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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 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/2025/07. 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 Category talk:Israel–Hamas war (10 July 2025) Commons talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Explicitly expand F10 to include AI? (1 May 2025) Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Categorization of SVG files (13 February 2025) Costumed character files (14 October 2024) Commons:Requests for comment/Hosting of free fonts in Commons (18 July 2024) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

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June 03

Bot for enwiki DYK stats

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Technical#Bot for enwiki DYK stats

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 11:26, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

July 03

So, is emptying categories just untracable?

I've had times where i perfectly remember a category being full on images only to later discover it has been nominated (and deleted) for Speedy Deletion for being empty

Common sense would suggest to bring the issue up with the deleting admin and whoever moved the files out of the category. But as far as i can tell there is no way of seeing who moved the images out of the category unless you have memorized the name of the images in the category

So it seems like anyone can just empty categories whenever they please with little risk of anyone being able to find out they did it? Trade (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

You can still search for the images that used to be in that deleted category, and you will be able to see who removed the category in the file history. It is possible that all the images within the category were deleted, hence the category was empty and subsequently also deleted. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:59, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

And if i dont remember what the files were named? Trade (talk) 01:28, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

It's not the best solution but I follow a couple of main categories just so I can keep track of whats added or removed from them. That's the only way I can think of to do it though and there should be a better alternative if there isn't one I'm not aware of. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I would encourage you to request a solution on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/

I dont feel too confident navigating the UI myself Trade (talk) 02:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I would but I think they require a new account and that your email address be publicly viewable to create one. Totally agree about the UI to. It's not super user friendly to say the least. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:22, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

A lot of MediaWiki tools suffer from the same issue unfortunately Trade (talk) 02:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it's close to untraceable. Certainly it is usually good practice to build some sort of consensus or at least to make some sort of comment (e.g. on the category talk) that gives people a chance to work out who was doing this. Also, leave edit summaries that let people concerned with certain files see readily that categories are being removed. Also, when deleting a category because you've merged it's content elsewhere, it's a really good idea for the deletion comment to explain where the content has been moved.

Still: sometimes a category is so obviously bad that I couldn't blame anyone for skipping the usual processes. - Jmabel ! talk 01:56, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Do you believe there is any responsibility on the deleting admin to check if the category is actually empty? Or just emptied? Before any deletion Trade (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

The deleting admin should evaluate before deleting. Otherwise, we'd just let everyone make deletions themselves. But everybody is going to make occasional mistakes, because sometimes the diligence required is disproportionate to the effect. For example, there are certainly users who I trust enough to follow through on their requests without much checking of my own. If one of them screws up despite a long, good track record, I might not spot it. And I would have to guess that the admins who do the most deletions are most likely to fail to notice one that isn't correct, because they would not have time for as much diligence per deletion as those of us who are less confident of knowing what is likely to be abuse. - Jmabel ! talk 03:36, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Fully agreed. Trade, you may be encountering this because of your habit of creating excessively intricate category trees that are not useful. I just deleted a dozen categories you created which collectively contained exactly one file. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:40, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Try and avoid stating false reasons for deletion in the logs next time then Trade (talk) 23:12, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Try and avoid creating massive collections of near-useless categories. - Jmabel ! talk 01:07, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

We have been keeping video game screenshots seperate from the games they came from for more than a decade now. Lashing out at me for following the decade long precedent does little to change that Trade (talk) 19:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

"Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/deepfakes-denmark-copyright-law-artificial-intelligence

"The Danish government is to clamp down on the creation and dissemination of AI-generated deepfakes by changing copyright law to ensure that everybody has the right to their own body, facial features and voice."

"The changes to Danish copyright law will, once approved, theoretically give people in Denmark the right to demand that online platforms remove such content if it is shared without consent."

"It will also cover “realistic, digitally generated imitations” of an artist’s performance without consent. Violation of the proposed rules could result in compensation for those affected."

What would the consequences for Commons be for AI files that were generated by individuals residing in Denmark? Trade (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know, but it's odd if they are handling this through copyright law rather than personality rights. The article is very vague on exactly what rights this would grant or limit. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

The original article in Danish explicitly mentions that this would affect ophavsretsloven ("the copyright law"). From my limited understanding copyright law and personality rights law is treated as being interchangable

https://www-dr-dk.translate.goog/nyheder/indland/minister-oensker-ny-lov-mod-deepfakes-saa-alle-har-ret-over-egen-krop-stemme-og?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US

In short if someone makes a deepfake (image, video or voice) of a Dane without their consent and said Dane demands for it to be taken down Commons will (supposedly) be legally obligated to do so or risk facing legal consequences (more likely Wikimedia Denmark will be the victims but still) Trade (talk) 21:07, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Personality rights is already a thing in Denmark but some politicians feel like it does not offer sufficient protection against deepfakes. Hence this law proposal Trade (talk) 21:08, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I assume they would have to prove its a deepfake in the first place. I wonder how they would do that, especially as AI images get more realistic or would it just apply to any image of a person that they don't like or want on the internet regardless? --Adamant1 (talk) 21:57, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

"Would a hypothetical person reasonable believe this photo to be a real photograph of X absence of any evidence to the contrary" It's not that complicated. Courts and lawyers have been doing hyphotheticals about how a reasonable person would act or believe for years.

