan a main category for some element/aspect in the pictures and you have scan every subcategory individualy. Using SDC and Cat-a-lot scripts on many unnecessary subcategories, cost a lot of extra time. For example: adding SD (Q602767) to the files in Category:ASEA Rc with the SDC script, would be much easier if there where no subcategories. Now there are 200 subcategories of individual locomotives in (see Category:ASEA Rc by fleet number). I suspect most of the locomotives pictures have Q602767 in the SD. But the only way to check is to rescan all the relevant subcategories. And for what? Who is really interested in an individual locomotives? I urge restraint in trying to categorize everything (and types of combinations). There is certainly such a thing as overcategorisation. Luckily there is an alternative way of ordening/searching the files with Structured Data. (see https://commonswalkabout.org/) This is much more flexible with combinations and specific queries. Categories systems should only try to facilitate standard searches, not overspecific, niche ones.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:13, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

January 08

Malformed dates

This SPARQL query shows >8K items with SDC "Inception" dates of between 1 and 1000 AD.

Many are modern photographs with clear errors. For example an image where the date was entered in the format "1-4-09"; but was "2009-01-04", in EXIF.

My request for a bot to address this was archived without being actioned.

How can we address the issue? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:23, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

For starters, it has to be pretty easy to slap a maintenance category (or a template that adds a maintenance category) on the images found by the SPARQL query. - Jmabel ! talk 17:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

See also Commons:Bots/Work requests#Changing values in the date field based on categorization. Date in categories <-> date field / SDC mismatches (contradictions) could also be listed and would include many of these and some other cases. Maybe the query can also be used to find more of these contradictions. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:31, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

January 10

Copy cat names to wikidata

i think it'd be a good idea to copy cat names (if english) to en label (if empty) or en alias of the wd item it's linked to, if it's not already present in any language on the wd item.

for years i'm annoyed by this problem. now it's especially irritating when the same thing has different names for depicts and category. RoyZuo (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

There is no clear priority among Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata for naming an article/category/item. I don't see how we can say Commons dictates to Wikidata any more than vice versa. - Jmabel ! talk 02:10, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

In the absence of any English name for an entity in Wikidata, using one from the Commons category seems like a reasonable starting point. Omphalographer (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Bot has been doing this for years. Multichill (talk) 18:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

1. it didnt seem to do that for these 5000 recent edits spanning over 4 days https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Pi_bot&target=Pi+bot&offset=20260107122856&limit=5000
2. it didnt add the commons cat name back as an alias since 2015 for https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q7452846&action=history

so either it needs to do that a lot more frequently, or it needs to be restarted. RoyZuo (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Agree that this would be good to do. I think this thread about a technical subject should be moved to the Commons general discussion forum about technical subjects, COM:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Mass notifications

Hello, hundreds of my files have been modified like 1 or 2, making my watchlist giant to reset. User:MB-one, as the performer, do you have a solution? The problem has been evoked at COM:ANU and participants said the edits were tagged "QuickCategories", however now the tags are different ("AC/DC" or "openrefine"). My mail box is full of unread notifications, and I don't know how to reset each file without patiently clicking on all links. Help much welcome! -- Basile Morin (talk) 02:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Your files have not been modified, their description pages have. That is what we do here, collaboratively edit a wiki. You choose to have every edit create an email notification for you it seems, so then this one of the risks. Luckily email filtering is easy, and selecting a bunch of notifications and deleting them all at once is also pretty easy. And you can of course choose to disable the notifications. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:12, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Their description pages have... The sound of wisdom 💫 :-)

User:TheDJ, "That is what we do here": thanks, but after 14 years on this project, this is the first time I have so many notifications on the same day.

Question about your recommendation: "deleting them all at once is also pretty easy", then do you think the notifications will be maintained by the system, for example in case of vandalism, wrong edit, or just basic update? In my opinion, no. -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

The notifications will not be saved, but the underlying edit history is always kept. Even for deleted files, it is still available to admins. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:44, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Basile Morin,

yes, some of these edits are created with AC/DC or Openrefine as well as QuickCategories. I am using a combination of these tools for efficiency reasons. You can filter filter out these edits on your watchlist and opt-out of e-mail notifications. If you spot errors in these edits, you can reach out to me on my watchlist and I will correct them.

