On the new page Commons:Template requests, Commons users can request edits to templates, the addition of complex templates to pages, and the creation of new templates. Users experienced with templates can find tasks to work on.

So far, such requests could only be made on dispersed talk pages unlikely to be watched by users experienced with templates (and just very few if any users) and at Commons:Village pump/Technical which Template editors may not watch either and which is more broadly about any kind of technical problems. Moreover, on both of these pages, requests may have gotten archived without gotten implemented.

If you are skilled in editing templates, please help out there.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 14:44, 2 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is there a way to display stats like these (these current stats)?:

• 3 solved requests, 5 open requests (8 total)

Prototyperspective (talk) 13:42, 5 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

3 solved requests, 6 open requests (9 total)

Current open requests:

• Parameter auto=yes for ArchiveBox to detect and link/transclude archive subpages
• Parameter for "review impossible" for LicenseReview template (in progress)
• Fix Topic in country template linking to the redlink Template:Byby
• Make template Shortcut show again
• Florida memory – Attribution-FLGov-PhotoColl should contain image number (likely not done)
• Making Template:Search link work with MediaSearch (likely solved)

Prototyperspective (talk) 14:57, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding making the template {{Shortcut}} show up again: really nobody wants to fix it? Currently, lots of policy pages don't display their shortcuts. I would check if I could fix it myself but I don't have permissions to edit that template. Considering how many pages use that template and how important policy & guideline pages are on Commons, I think this is not unimportant to look into. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:27, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

8 solved requests, 5 open requests (13 total)

If you're skilled with template editing, please consider watchlisting that new page.

Current open requests:

• Parameter auto=yes for ArchiveBox to detect and link/transclude archive subpages
• Parameter for "review impossible" for LicenseReview template (in progress)
• Fix Topic in country template linking to the redlink Template:Byby (confirmed bug)
• Make template Shortcut show again (confirmed bug)
• Setting Videos by xyz category based on license templates like PD-USGov-USDA (likely won't be done; instead e.g. set {{Category search by/filetype}} on these license tag categories like Category:PD USDA)

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:10, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Commons:Free media resources/Datagraphics is a relatively new page for databases with free data graphics like charts that could be uploaded to Commons.

It still only has few sites – do you know of any further ones?
-
Recently added this resource but it's mostly just German-language data graphics. It would be great if somebody could upload the graphics from there that aren't yet on Commons. Until now, doing so was just in my private todos but I may never get to uploading more of these. For an example, see Category:Meat Atlas which contains charts and maps about meat consumption (not just in Germany but also worldwide; translatable).

--Prototyperspective (talk) 23:22, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems like Eurostat could be added: according to this page The copyright for the editorial content of this website, which is owned by the EU, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. There probably are more sites like it and maybe somebody here knows of or can find more.

There also are a few files in Category:Data visualization by Statista – is there a way to search for the subset of files in Statista that are CCBY/CCBYSA?

May be good to create a Commons:Batch uploading request for these if that's anyhow possible (and it's probably possible to scrape the sites in structured ways even if they don't have APIs). For Our World in Data, the batch uploading is done semi-manually/automatically via the OWIDImporter which is linked on that page. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've heard NOAA is another resource for charts but I could not find a page on their site for finding and/or searching these – does somebody know? There probably are quite a few more government agencies with lots of data graphics. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:25, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Time and time again we see users trying to delete their own uploads, only to find out that they cannot do that themselves, and they can rarely convince sysops to delete for them (as the current practices show).

But this reality, the lack of utility to delete one's own content, is not communicated to the users at all. If you go through registration and every step in Special:UploadWizard, this rule is not mentioned at any point. This is a very different rule from what people can expect on any other major file hosting sites such as flickr, youtube... where users can always delete their own uploads anytime for any reason or no reason at all.