"I assume they would have to prove its a deepfake in the first place." Deepfake is essentially just a synonym for the hypothetical i just described

"or would it just apply to any image of a person that they don't like or want on the internet regardless?" The whole point of the law is to make the personal rights of defendants equivalent to the way copyright works with audiovisual materials (my assumption). Trade (talk) 23:23, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

That's fair. I was thinking more about claims made to Commons then actual court cases but I guess it wouldn't be that different. It's at least hard for me to imagine anyone nominating a deep fake for deletion just because it depicts a celebrity or something. Like probably the project should wait until there's some actual court cases or the WMF takes a stance on it before nominating deepfakes for deletion based on copyright. Especially since they still aren't copyrighted in the United States anyway. That's all. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

It doesnt matter that they aren't copyrighted in the United States. All files have to be free in both the US AND the host country (Denmark)

"Like probably the project should wait until there's some actual court cases or the WMF takes a stance on it" The WMF likely wont take a stance unless the Commons community prompts them to do so. Hence this discussion Trade (talk) 01:50, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Flagging that I started a discussion over at the Talk page for Denmark's copyright rules (didn't notice this discussion at first as I only checked the copyright VP, apologies for starting an additional thread). There were a few comments over there in response. 19h00s (talk) 19:52, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

July 07

Lossless AV1: Yay or Nay?

So I've noticed that both SVT-AV1 and libaom, encoders for the AV1 video codec, support lossless encoding.

I encoded the first 10 seconds of the Sintel Trailer with SVT-AV1 with the lossless option enabled, and uploaded it to Commons on File:Example.webm, just to test how well Commons handles these types of files.

The output video is, as expected, large, although not as large as the trailer's collection of frames stored as PNGs (~900 MB compared to ~300 MB) Fortunately, this is still under the Commons maximum file size limit, however I can imagine this being an issue on longer run times/FPS.

My laptop (Intel Core i3-6006U CPU, no hardware AV1 decoding available) struggles to play back the video with libdav1d, and combine that with the streaming of a very large file with bad internet download speeds, and it's pretty much unwatchable. However, Commons automatically re-encodes the video under more simpler to play formats, like VP9.

For such big file sizes, I don't think it's really that big of a deal, since I've seen extremely large in dimensions PNG files before, which Commons also automatically downscales them.

I couldn't do FLAC for audio since it isn't supported in WebM for some reason, so I chose 320Kbps Opus as the next best thing.

What does anyone here think? Should lossless AV1 be preferred if available? I wanted to ask this since I've found the uncompressed frames of the Sintel trailer, and I wonder if a lossless version of the trailer could supercede File:Sintel trailer-1080p.ogv, especially considering that MDN Web Docs considers Theora as deprecated. SergioFLS (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

No, Lossless AV1 should not be preferred. The Wikimedia eco system is not mature enough to handle people uploading a large amount of video data in lossless, and then having to software decode it and re-encode it to lossy version. Doing so at scale, would likely result in lossless being forbidden as an ingestion format. Use it where it makes sense, but not all the time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:44, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Shouldn't we focus on solving that issue? Rather than forcing uploaders to limit themselves Trade (talk) 22:01, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Some may upload every PNG as single file, as alternative. But I don't know what the opinion of the community is about that --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Generally speaking .jpg is preferred for photographic work, and .png for graphics. See also the descriptions of these templates: {{BadJPEG}} and {{BadPNG}}. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

It would also be interesting to know how big the difference between lossless compressed AV1 and uncompressed AV1 is --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:53, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

What is best format for news articles continued on a second page?

I tried three methods, is one preferred or are all three acceptable?

• 
  column 1
• 
  column 2
• 
  combined columns into one image
• 
  two page pdf version

RAN (talk) 18:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what's acceptable and what's not (though the license text says that one can edit files as one pleases, so do as you want?), but I can say that the last method (=pdf) is hardest to read on mobile. (I'm accessing Commons via a browser app on mobile.) Personally, I'd prefer the second method because all the info is in one place, but method one and three are truer to the source which might be relevant if someone wants to quote the newspaper, for example, in a research paper where you also have to mention the page from which you are citing. Nakonana (talk) 18:43, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

• Maybe I should create all three for important documents. --RAN (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

  My view, as a reader on desktop and phone, is that your example could have another format, the column 2 below column 1 for scrolling simplicity, clearly displaying that the image has two non-contiguous regions, so as to not obscure the documents provenance.