Cheers, MB-one (talk) 11:20, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

MB-one you used "QuickCategories" at the beginning, then "AC/DC" and "Openrefine", maybe tomorrow "Nirvana" and "Whatever". Is there a full list of all the tags likely to produce the same hurricane, to filter them in advance? -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@Basile Morin, Besides these three I'm currently working also with QuickStatements and Hotcat. All these tools tag their edits accordingly. However, I can not guarantee that I will never use any other mass edit tool. And I certainly not speak for other users. I'm not aware of there's any possibility to group all "mass edit" tools together and filter all of them at once. But maybe that's a good feature request.

Cheers, MB-one (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Aren't camera characteristics structured data usually added by bots? Bot edits are easy to filter. Nakonana (talk) 21:23, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

It could technically be done by bots. However, since there's no bot doing this work currently, I decided to do what I can. MB-one (talk) 21:17, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@MB-one i think you should use a bot account if you make thousands of edits like this batch https://editgroups-commons.toolforge.org/b/OR/c3d78ad5204/ . RoyZuo (talk) 19:08, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

See also en:User:Nardog/RCMuter – This script allows you to "mute" users you specify, i.e. stop seeing their edits, on watchlist and recent changes. To mute a user, click "Edit muted" below the top heading on watchlist or recent changes and enter their name, or click "Show toggle buttons" and click "mute" in the list. The list of muted users is stored in your account's preferences, so it is not public and is shared across devices.. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:14, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

"Photographs of Israel" before 15 May 1948

Why does Wikimedia Commons have categories for "Photographs of Israel" for any date before the declaration of that state in 15 May 1948? I imagine that this question has been debated and decided in the past, and perhaps not amicably. However, I would be grateful for an explanation of why there are categories for "Photographs of Israel" from the 1840s up to 15 May 1948.

By contrast, there are almost no categories for photographs of Palestine before 15 May 1948. There is one photo in "Black and white photographs of Palestine in the 1890s", one in "Black and white photographs of Palestine in the 1940s", and that is all. Given that the entire territory was called Palestine under British rule from 1918 to 1948, Commons' practice seems ahistorical. And even before British rule, English Wikipedia says that "Palestine" was the name of the entire area "In common usage from 1840 onward".

Please make it make sense? Motacilla (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Photos are usually grouped by country and administrative subunits thereof. However there was no such country as Palestine before 1948. There was Mandatory Palestine from 1918 to 1948 and several Ottoman provinces before. Ruslik (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

We have Category:Ottoman Palestine by year and Category:British Mandate of Palestine by year. The "Photographs of" category is usually added by templates like {{Taken in}} and {{Taken on}} by setting the "location" parameter. However, the addition of the templates and the setting of the location parameter have to be done manually. People are probably just not adding them to the files they upload, or they set the location parameter to "Israel" for whatever reason. Nakonana (talk) 21:33, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Somewhat analogous to having Category:1860 in Washington (state) (and see the note on that page), though of course a lot more politically fraught.

There are a ton of places in the world where our system of basing geographic categories largely on present-day nation states becomes problematic, but I'm not sure there is a tremendously better solution. Would we want to say there is no such thing as "in Poland" between 1795 and 1918? On another front, there was recently a big fight over whether people born in the Baltic States between 1945 and 1991 were or were not born in the Soviet Union. There is no solution to questions like this that will make everyone happy. - Jmabel ! talk 01:53, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

This issue seems easier than the Eastern Europe issues. They should be in Mandatory Palestine, or, before that, in the Ottoman Empire. Rathfelder (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Are there any RfCs and/or CfDs about this also about other geographic regions and polities (such as countries)? Prototyperspective (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

License review YouTube

I would like to draw attention to the Category:YouTube review needed, which is overloaded with 8,000 files. I often check this category, but I cannot review all these files by myself. These files need to be fully reviewed to prevent a large number of non-licensed files from accumulating. Incall ^talk 18:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

I thought there is a bit which proves the license automatically :( --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

We have something like that for Flickr, where the bot can look at the Flickr file and make sure it's the same, but the bot can't confirm that a video or screenshot actually came from a specific YouTube video. Omphalographer (talk) 05:49, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I guess a tool that makes license reviewing easy would be of great help in terms of speeding things up. It could load the license section (maybe also the file description) in one panel (e.g. left side) and the YouTube video's description in another panel (e.g. the right side) with a button "Confirm" (e..g below) one just needs to click if the license is fine. Additionally, there would be a "Skip" button and if the YouTube video is down or set to private it would automatically load the archived version (if available) in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. To check if the video is the same either also the two videos could be embedded at the top or the tool automatically check if both the duration and the YouTube video ID in the structured data are matching.