So I suggest, that this rule be clearly communicated to the users, and that there should be a write-up documenting this rule as well as its origin and rationale.--RoyZuo (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

written as i am fed up with mistreatment of fellow users as recently as Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#c-Olga_Rithme-20251107145500-Appealing_decisions_that_contravene_a_set_of_rules.--RoyZuo (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is hidden in the license conditions shown on the "Learn" page at the UploadWizard and at the linked license texts. And of course it is also in the Terms of Use. We could make this more clear if we would have a definitely needed rework of this info graphic. GPSLeo (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

it is not explicitly spelled out that "you cannot delete your user-generated content" in https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Terms_of_Use .

when all other major websites, which also support certain "free licences" fit under wikimedia commons definitions, allow users delete their uploads, most users dont realise they cannot do the same on wikimedia commons until they want to delete something, and that this surprise is because wikimedia commons prioritises irrevocability of the licence over user experience. RoyZuo (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I find this very clear: "e. No revocation of license: Except as consistent with your license, you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any license that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to the Projects or features, even if you terminate use of our services." This in theory event forbids making a deletion request. GPSLeo (talk) 22:24, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Something this vital shouldnt be hidden in the first place at all Trade (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

This rule was clearly communicated to this user multiple times. Maybe not at the upload stage but certainly once they started filing deletion requests and had those requests denied. ReneeWrites (talk) 10:12, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I actually broadly agree with RoyZuo on this. I've always found it weird that there is no warning in plain language in the upload process about the lack of simple deletion procedures for users uploading their own works to Commons. "License irrevocability" is quite a niche topic if you don't spend a lot of time on this and other Wiki project or work professionally in the realm of IP; many if not most people have no idea what that means or just assume it's a technical requirement akin to allowing cookies on a website. I think that's evidenced by the steady stream of users over the years who have tried at the help desk, village pump, and other forums to get their content deleted and were baffled by the idea that they had no recourse to delete their own work. There should be clear, plain language in the upload process that explains how, barring copyright questions or another legal issue and following a 7-day courtesy window, works uploaded to Commons will not be deleted at the uploader's/author's request.

And to be clear, I'm not saying it's good that so many people don't understand free licensing or the preexisting written warnings/caveats in the upload process; it just seems to be a fact. I believe we could avoid a lot of headaches by adding plainer language. But that would also probably lower the rate at which users complete the upload process, as a warning like that might scare some people off, which, if I were being cynical, I would assume is why the language has never been added (after all, who wants to be responsible for on average less content being added to Commons?). But the ethical choice appears to be better informing uploaders about the long-term deletion policies in the clearest, most non-technical language possible. 19h00s (talk) 13:26, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with this. Ymblanter (talk) 16:50, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

"works uploaded to Commons will not be deleted at the uploader's/author's request." But we already do delete works uploaded to Commons at the uploader's request. It's just not consistently Trade (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Provided the deletion is requested within 7 days after upload and the work is not currently in use on a Wikimedia-project. --Túrelio (talk) 20:53, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have deleted files long after 7 days several times Trade (talk) 14:30, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sure, but that is not the rule. In such cases often the file is also out of scope and there may be further aspects. But the uploader should be communicated the valid rule, because they have a right to it. --Túrelio (talk) 15:43, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I disagree. A lot of the files i see deleted after a week would not have survived a typical "out of scope" deletion request Trade (talk) 22:23, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Trade: We are allowed, but not required, to extend a courtesy. Lying to us and/or threatening legal action certainly both decrease the chance of us extending a courtesy. - Jmabel ! talk 23:03, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you expand on this? I believe you're hinting at a perceived double standard or deference on the part of Commons or WMF to certain users or rightsholders (or types of users/rightsholders) when they request their content be deleted, but I don't want to incorrectly assume. I think that's an important separate conversation in that we shouldn't, for example, allow large corporations to remove validly licensed content while not allowing individual authors/uploaders to do the same simply because one has more structural and financial power. But this conversation seems to be specifically about the average, or very new, user, who does not fully grasp the ramifications of their choices when freely licensing and uploading their work to Commons. Again though, I could be misinterpreting you. 19h00s (talk) 16:50, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where do we allow large corporations to revoke their licenses? We hand mass deletions because an employee published something without the corporation having the permission from the rights holders to do so. But this is something totally different. GPSLeo (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was responding to Trade, asking about what they were implying with their comment about policy not being applied "consistently". I gave theoretical examples of what I believed they were implying (e.g., that there may have been deference or double standard in the way certain rightsholders' requests were handled). I never said Commons in fact does these things. 19h00s (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am moreso implying that some users lean heavily towards courtesy and others towards keep. Whether or not the deletion goes through is mostly dependent on which group of users decided to stumble upon the DR at the given time