  Piñanana (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

  I agree, combined into one image but with space around each segment seems like a good layout. Sam Wilson 00:59, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

+1. PDF files aren't great for something like this. Probably having the section combined into one image but with space around each segment is the best way to go. That's how I've seen a couple of archives do it. Although you could just do all three formats but that seems like pointless overkill. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:13, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

PDF files aren't great, but the (correct) actual text can be embedded (eventually), w:djvu is an option... Piñanana (talk) 08:21, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

• I am not a fan of the pdf version, but it keeps the two files together. We have several halves of news articles, and I cannot tell if we once hosted the second half. It may have been deleted or a name change made it no longer findable, or it was never added to the category. So many things can cause separation. Sometimes "pointless overkill" is worth it, if the document is important enough. Is there an easy one step software package for converting files to the djvu format? I would love to start using it. --RAN (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  read: w:djvu ... Piñanana (talk) 02:37, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  DjVu is, quite frankly, a pain to work with. I wouldn't recommend using it over PDF if you have a choice in the matter. Omphalographer (talk) 20:45, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  It's totally tangential but I'm always surprised that Commons supports either format. Neither one works great on here. There really isn't reallu any reason for using them over image files in most, if not all, instances I've seen either. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  PDF is very well suited for use cases like scanned books (with or without text layers) - uploading these as collections of single-page images is much less convenient. DjVu was at one point considered a more Free alternative to PDF, but they're both open standards nowadays. Omphalographer (talk) 21:03, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  What is the best layout for news articles with multiple clippings ? ... Piñanana (talk) 00:09, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think there are many reasons to recommend DjVu over PDF these days, other than some rarely-used features around text structure representation. And yeah, if all that's in a PDF is images, they could be uploaded separately (personally I more often do that, and then add a {{G}} in the |other versions= parameter to show all the parts if there are few, or add them all to a category if there are many). Sam Wilson 02:46, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Categories that are vulnerable to selfie spam and self-advertisement

As you might have noticed there are certain categories that are receives an disproportionate amount of selfie spam and self-advertisement. Would it be useful to list these categories somewhere? That way it could encourage other editors to take a look at them from time to time to clean them up

A couple of examples here:

• Category:Celebrities
• Category:Freelancers
• Category:Graphic designers
• Category:Entrepreneurs

Trade (talk) 21:04, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

At least with Category:Celebrities, there was a discussion and attempts to get rid of it last year but the category was never fully emptied. So it's still around. That's probably the best way to do deal with it though. "Celebrities" is to ambagious to be useful anyway. Hence why it gets turned into a dump for random selfie spam. The same goes for the other categories IMO. Although I'm not going to advocate for getting rid of them without proper discussion first. But all of them are ambagious to the point of being meaningless. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Clearly someone are teaching people to advertise in that particular category. Otherwise so many people wouldn't do it Trade (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

A wrinkle is that usually it's not the people posting the spam doing the categorization, it's people coming along after them. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:22, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

It's the exact same problem I've pointed out repeatedly: editors go through uncategorized files, tack on some random, inconsequential category and walk away, all for the sake of being able to claim the file has now been "categorized". More often than not, it makes spam and copyvios harder to catch. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:54, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

One idea I've had is a technical solution where certain categories can be designed as not for files. That could be done with an edit filter, but it would be clunky - we'd have to edit the filter for each individual category, and it would only be able to warn or disallow the edit entirely. More elegant solutions are possible but might require software changes.

On the other hand, these categories do make it easy to detect a lot of spam. Perhaps its best to keep them as honeypots until something else (like automated upload filtering) reduces the amount we get. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Do we have a maintenance category specific to categories which frequently attract selfies and self-promotion? If not: should we? It could be useful for coordinating periodic cleanup of these categories. Omphalographer (talk) 20:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

We cant even have a filter that stops people from reuploading the same selfie biweekly from different accounts Trade (talk) 06:52, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

@RadioKAOS Ennnhhh I don't know if I agree with this. The people who make this stuff hard to find are the people who put a lot of effort into categorization and track down the really granular and deeply nested categories that no one is checking. The people who just tack on something like Category:Business are actually doing copyvio hunters a favor. (The main exception is people-related categories like Category:People, but the problem there isn't that spam is hard to find, it's that there's so much of it.)

As with every single maintenance backlog (and old spam is a backlog), the thing that will improve matters more than anything is just having more people do it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

The problem isn't just categories related to commerce; creative categories get a lot of self-promotional content as well: Category:Artists; Category:Authors; Category:Disc jockeys, Category:Musicians; Category:Vocalists Category:Writers. Omphalographer (talk) 07:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Let's not forget Category:Social media influencers and Category:YouTubers.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:46, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

• Hm, some good observations. However, alternatively, rather than label them "Categories that are vulnerable to selfie spam and self-advertisement", perhaps think of them as "Categories where much selfie spam and self-advertisement can be found and deleted". The project is going to get spam regardless of the existence of such categories; having places where the glurge tends to gather thus can more easily be found and cleaned out would seem to be of some use. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

July 08

Request to sort out categories of railway images in Category:Upper Arley, etc..

I have been categorizing and sorting images of the UK for about a year and a half now. The continuing influx of new images from Geograph makes it too hard to keep up. Also, since the talk pages of Category:Rail transport in Great Britain and Category:Rail transport in the United Kingdom are more-or-less dormant (and not followed), I thought it was best to make a request here.