I estimate this could speed up the review by 300–600% and thereby motivate more users to spend any or more time on the license reviews which could be enough to get this fully done. Thus, imo this is yet another issue largely inhibited from being solved due too little software development by WMF or facilitation thereof (eg via campaigns). A wish for such a tool could be submitted to the m:Community Wishlist.

An open question or issue with this is whether license review is just about confirming whether the license set at the source is actually the one stated on the file page or whether it's more comprehensive where the reviewer is expected to check whether the source video actually is CCBY (many CCBY-tagged videos on YT aren't really CCBY because they're largely composed of nonCCBY clips made by other people for example). It seems like currently only the former is done. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

January 12

Category:FoP-United States

A couple of image files of US buildings in this category are wrongly tagged {{FoP-US}}. Some images show buildings that were completed before 1990, hence {{PD-US-architecture}}. Calling for assistance as there are more than 1K files under this category. Regards, JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:49, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Either way, the file is fine to keep. Why is this a task worth recruiting people into? Most photos of buildings in the U.S. will have neither tag, and that's fine, too. - Jmabel ! talk 00:44, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel using wrong tags risks disinformation to image reusers and readers, considering that no copyright exists for all pre-1990 US buildings. Tagged templates concerning subject status should give accurate information to non-Wikimedians, not to mislead them into thinking that copyright protection exists to pre-1990 US buildings. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:37, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

See this for example. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:43, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

@JWilz12345: What advantage is their even to having two separate templates here, rather than a single template with bullet points for each of two cases? It is OK to publish photographs of architectural works in the U.S. regardless of when the building was built; the only thing that changes is the rationale. - Jmabel ! talk 06:56, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel see Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/11#US buildings completed before 12/1/90. I agree to what cmadler said: "No, FoP is an exception to the normal rights of copyright owners. If there's no copyright, there's no FoP (and no need for it). For example, both the Trump Tower Chicago and the Willis Tower (nee Sears Tower) can be freely photographed, but for different reasons (the Trump is under FoP while the Willis is PD) which have different implications for potential reusers." PD buildings like Willis Tower can be freely exploited and even reproduced in 3D, but reusers' exploitation of Trump Tower Chicago is only limited to photography of it or making a drawing/painting of it, consistent with COM:FOP US. FoP is just an exception to copyright; it does not make the underlying work 100% freely exploitable by reusers. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:09, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Understood, but we don't store buildings on Commons. My solution could be implemented by one person in under an hour (reword one of the templates, redirect the other to it), and covers all related media that we store. Yours needs a team of people and constant ongoing vigilance. - Jmabel ! talk 07:48, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel I'll wait for cmadler's response (they last became active on enWiki in 2023), if they finally agree to merge the template for uncopyrighted US buildings with the template for copyrighted US buildings. Per their 2013 insight, though, they were firm in having two separate templates. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 09:45, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

International payment

An international payment in my family archives. This is certainly PD but wich license? There must be other categories (stamps etc). Is this august 10th?

• 
• 

Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Since it is from 1889 I think you could use {{Pd-1923}}. Ruslik (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

As this is unpublished (except for the banklogo with the building), I think {{PD-US-unpublished}} is the better option.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

The license issue is resolved, but not the stamps classifications. Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:50, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying – removed the section solved template. I suppose you're referring to There must be other categories (stamps etc). Is this august 10th? – it's entirely unclear to me what you're asking about there. Maybe other users understand what you meant but it may be good to make the remaining question(s) clearer. --Prototyperspective (talk) 12:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

On the front there are two eliptical stamps. It is unclear what they are. (mention New York and Leipzig). On the back there are other stamps. It would be interesting to know how these transfers where administratively processed in 1889. There was a telegraph, but how did the banks verify and prevent fraud? Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

January 14

"Photographs"

Are edits like [3] and [4] in accord with policy or against it? I'll say it straight out: I'm against this. "Photographs" is the default and we do not need to introduce an extra layer of categories all over the place. But we certainly should go one way or the other on this, and do it consistently.

Pinging @GT1976. - Jmabel ! talk 00:17, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm against it as well. We don't need the extra layer of useless categorization. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello! This structure with photographs has been standard for years, and millions of photos are categorized within it. However, I have no problem with this intermediate level being omitted. Best regards, --GT1976 (talk) 02:06, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

This is in accordance with policy according to COM:CAT, specifically the modularity principle. "October 2007 United States photographs" is a subcategory of "October 2007 in the United States" and it's part of a long-standing and broadly-utilized category structure, at the bottom of which you find (for the first photo) Category:United States photographs taken on 2007-10-26.