At this point dealing with courtesy deletion requests is little different than using a random number generator to determine the outcome Trade (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@19h00s while i dont know what User:Trade might actually mean, here's a separate answer to your question:

Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/03#March 2025 update from WMF Legal on "Vogue Taiwan and possible Copyright Washing" discussion, not that long ago.

the unfortunate thing here, is that these good hearted contributors dont have money to lawyer up.

Conde Nast can get away by merely saying they made an error.

meanwhile, the absolutists here and there (Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#c-Olga_Rithme-20251107145500-Appealing_decisions_that_contravene_a_set_of_rules) dont realise that commons users are at the most only given t&c in "browsewrap manner via hyperlinks alone" which is void as per Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc.

also, when users are never displayed the full t&c, it's probably invalid as per Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp.

and clearly, the t&c linked in the uploadwizard doesnt refer to the file uploaded, because in a single sentence it says "By clicking "publish", you agree to the terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons CC0 License." even if you are releasing your photo in any licence other than cc0. the only logical understanding is this only explicit mention of "terms of use" here covers "your contribution" related to "captions and other additional information such as main subjects and location (NOT the file)".

so if they have a lot of money, they could quite possibly do something to have the same treatment as corporations.--RoyZuo (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not a very sympathetic ear on the Vogue Taiwan case, as I vocally approved of deletion and still agree it was the correct decision; corporate structures are opaque for a reason, they give companies plausible deniability and legal/ownership "air-gaps" for situations just like that one, meaning our obligation to protect the project and reusers from possible (and possibly valid) litigation or damages must necessarily trump our desire to retain the content. Indeed though, Vogue Taiwan is what I thought Trade was referring to (clearly I was wrong), and I do believe we generally shouldn't let corporations with capital or power dictate our decision-making purely because they have the means to fight a legal battle. But that is a complex calculation that involves different levels of risk for WMF, Commons, and the Wiki community broadly.

On the whole though, I still completely agree that clearer language in the upload process about the slim prospects of courtesy deletion and lack of long-term deletion procedures would solve a lot of issues and prevent a lot of stress for both uploaders and Commons. 19h00s (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

and i'll end off my comments by this. what disgusts me the most, is certain users' hostility against other users and indifference to other users' needs. they choose to needlessly antagonise and bash other users instead of seeing and understanding people's needs and working kindly and gently with them.

i see this problem, i come up with this solution of a warning. those users see this problem, they bully the users in need and drive them away. technical solutions cant solve attitude problems. RoyZuo (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Support for the proposal to very clearly explain/state our current rules for the deletion of own uploads in the basic tutorial for new users and also during the upload-procedure. --Túrelio (talk) 20:58, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The Commons:Upload page does have a warning (in bold even!) that licenses cannot be revoked. If people overread that part of the formular, it is their own loss.

However, I am surprised that the much-advertised Upload Wizard does not have a warning (I could find): The licensing part says currently: All media uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are free for anyone to use and share anywhere on internet or off internet. To ensure the work you upload is copyright-free, please provide the following information. (...)
That means I  Support the suggestion: Between these two sentences in the Wizard, we should add another sentence, that could read like this: "Please note that you can usually not revoke your permission later."(en), "Bitte beachte, dass du die hier gegebene Einwilligung später nur in Ausnahmefällen wiederrufen kannst." (de), "Veuillez noter que vous ne pouvez pas révoquer votre autorisation ultérieurement, que dans des cas exceptionnels." (fr) and so on. In the spirit of making the sentence less legalese, I exchanged "licence" with "permission", and kept it short. If someone is alarmed by this statement, they should stop uploading and find the relevant rules. --Enyavar (talk) 14:35, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Concur, though "usually can not" is better English than "can usually not". - Jmabel ! talk 19:44, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support.✅️