The images mainly concern heritage and preserved railway vehicles, stations and events on the Severn Valley Railway from 2023 and 2024. Categories that are affected and should be checked are:

• Category:Upper Arley
• Category:Kidderminster Foreign
• Category:Kidderminster
• Category:Bewdley

I rather want to concentrate on current railway photography, heritage railways are not as interesting to me. --Btrs (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

@Btrs: you are not clear here on what task(s) you want people to do on those four categories. - Jmabel ! talk 17:41, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

I think I recognise the problem, areas with a nearby heritage railway receive many images of said heritage railway, what I usually do is cat-a-lot those images over to the local heritage railway station Oxyman (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Two Vietnam-related issues that have come to my attention recently.

Two different but important Vietnam-related issues have come to my attention recently.

The first is Vietnam's recent provincial reorganization which had 63 provinces reorganized so that there are now only 34 provinces. Obviously location maps will have to be moved so it's known that these are now historic maps. And the new location maps will have be organized in such a way that these reflect the provincial reorganization. And so I raise the issue here rather than at the thread in COM:OWR https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Overwriting_existing_files/Requests#c-Chemistry(NuTech)-20250708060800-Abzeronow-20250707233500 because this should not be done on an ad hoc basis. Apparently Viwiki has been notified, but enwiki and other wikis should be notified of this as well.

The second matter is File:Flag of Vietnam.svg as there is apparently some debate about what the official color scheme of the flag is (and whether or not there is a standardization of the flag or not) File talk:Flag of Vietnam.svg. I have per consensus on Talk Page reverted to the previous version, but since there was a source raised in the discussion that points to a revision being "official", I thought bringing that up here might get more knowledgeable people about Vietnam to settle this matter or to at least provide more insight into the matter. Abzeronow (talk) 23:53, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Re: point 1. Not only provincial reorganization but a massive overhaul of all local government units. The entire district-level division has been nuked, but that also means majority of Vietnam's cities as well as all of their towns are officially no more (or at least, the likes of Nha Trang, Vinh, and Dienbienphua now exist as nominal, geographical features since they no longer have valid city governments). All of Vietnam's towns and provincial cities lie within this recently-abolished level. Additionally, massive mergers of Vietnam's communes (which I treat as equivalent to Philippine barangays or administrative villages that serve as divisions of Philippine cities and towns).

Some questions:

Should the categories of recently-abolished Vietnamese cities and towns continue to exist?

Should a massive recategorization of Vietnamese communes take place, too?

_ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:06, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Categories for longstanding historical stuff should continue to exist, but should have parent cats that make it clear they are historical. - Jmabel ! talk 03:25, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps like, Category:Former cities in Vietnam, following the convention of the likes of Category:Former cities in New Zealand and Category:Former cities in Nova Scotia. The last cities of Nova Scotia province (Canada) – Dartmouth, Halifax, and Sydney – ended up the same fate as Vietnamese cities (except six "special" ones that are independent of any Vietnamese province), but in different ways. The three Canadian cities were abolished and replaced with higher-tier regional municipalities, making them permanently nominal and geographical. In the case of Vietnam's provincial cities, all were axed and their functions distributed to either the provinces or the enlarged communes (or Vietnam's version of Philippine administrative villages or w:en:Barangays). "Enlarged" in the sense, like Vietnam's provinces, mergers to reduce 10,000+ communes to slightly over 3,000+.

This may need opinions from Vietnamese Wikimedians, though, since according to w:en:Plan to arrange and merge administrative units in Vietnam 2024–2025 the reorganization (which I consider to be the most radical reorganization of local governments the recent world has witnessed, as of this comment of mine) has generated some controversy, both within Vietnam and outside the country. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:07, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I definitely want to have Vietnamese Wikimedians give us some input. I'd ask someone to post about these issues in Commons:Thảo luận but I don't know how effective that would be. Abzeronow (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

@Abzeronow I think we don't need the opinion of Vietnamese Wikimedians. This article by Vietnam.net clearly states that all provincial cities have been nuked and wiped off of the world map. No legacy titles will be retained too, because it "would lead to inconsistency in the administrative structure and cause public confusion - questioning why district names persist if the level is officially removed." We must treat the 85 cities of Vietnam in the same manner as we treat the three former cities of Canada's Nova Scotia province.