We have had similar discussions before recently, and I feel like a lot of the issues people have with photos being moved from a visible category to the hidden "country photos by day" categories would be solved if we just unhid those categories.

I also disagree that "photographs" are an unneeded layer of abstraction; the content and structure of Category:October 2007 in the United States is very different from Category:October 2007 United States photographs. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

It's reasonable to say the default is the media format images which is e.g. why Category:Images by subject was turned into a redirect (it's a subcat of the Category:Images which is linked at the very top of the very front page). However, that doesn't go for photographs vs other images. Nevertheless, in various categories photographs may be the default – probably fewer than you assume or think and imo not in this case: it makes sense to distinguish videos (and other files?) from photographs at Category:October 2007 in the United States. The issue I think comes down to what I asked about at COM:CAT – it would be better to not subcategorize things like that / create subcategories like that unless the categories are populated by the subcat-creator quite comprehensively so don't give users a wrong impression of what is there and are useful and not extremely incomplete.

The caveat here however is that with the MediaSearch one can already separate videos from images dynamically so there isn't necessarily much use of this subcategorization if the user knows that this is possible and how it is possible. It can still be useful but due to this caveat I haven't formed any personal conclusion yet on this and maybe you're right that this subcategorization shouldn't be done where I would just object to your claim "Photographs" is the default which sounds like bias from somebody who happens to be involved with lots of photographs-categories and photo-uploads but which isn't the case for other types of users, contributors, files, and categories (e.g. there is nearly no photo in the large Category:Our World in Data). For now, I'd just leave things as they are and maybe considering creating a comprehensive carefully-thought-out CfD at the relevant large-order cat and/or RfC including some ideas for changes. GT1976 and ReneeWrites make good points.

The previously mentioned way to browse or search or filter files via MediaSearch works like this (note: does not work for some categories with long chains of subcats): deepcategory:"October 2007 in the United States". Prototyperspective (talk) 12:09, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I had this issue, too in my categorization. The photographs cat is actually my category I prefer. The "October 2018 in the United States" is probably for things like events or so, but not so much needed as photographs. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

January 15

Getting logged out every ten minutes (or so)

Hi, does anyone know why I (or maybe more users) get logged out, even when I place a √ at 'keep me logged in' while login in? - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

January 16

Incorrect description/title and description incorrect on file from geograph.org.uk

Hi all. I've stumbled upon a photograph that was uploaded from geograph.org.uk File:Side of the Angel, Midhurst - geograph.org.uk - 3891742.jpg - the problem with this photo is that it is not as described in the title or description due to an error on the part of the photographer - it is actually the side of the next building along. The description etc. is pulled from a template (Template:Geograph from structured data), so can't be changed - I've added a correct summary of the subject below, so there are now two conflicting descriptions, also the title of the file remains incorrect - what would normally happen in cases like this? Is there an established way to correct photo descriptions of files imported via the geograph.org.uk project? Many thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 09:53, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Change the structured data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:43, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

If the file name needs to be changed, use the template {{Rename}}. Nakonana (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

And if you want to preserve the old name for reference, you can use {{Original caption}}. - Jmabel ! talk 21:52, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

No infobox visible in Category

Category:Chagnon contains {{Wikidata Infobox}}, but the infobox isn't visible. I see a hidden Category:Uses of Wikidata Infobox for deleted Wikidata items. I don't understand what this means, but how can I make the infobox visible? Wouter (talk) 10:39, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I see the same issue. The related Wikidata item is d:Q673388. This Wikidata edit may be relevant.

Purging the cache did not resolve the issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

This appears to be solved on my end? The infobox shows up both on desktop and mobile for me. ReneeWrites (talk) 14:00, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Like Pigsonthewing, I also purged the cache without success, but now I see the infobox. Could it be a cache problem after all? Wouter (talk) 15:12, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I have now the same problem with Category:Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre. Purging the cache does not help. In Wikidata a similar change by @Samoasambia: . Probably again waiting a day may solve a cache problem. Wouter (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

The same problem with Category:Vouzon. Wouter (talk) 15:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I did a small edit on the category and it solved the issue. I guess time will fix all the infoboxes. Samoasambia ✎ 16:20, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Indeed a zero edit does the job. Wouter (talk) 16:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the ping. I deleted a batch of ~21k Wikidata category items created around a year ago about French communes that contained only a Commons category sitelink while the main items didn't have Commons galleries (which makes the category items unnotable under #1.4 of d:WD:N) and placed the sitelinks back to the main items. I'm not sure why the infobox isn't functioning correctly. Probably some kind of cache issue? Samoasambia ✎ 15:47, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank You for Last Year – Join Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026

Dear Wikimedia communities,

We hope you are doing well, and we wish you a happy New Year.