I'm not sure if this is still under discussion, but I agree with @RoyZuo and others who say that this should be stated clearly in plain English on the upload page (prior to uploading). Also, deleting from the website doesn't unilaterally equate to revoking the license, contrary to what someone suggested earlier. BetsyRogers (talk) 07:53, 15 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Very important point. Deleting a file here does in no way whatsoever "revoke" the licence granted by the author. It simply means that the file/the work is no longer publicly available on this website - the "deleted" work itself is still under the licence originally given. ~TheImaCow (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Support -- Ooligan (talk) 08:55, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

File:Illustrating Wikipedia brochure.pdf is very outdated. Things look very different now. Maybe parts of the text need updates too but the images would be very confusing if anybody reads this.

That file is used on many pages, including en:Help:Pictures, en:Help:Files and meta:Commons brochure.

Alternatively, the document could be replaced by an entirely new up-to-date document. Note that in that case, most file-uses should probably also be changed.

See also Commons:Simple media reuse guide and Commons:Welcome. The file is of course relevant to the entire global Commons project.

Also posted this to Commons:File requests#Updated version of the Commons brochure and I suggest discussion continues there once this thread here is archived. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:25, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The file is outdated by over a decade – it was uploaded and last revised in 2014 which in 1 week is 11 years ago. Despite of this it is and remains heavily used across Wikimedia projects, including English Wikipedia and metawiki. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:50, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

In the last 30 days, the file got 81,282 views but it shows totally outdated screenshots of Commons. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:29, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The naming system of many categories related to frescoes in Pompeii does not seem to match the spirit of Commons' hierarchical naming system.

Specifically, the paintings generally have two hierarchies, one rooted at Category:Ancient Roman frescos in Pompeii then descending to house → room (and sometimes a subcategory for a specific painting) and another rooted at Category:Ancient Roman frescos of Pompeii by Irelli-Aoyagi-De Caro-Pappalardo number (with 561 subcategories for specific paintings, walls or rooms).

This second system is based on the figures in volume 2 of a book called La Peinture de Pompéi edited by Irelli, Aoyagi, De Caro and Pappalardo. Volume 1 also has other paintings with their own numbering but those are __not__ part of the Commons categorisation system. Volume1 numbers overlap with volume2 numbers but refer to different paintings, however the category names do not mention that they refer to volume2. The pictures in volume 2 are no where close to a complete catalogue of paintings at Pompeii.

Just about everyone who goes to Category:Red oecus q, north of the peristyle is going to have a hard time discovering the painting/subcategory they're looking for, whereas descriptive names (e.g. 'Cupids making wine') would help greatly. Another example of confusion is described here.

Improvement?

Shouldn't this situation be improved? Does anyone have an opinion on the best course of action?

The Aoyagi-Irelli.. categories refer to specific paintings (or sometimes whole walls with multiple paintings) so it doesn't make conceptual sense for a painting to have both this category and a hypothetical new category that describes the painting. It also doesn't seem right to rename the category because then it loses the numbering information.

Would the right way be to create a new category with a descriptive name and then "tag" that category with the Aoyagi-Irelli number? This makes sense to me but I don't know how to "tag" the new category. Also, this would be a very large change (over 500 categories) and I don't know if the rest of the community agrees?

- User:BeakheadIntrados — Preceding undated comment was added at 10:51, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't have any expertise here, but it sounds to me like your main problem here is with the naming of the categories based on Irelli-Aoyagi-De Caro-Pappalardo number. Is that correct? Is there another problem as well (in which case, please spell it out; if there is more than one other problem, a bullet list of issues at hand would be useful). At the very least, if those are drawn from two different volumes and the numbers overlap, it would seem that the volume should be part of the category name. As for the issue of whether the Irelli-Aoyagi-De Caro-Pappalardo number should be the primary way of naming individual paintings, I bet needs will vary wildly: as a rule, the more scholarly users will probably prefer those, the less scholarly will not. At the very least those should be preserved within the category pages, one way or another.