The likes of Category:Ba Ria and Category:Bien Hoa must be recategorized to Category:Former cities in Vietnam (same pattern as Category:Former cities in Nova Scotia), which in turn must be a subcategory of both Category:Cities in Vietnam and Category:Former subdivisions of Vietnam (as Sbb1413 suggested for category "Districts of Vietnam"). Only 6 of the main members of "Cities in Vietnam" category will remain: Category:Can Tho, Category:Da Nang, Category:Haiphong, Category:Hanoi, Category:Ho Chi Minh City, and Category:Huế. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 23:49, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Vietnamese here:

• Yes, no more provincial cities or municipal cities. No more Thủ Đức City, no more Nha Trang City, and Phú Quốc is now also a commune-level "special zone". The territories of the old Thủ Đức district, the old Thủ Đức City and the today's Thủ Đức ward are all different, same thing with Nha Trang and most other cases
• Yes, only communes or wards below cities/provinces
• Yes, the only cities existing in Vietnam at the moment are the Municipalities of Vietnam, which are enough for me asking to rename "Municipalities of Vietnam" into "Cities of Vietnam" for better transparency

So yes, I strongly support the recatogization of Vietnamese entities, especially placing many of them into the "former" categories. Please be distinguish between existing subjects and the abolished ones.
And it would be even better if the new categories would follow a standardized naming convention, as I tried to discuss in WikiProject VN. Hwi.padam (talk) 22:54, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

There is a CfD below relating to the now abolished districts. I would definitely also support a standardized naming convention for the new categories. (And yes, we'd want to make sure that the difference between the existing and the abolished subjects is very clear). Abzeronow (talk) 23:49, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Hwi.padam@Abzeronow overhaul of Vietnam-related content here will not end at simply recategorizations of the now-abolished cities and towns of Vietnam (the district level). Images of legitimate sites and places within those former settlements — like File:Bùng binh Hùng Vương-Hoàng Diệu - panoramio.jpg of the former city of Ba Ria and File:Mô hình cột mốc chủ quyền ở Viện Hải dương học.jpg of the former city of Nha Trang — will end up in the "former" categories, making them not readily accessible for most common users.

This means the categories of new wards and communes must be created, so the images of legitimate sites will be transferred from those of former cities and towns to those of the current communes and wards. The categories of former cities and towns must be cleaned up to only focus on media related to their former statuses, like their flags, locator maps, and government icons or insignia. The categories of wards and communes may be categorized under the former cities and towns "if" their communal jurisdictions lie within the boundaries of the former cities and towns.

The creation the categories of the new 3K+ communes and wards needs guidance in the form of a list of all commune-level divisions of Vietnam, which is the job of English and Vietnamese Wikipedias. I have already did my part on enwiki by tagging w:en:List of cities in Vietnam with an "update" template, which should imply the need to create a "List of communes and wards in Vietnam" article. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 01:01, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Back to the original questions re: Vietnam, I'd only comment on the first one.

 Support moving the impacted map files (of Vietnamese provinces) to their new file names that reflect on their historical statuses. Original names (base names) should reflect the maps that show the current provincial boundaries (since 2025). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:24, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the flag of Vietnam:

• Only the dimensional designs of the flag are codified, not the colors
• A majority of Vietnamese governmental website has been using Wikipedia's illustration as the existing standard file for the Vietnamese flag, with some messing around with the colors due to cosmetic reasons (to make it sensical to the website's design, for example).
• The "official" renders coming from the Government of Vietnam and/or Communist Party of Vietnam are largely unreliable due to poor file quality (.gif) or resulting from scanning physical images that do not present the accurate colors. Some of them even nominate renders that violate the codified dimensions and ratios of the flags, so as I've written in the Flag of Vietnam, the Vietnamese people largely don't care about this as along as the overall symbolism is maintained and recognized.
• After all, there was never a codified shades of colors for the Vietnamese flag, having them only described as "fresh red" (màu đỏ tươi) and yellow/gold (vàng), and most specific formal requirements that I could find is "the color of the threads being used should be consistent with the cloth", according to the Vietnamese Standards (TCVN), and this detail most certainly confirms that they know there's no codified colors for the Vietnamese flag.
  Again, most Vietnamese official narratives are using our Wikipedia's version as the standard flag of Vietnam, which is not helpful.
  Talking about real life representations, the Vietnamese government has produced flags having the same shades of colors with the red in Russian flag, the red in US flag, as well as the red/yellow with the flag of PRC and flag of Germany, even though none of those foreign flags are nominated in the same color shades. So, it's your choice talking about the Vietnamese flag colors ;)

Hwi.padam (talk) 23:23, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Related CfD Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/07/Category:Districts of Vietnam. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:30, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Also related: Commons:Overwriting_existing_files/Requests#Allow_overwriting_for_the_following_files. Jmabel ! talk 20:02, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

That request got archived. Didn't see a comprehensive plan as we requested so I couldn't start the file moving process. Abzeronow (talk) 18:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Now at Commons:Overwriting existing files/Requests/Archive 18#Allow overwriting for the following files 2. Still relevant so that someone does not go off half-cocked the way the user there was ready to. - Jmabel ! talk 23:51, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

July 10

Kurds or Assyrians?

Good day.