Last year, we captured light. This year, we’ll capture legacy.

In 2025, communities around the world shared the glow of Ramadan nights and the warmth of collective iftars. In 2026, Wiki Loves Ramadan is expanding, bringing more stories, more cultures, and deeper global connections across Wikimedia projects.

We invite you to explore the Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026 Meta page to learn how you can participate and sign up your community.

📷 Photo campaign on Wikimedia Commons

If you have questions about the project, please refer to the FAQs:

• Meta-Wiki
• Wikimedia Commons

Early registration for updates is now open via the Event page

Stay connected and receive updates:

• Telegram channel
• Mailing list

We look forward to collaborating with you and your community.

The Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026 Organizing Team 19:44, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

January 17

South Korea FOP

User:JWilz12345 has nominated a number of photos of Korean buildings for deletion (see Category:South Korean FOP cases/pending) on the basis that "There is no commercial Freedom of Panorama in South Korea." So on that basis, won't most photos in Category:Museums in South Korea and Category:Buildings in South Korea by location be deleted? Is that policy even correct and being properly applied? How do South Korean media organisations publish or broadcast anything in public then? Is it useful that we would have almost no photos of buildings in Korea? Mztourist (talk) 06:39, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@Mztourist South Korean media and broadcasters are allowed to publish buildings without architects' permissions due to Article 26 of their copyright law: In cases of reporting current events by means of broadcasts or newspapers, or by other means, it shall be permissible to reproduce, distribute, perform publicly, transmit publicly a work seen or heard in the relevant courses, to the extent justified by the reporting purpose.

Wikimedia Commons, however, is not a broadcasting organization or an information service provider. It is a media repository and archive where all content must be free for commercial reuses, in accordance with Commons:Licensing. The Korean copyright law's FoP rule is simply against this freedom. To quote in full Article 35(1 and 2), with underlined parts for emphasis of FoP rule:

Article 35 (Exhibition or Reproduction of Works of Art, etc.
(1) The holder of the original of a work of art, etc., or a person who has obtained the holder’s consent, may exhibit the work in its original form: Provided, That where the work of art is to be permanently exhibited on the street, in the park, on the exterior of a building, or other places open to the public, the same shall not apply.
(2) Works of art, etc. exhibited at all times at an open place as referred to in the proviso to paragraph (1) may be reproduced and used by any means: Provided, That in any of the following cases, the same shall not apply:
1. Where a building is reproduced into another building;
2. Where a sculpture or painting is reproduced into another sculpture or painting;
3. Where the reproduction is made in order to exhibit permanently at an open place under the proviso to paragraph (1);
4. Where the reproduction is made for the purpose of selling its copies.

Many of the permitted licenses on Wikimedia Commons do not allow restrictions to commercial reuses, such as {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} and {{Cc-zero}}. Due to the prohibition of commercial Freedom of Panorama in South Korea, Wikimedia Commons cannot host images of recent art and architecture (whose designers have not yet died for more than 70 years) from that country. Simply put, South Korean FoP under their law is not compatible with COM:Licensing. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@Mztourist additionally, thousands of images from South Korea have been deleted in the past. You can see the closed deletion requests at Category:South Korean FOP cases/deleted. So for your final question, "is it useful that we would have almost no photos of buildings in Korea?" Yes and no:

No, because there will still be a couple of images of very old Korean buildings (temples and ancient Korean gates for example), even if it will inevitably misrepresent our coverage of that supposedly-democratic country. Furthermore, cityscape images where buildings and statues/monuments are incidental (de minimis, in accordance with COM:DM South Korea) are fine and can stay here. No contemporary South Korean landmark must be the main focus.