Today, @Surayeproject3: tagged the following file as a duplicate. Unfortunately, that's not so easy in this case, as it must first be clarified what exactly the image depicts. According to File:Kurdere - fo30141712180016 27.jpg, it's Kurds, and it's also used as such in language versions. In File:Nestorian (Assyrian) Christian family making butter, Mawana, Persia.jpg, you can see Assyrians in Persia making butter. Image one is by Category:Bodil Biørn, while image 2 doesn't name an author in this sense; it comes from the collection Category:Images from the Library of Congress. The question now is which statement is correct, and in that sense, an image may need to be renamed, depending on which version is keept. Regards. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 20:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for making the Village pump posting @Ziv. Like I mentioned on her talk page, I tagged a file as a duplicate of another depicting a group of people in Persia making butter. As an Assyrian, I typically categorize and upload Assyrian-related images here on Commons, so I'm familiar with the terminology and background of these topics. Based on the general use of the image, upload dates, and a version having the words "Christian family...", my instinct was to assume that the ethnic identity of these figures was Assyrian (in Persia and the Middle East, Assyrians are almost unanimously Christian while Kurds are Sunni Muslims). It's possible that as we move the discussion along, we could find many reliable sources pertaining to the image that prioritize a certain description over another, but this is just an idea. Surayeproject3 (talk) 20:24, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Template:CIS minors

I noticed this oddly named templates inside Category:Non-copyright restriction templates. Is there any consensus that we have to follow this law? Otherwise it should be deleted--Trade (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Unused, and the creator's only edits were to create the template. Bizarre. I'd support deletion unless someone can confirm that these alleged laws exist and would apply to Commons. Omphalographer (talk) 00:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

+1 to Omphalographer's comment. Admittedly I didn't look into it that extensively but from what I can tell the template is totally pointless and should be deleted as such. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:55, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

So start a noincluded DR.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 05:09, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

I started a DR: Commons:Deletion requests/Template:CIS minors. Tvpuppy (talk) 15:40, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

July 11

Aloe suzannae

Hi guys! I am very active on the Afrikaans Wikipedia but not too familiar with Commons. Please take note that the species Aloe suzannae has been renamed to Aloestrela suzannae. See POWO. Can somebody fix it please and update Wikidata as well?

Regards. Oesjaar (talk) 19:24, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Oesjaar: mind providing relevant links? Is there a category or at least one or several examples as files? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 19:31, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Grand-Duc: See Aloe Suzanne. Regards.Oesjaar (talk) 20:02, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Oesjaar: I processed your renaming request as far as I could (and I hope without mistakes), there were some Wiki editions that didn't allow me moving the relevant page. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:24, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@Grand-Duc: Vielen dank! Oesjaar (talk) 06:32, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

July 12

Category:Official Journal of the European Union 2012, C Series

There are 11,045 files here. 9,621 of them appear in Category:2012 texts, which doesnt seem helpful. This because they all contain something like

| date        = Published on 28 July 2012

which generates this. Is there any way of changing this? Rathfelder (talk) 09:39, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

It can be changed via appropriate subcatting. - Jmabel ! talk 18:06, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

It comes from the template. {{Published on}}.

They can only be subcategorised by editting each individual file - about 100,000 in all. Rathfelder (talk) 08:46, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

We could do this with Help:VisualFileChange.js  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   15:07, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Oof. Topical categories that are liable to have subcats should not be coming that way from a template. - Jmabel ! talk 21:59, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Bot deletion threat

I followed instructions for this photo, and the 3rd party has 30 days, so the license is pending. I marked in the instructions what license I needed. The upload program should tag what I check. If it doesn't, that is a problem with the program. Bots should not be checking this and threatening deletion. I think the tag is {{Cc-by-4.0}}, but I have no idea how to insert it except under the picture, which I just did, but I think this tag needs the approval as it is 3rd party, which will come with the submission of the letter by the author of the photo. It already has this tag for {{Permission pending}} under the photo, which should be good for 30 days.

I worked two hours getting this up and requesting permissions. This is the frustation of Wikicommons. RosPost (talk) 13:18, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

• @RosPost: You don't link the file, so I have no easy way to check your work, but normally licenses go near the bottom of the file page, just above categories, directly under the {{Permission pending}} tag. If you look at Commons:Uploading works by a third party#How they can grant a license (and how you upload), step 12, this is spelled out. Yes, the Upload Wizard should ask you this question and do it as part of the Wizard process, but only the Foundation's developers can fix that. They've said a fix is forthcoming. I'm not holding my breath. - Jmabel ! talk 18:12, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

  Very Kind of you to help me. I can also go into the 9 photos and put the code {{Cc-by-4.0}} under {{Permission pending}} in the edit section perhaps? I will read the link, but once uploaded the Wizard disappears. RosPost (talk) 20:31, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

  • @RosPost: Yes, please do (1) read the link and (2) add {{Cc-by-4.0}} to the file pages in question. - Jmabel ! talk 00:48, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Adiutor notices don't get signed

As can be seen here notices using this tool aren't signed. This must be fixed ASAP in my opinion. Jonteemil (talk) 14:14, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Adiutor#c-RoyZuo-20241117143500-No_sign . RoyZuo (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

I see two images that clearly seem like they should have history merges

This File:Motoise-gegu01.png and this File:Motoise-gegu02.png seem like they are clearly just the first one has an error so the second one was uploaded. I think they should be history merged with the first version being treated as an older version of the file.