Yes, because Wikimedia Commons should only host media that does not infringe copyrights of architects (and also, sculptors and street artists or muralists). COM:PCP policy means we must aim to reduce takedown notices and cease-and-desist letters from the artwork designers, if not totally eliminate. Proactive vs. reactive. Commons has tolerated (since late 2000s) having no high quality images of Louvre Pyramid from France, Burj Khalifa from U.A.E., and Malacañan Palace (the Presidential Palace) from the Philippines.

Note that I intentionally added "supposedly-democratic", because the Korean democracy – as far as my hunch as a WikiCommoner is concerned – does not extend to the rights of content creators, consumers, and professionals. This can be inferred from Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2025/09#South Korean state media may be free content now but login required, concerning the "public" release of alleged freely-usable media from their state media but login is still required for access, with one commenter in that Village pump forum remarking, "Do not take their so-called 'open' policy as genuine openness." JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 07:51, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

So you are saying that a building is a "work of art"? In that case Art 35(2) clearly applies and any building "exhibited at all times at an open place... may be reproduced and used by any means." Mztourist (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@Mztourist you forgot the fourth restriction. The free use "by any means" no longer applies if "the reproduction is made for the purpose of selling its copies." Photography is a method of reproducing buildings and artworks. The law is clear that there is no exception for commercial exploitations of images. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 10:52, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

'Deepcategory' seems not to function

Hello. Today, for the third day in row, I find out that the 'deepcategory' parameter does not work anymore. A query like this one (or the alternative) doesn't return one single hit, while before it would. Has something changed in the search functions? I didn't notice. Regards, Apdency (talk) 12:40, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

 Comment, please see related discussion at Commons:Village pump/Technical#Special search partially down?. Apparently a patch for this problem has been submitted. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

No. I have taken a look there now, but how could it be helpful in respect to the problem I mentioned? It's just that a search parameter that for years used to work, suddenly ceased to work. There's not much more that I know. Apdency (talk) 18:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@Apdency The search parameter "deepcategory" is supposed to work, but due to some problem it stopped working. A fix has been proposed and submitted, but it is still currently waiting to be implemented, which should happen within a couple days. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thank you. We'll await ... Apdency (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Navigation within a category

Hello, in Category:Paintings in the National Gallery, London by inventory number I intend to list the paintings by inventory number. There are a few thousand. How do I structure this so that a table of contents allows one to navigate without clicking next umpteen times? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Have you checked Category:TOC templates or Category:Navigational templates for a suitable template? Nakonana (talk) 16:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Certainly, but I couldn't anything suitable/intelligible. It looks like it's easy to sort by the start of the category name, eg Category:800 births, Category:801 births, but what if the categories are named as in Category:Paintings in the National Gallery, London by inventory number? How does one apply a ?sortkey? so that the (inventory) numbers in Category:xxxxNG101 Category:xxxxNG5203 etc can be picked up by a category's table of contents? Or can one at least have a navigator to eg page 8 or page 20 of subcategories within a category? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

We don't normally use categories this way. This would be a much better case for one or more gallery pages. - Jmabel ! talk 20:25, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

That would have its advantages... (Category:Objects in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens by inventory number is a similar case.) Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 01:43, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

1 year per century miscategorized

(from COM:FORUM) I might be picky, but I noticed something. Let's pick Category:21st-century photographs of Berlin. The 21st-century ranges from 2001-01-01 to 2100-12-31. If we pick the subcat Category:2000s photographs of Berlin, we get the years 2000 to 2009. Yes, the year 2000 is within the 2000s, but not within the 21st-century. So we have a correct categorization of 2000 in the 2000s, but not the 21st-century. Since Category:2000s photographs of Berlin is not completely contained in set Category:21st-century photographs of Berlin, it should also be categorized in Category:20th-century photographs of Berlin, because of the last 20th-century year 2000. What do you think? :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:56, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Strong oppose. The purpose of categories is to help people find things, not to express ontology.

While this may be technically correct from a prescriptive point of view, it goes against common usage.

Further, this would have the additional problem that every category pertaining to the first decade of a century would no longer fit neatly in a century category. - Jmabel ! talk 20:29, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

 Oppose per Jmabel. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

 Oppose per above. This feels particularly unnecessary given that, in practical terms, it only affects the year 2000. (There's orders of magnitude less media categorized as 1900, 1800, etc.) Hopefully we'll have better ways of representing this data before 2100 rolls around. :) Omphalographer (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

January 18

Suburban stations in Helsinki in 2003

I suspect all stations are within the AB tarif zone on the Helsinki Central - Puistola line.

• 
• 
• 
• 

Smiley.toerist (talk) 00:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)