Also moved to a more accurate name like File:Fukuchiyama Toyuke-daijinja map.png Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 00:58, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: Please post at COM:MERGE instead.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 16:36, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

July 13

PD-India template

{{PD-India}} opens with "This work is in the public domain in India because its term of copyright has expired.", but is used on works that are not copyright expired, but which meet the criterion in the template's final bullet point, "Text of laws, judicial opinions, and other government reports are free from copyright."

The former wording therefore needs to be improved, perhaps to "This work is in the public domain in India because its term of copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright."

I cannot figure out where this wording is held, and in any case the template is protected. Can someone make the necessary change, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:13, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

It is in Template:PD-India/en, I added it  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   15:19, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

@Yann it is wrong to include this?  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   18:40, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

I think that "Text of laws, judicial opinions, and other government reports" should be under {{EdictGov-India}}. Yann (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

That text has been in {{PD-India/en}} since its creation in 2010; and you did not comment on it when you edited the template in September 2012, September 2014 and July 2018. To revert User:999real's edit (which I requested) now, with no edit summary, is unacceptable. I have restored it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:40, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Being wrong in the past doesn't make right now. Yann (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

July 14

GSAPPstudent, Columbia, Cameron Rowland

Hi all - I posted about this here a while back, but I have an unfortunate follow up. You can read that old post for more context, but: several users requested images (1, 2, 3) of a public figure, artist Cameron Rowland, be removed, saying they violated an agreement between Rowland and the host of the event, Columbia University; the images were kept because they did not seem to be sourced from the event host but made by an attendee (at an event with no photo restrictions, open to the public in the U.S.). I wanted to get to the bottom of it after I posted the previous thread, so I sent an email to Rowland's gallery (Maxwell Graham Gallery in New York) asking if there was something we were missing. They got back to me a little while ago to clarify.

Turns out the account that uploaded the images (@GSAPPstudent) is not a student or member of the public, but was run by one or several Columbia administrators or faculty. Columbia did indeed sign an agreement with Rowland saying they would not release photos, the user(s) behind that account were both representatives of Columbia and aware of the agreement; they violated the agreement, Rowland called their attention to it, they deleted the image from other platforms. But GSAPPstudent never clarified that they were actually a Columbia rep, so the images have been kept on Commons after every request.

I directed Rowland's rep to the info-commons@wikimedia.org help email, this seems like a different issue than licensing/copyright. But obviously it seems these images need to be deleted now, they do in fact violate an agreement between Rowland and the institution that released the image.

But this would also seem to call into question other images published here by the GSAPPstudent account. As far as I know, it's not appropriate for an institution (in this case Columbia's GSAPP) to use an account in this way. All of their images are "own work", credited to "GSAPPstudent", which could also be wildly inaccurate/incomplete (correct me if that's a reach). Any ideas on how to handle this/what needs to happen here? Thanks! 19h00s (talk) 00:45, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Started a deletion request as seems necessary here. 19h00s (talk) 02:35, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Is there a limit as to how how much space custom licenses are allowed to take?

It does feel a bit extreme sometimes--Trade (talk) 01:01, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: Do you have an example of one you feel is too long? I would draw the line at "diatribe" or "rant".   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 04:18, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Not that it's an ongoing issue, but I'd point to File:Berlin Bridge Bird 27.jpg as an example of excessive user licensing templates - there's a couple pages of templates, including some confusing additional requests in EXIF tags (!). Omphalographer (talk) 19:10, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

It looks like there are some redundant elements and not applicable terms. I hope the bird is not dependent on freedom of panorama :( --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

It's to bad there's no way to edit EXIF information on here. Otherwise I'd totally axe most of that. Really, I'm kind of tempted to nominate the images for deletion just because of how needlessly obtuse the whole thing is but I doubt anyone would vote delete purely because of the walls of nonsense. Or alternatively someone could download the images, edit the EXIF information, and reupload without any of the garbage. Then have the old files redirected or something. I don't know but something should be done to clean them up. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

I believe it's possible to do this by reuploading a version of the file where the excess EXIF information has been removed, without needing to delete the original. I could try this with File:Berlin Bridge Bird 27.jpg if there are no objections. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:36, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

No objections here. I'll probably do it for more files if it works. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

This appears to work. You can edit or remove most fields by right-clicking and going to properties, but the "JPEG file comment" field specifically required specialized software (I used ExifTool). ReneeWrites (talk) 18:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Remedy for erroneously identified images

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems#c-Yann-20250713093000-Eatcha

This recently exposed hoax makes me wonder how to remedy the harm caused by such commons uploads. even though those files may be deleted or their descriptions may be rectified, they have often spread to other websites due to wikipedia and will continue to pollute the information and knowledge of the world. worse still, they may get reposted and end up on commons again after some years.

not xx

i can think of an idea. someone should run a blog that publishes those images crossed out and with detailed explanation that "this image doesnt show xx. it shows yy. it was uploaded to <commons url> and misidentified." RoyZuo (talk) 10:50, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

• @RoyZuo: Take a look at File:1st Ave. S. looking north from S. Washington St., ca. 1876 - DPLA - 571301e7640245dfce8110b0e1b41c2c.jpg for how I typically approach this. - Jmabel ! talk 17:58, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

There is also {{Fact disputed}} and {{Factual accuracy}} that can more prominently mark, describe, and categorize images with potential errors. --Animalparty (talk) 18:16, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

banned by the Wikimedia Foundation

Tulsi (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions)

sysop banned. anyone knows why? RoyZuo (talk) 11:25, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

His last Diff blog was in 2021. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 11:34, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Apparently undisclosed paid editing. [1] and [2]. Yann (talk) 11:39, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

We need to sysban half of the newly created accounts then Trade (talk) 14:48, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: You will need proof to make such an allegation stick.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:14, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Man that sucks. I didn't interact with Tulsi much but he seemed nice from what little I had to do with with him. It's never good to lose admins on here. Especially over something like that. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:56, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

July 15

Anti-social behavior

Sometimes you come across remarkable things in rail travel. Do any extra categories come to mind? I dont seem to find one for painted toenails. I did not speak to the (unidentified) person. The person sitting in the chair did not notice what happened behind him. I did not warn him, as this certainly would have caused a disturbance.

Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:55, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

No additional category ideas but I've gotta say, "Anti-social behaviour in Germany" is one of the funniest categories I've come across in a while. Hats off to you. 19h00s (talk) 13:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

(To be clear, I was chiming in that it was funny not out of support for the category but because it's a funny find. Not a category wonk so I wasn't that familiar with the guidelines.) 19h00s (talk) 19:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Don't be surprised if the category gets deleted. There was a CfD for a similarly subjective category a while ago that ended with the same result. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

The worst part of that category is that it contains:

• A photo and a video - that could be deemed subjective, as warned.
• A long chain of small nested categories (Animal aggression in Germany (1 C), Animal damage in Germany (1 C), Insect damage in Germany (1 C), Diseases and disorders of plants due to insects in Germany (1 C), Coleoptera (damage) in Germany (1 C), Curculionidae (damage) in Germany (1 C), Scolytinae (damage) in Germany (1 C, 1 F), Forests damaged by bark beetles in Germany (94 F)) that only contains the category:Forests damaged by bark beetles in Germany, which can hardly be considered anti-social behaviour.

Pere prlpz (talk) 14:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Yeah it's totally ridiculous. I have better things to do but someone should deal with it somehow. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that somebody seems to have a confusion between "animals causing damage" and "people damaging animals". Pere prlpz (talk) 16:06, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

There are a whole bunch of problematic, mostly-empty categories upthread of it, too: Tactics in Germany (1 C), Revolutionary tactics in Germany (1 C), Terrorism tactics in Germany (1 C), Threats in Germany (1 C), Animal aggression in Germany (1 C) etc. And so we end up with the forests damaged by bark beetles, which have nothing to do with anti-social behaviour, or revolutionary tactics, or terrorism. This is not how categories are meant to be used. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:52, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Yep. This is, unfortunately, a somewhat common pattern I've seen where users will create deep trees of categories through a process of free association; one notable instance is detailed at Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/05/Category:Cultural history of New South Wales, where photos of grain silos ended up categorized as "popular culture". (For whatever reason, this problem seems particularly common in categories by location.) Omphalographer (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Need help with a Commons File <-> Wikidata link

Hello,

I would like to correct an error in this file. This is a print by Charles Albert Waltner (Q749982) after a painting by Jan Daemen Cool (Q6148748) (see for example this file). Hence this modification.

But the information describing it is that of the painting (Portrait of a Lady with a Fan (Q105870209)). I'm assuming it's from structured data, but I haven't mastered that part at all, and I think one of the first two attributes needs to be removed.

Could anyone help me on the best way to do this, please?

Thank you, --Daehan (talk) 13:10, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Maps by Survey of India

Hi, I started upload maps by Survey of India. Since there are quite a lot of them, better to do categories right from the start. I have had difficulties finding the right administrative divisions in some cases, as they have changed over the years. Then I noticed that they exist in 3 scales (for the ones in the public domain): 1/253,440 (1 inch for 4 miles), 1/126,720 (1 inch for 2 miles) and 1/63,360 (1 inch for 1 mile), sometimes mixed up between them. I added categories year by country, local administrative division. What other categories do you suggest? More generally what category tree should we have for them? Yann (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

• Category:Maps by the Surveyor General of India (1/126,720)
• Category:Survey of India map sheets (1/253,440)

Anyone into making ship categories?

I've done some of these, but it's not really my thing. I recently was cruising around Seattle's Lake Union and the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and I can see that I photographed a fair number of ships that doubtless deserve categories of their own and don't have one. I did a few myself (including extracting a couple of images of particular ships), but I don't think I'm going to get around to doing all of what deserves to be done.

Some of the pictures where this would be worth doing for one or more ships (& as of this writing I'm still uploading more):

• 
• 

Jmabel ! talk 22:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)