One possible pattern for a solution is the way we handle ships, with a category for an IMO number and a subcategory for a ship name. In that case, this is partly because a ship can have more than one name over the course of it existence, but still something like that might be workable.

Another possible pattern for a solution would be to pick a handful of languages and try to have descriptions for as many categories as possible be given in all of those languages. That would help greatly with the search problem.

Another possible pattern would be to add another hierarchy under Category:Ancient Roman frescos of Pompeii: Category:Ancient Roman frescos of Pompeii by subject matter, leading down to the same "leaf" categories. - Jmabel ! talk 20:04, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for not being totally clear. Yes, my problem is that I don't think the Irelli-Aoyagi number should be the primary way of naming individual paintings, for the following reasons:

• It is not a standard way of referring to the paintings by scholars. Scholars use the title or subject matter along with the house, room and wall compass position (House, Room, north/east/.. wall). (There's no inventory numbers like in museums.) The Irelli-Aoyagi book is not 'canonical'. It would typically only be referenced by scholars indicating where a reproduction of the painting is to be found (but they could equally refer to another book or none at all).
• Further, the paintings in volume 1 (which has 200+ large colour plates, unlike volume 2 which has smaller black and white photographs) are mostly more "important" than those in volume 2. So it doesn't make any sense to arbitrarily pick volume 2 of this particular books.
• The way that the scholars refer to paintings seems much more intuitive for non-scholarly people too: it's common to read about (or see in real life) a painting and its location (particular house and room).
• If we really wanted to pick a book to number from Irelli-Aoyagi would not be the one but rather Pompei : pitture e mosaici in 11 volumes (1990-2003) which did try to be complete. However more paintings have been excavated since then so even this would not be adequate.

I really don't understand why this particular book has been chosen and it greatly degrades the name- and location-based categorisation system that would be more understandable to both scholars and non-scholars.

Adding 'volume 2' to the category names would not solve the problem, it would only entrench the situation.

The ship-like subcategory idea could work! It would conceptually be a bit weird because the Irelli-Aoyagi category would refer to the files in the subcategory rather than any files in itself, but that would be a good trade-off to preserve automatic 'tagging' of paintings in the main category with this number. An alternative would be to remove the Irelli-Aoyagi categories from the location-based hierarchy and but maintain them as a parallel, but they would quickly become out of sync because few people are going to be thinking in terms of this particular book's numbers.

Again though we're talking about 500+ categories and I would like to get some sort of consensus before making a change on that scale.

BeakheadIntrados (talk) 07:30, 15 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with BeakheadIntrados that any system based on Irelli et al. is misguided, for all the reasons listed, and especially because this work is not a scholarly standard and is not normally cited by professionals in the field as a primary means of identifying a given painting. By far the best organizing principle for Pompeian wall paintings that are still in situ, or for which the original location is recorded, is the traditional numbering system by region, insula, and house numbers (e.g., VI.8.3), subdivided further by room and location within room as necessary. This has the advantage of being (a) universally intelligible to anyone interested in Pompeii, whether they are scholars or casual visitors, and (b) completely independent of any particular publication. It's the system adopted in Schefold's Die Wände Pompejis (available here for those with access to The Wikipedia Library), which, although it is three-quarters of a century old and lacks illustrations, is still the most convenient one-volume index of Pompeian wall paintings available, and is regularly cited in the scholarly literature. As the OP notes, the multivolume Pompei: Pitture e mosaici is more complete, because it includes the results of more recent excavations, but it's also much bulkier and more expensive, and most readers on both sides of the Atlantic will find it harder to locate a library that owns a copy. For wall paintings in the Naples museum (or, in a few cases, other museums) whose original location is unknown, citation by inventory number is universal. Cluttering up category names and hierarchies with identifiers other than these two widely recognized systems is not, in my opinion, helpful to anyone. Choliamb (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Given that others agree I then propose the following:

• For each category like 'Category:Irelli-Aoyagi-De Caro-Pappalardo <NUMBER>':
  • Create a new category with a descriptive name using best practices. In some cases this may just be the subject matter title of the painting (following existing examples) though to disambiguate with other paintings the name of the house, room or wall may be included.
  • Make this new category a subcategory of the Irelli category.
  • Move all files in the Irelli category into this new category.
  • Make the new category a subcategory of all the parent categories from the Irelli category except the Irelli-specific ones (I believe this is just Category:Ancient Roman frescos of Pompeii by Irelli-Aoyagi-De Caro-Pappalardo number).
  • Remove the corresponding parent categories from the Irelli category.

This should preserve the automatic 'tagging' of new paintings with the Irelli number while creating a more logical, scholarly and user-friendly location-based hierarchy.

Please let me know any concerns before I start doing this.

BeakheadIntrados (talk) 10:58, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not sure I follow how this will "preserve the automatic 'tagging' of new paintings with the Irelli number…". Maybe I'm missing something. - Jmabel ! talk 23:26, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I mean that in the future, when an uploader/editor categorises a new photo, they're much more likely to find & use the location-based category rather than the Irelli category. In my suggestion, such new photos would be "automatically tagged" with the Irelli number in the sense that the user only needs to find the location-category and then their photo will be placed in the right Irelli number parent category. An alternative would be adding everything to both the location-based category and the Irelli category but I think this would quickly lead to the two categories getting out of sync (when in most cases they should be identical collections).

I don't actually think this is the 100% best idea (I think this gallery page Pompeian Painting (1990) is probably enough rather than categories). I'd actually be most in favour of renaming the Irelli categories to be location-based but I don't know how to obtain consensus (does anyone else?). That's why I'm suggesting a solution that preserves the numbers, to avoid someone's categorisation work being lost without them explaining why the Irelli numbers are so important. BeakheadIntrados (talk) 08:01, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

for example:

File:Spectators watching a bicyclist on Beacon Street, San Pedro, ca.1907 (CHS-4783).jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/20150928155242/http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll65/id/17161 is broken because w:archive.org can fail archiving w:Ajax (programming) web pages, more than w:archive.today

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll65/id/17161 is now at:

https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF16PKMY

Piñanana (talk) 11:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are you asking for these files to be corrected? Checking insource:http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ (assuming that's the url part to search for) suggests over 36,000 files are affected.

Since the identifier also seems to have changed I have no idea how this could be fixed – does somebody know? Maybe the organization can be asked to unbreak these links so they redirect?

I also noticed link rot (404) for source links of files in Category:Videos by Terra X where I notified the creator account. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Will the links remain broken and if so is anybody doing anything regarding that or is there a dedicated page to report broken external links for set of files? Prototyperspective (talk) 15:29, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

File:Seattle Water Department worker driving ditch digging machine, 1927.jpg I don't think I've ever seen a machine quite like this. I did my best at categorization, but I suspect I didn't do well; I won't be surprised if we need some category we haven't got. - Jmabel ! talk 06:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nice photograph. There is an enwiki article about something called a w:Ditch Witch (for which we also have a category here c:Category:Ditch Witch). This might be related. (I haven't dug into it in any detail.) -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 07:25, 15 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seeing that a cat about excavators was already set at the time of upload, would putting it in Category:Unidentified excavators or a new subcategory of it like Category:Excavators of unidentified types solve this? (Note: "Identify unknown objects" is already a task-type highlighted at Commons:Welcome and maybe it could get highlighted more if adding the file to the cat is seen as too unlikely to result in identification+categorization.) Prototyperspective (talk) 11:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I added Category:Barber-Greene, the manufacturer. You can see part of the name "Barber-" above the driver's head. Commons has a good photo of a similar B-G machine in action: File:Drainage, machine, graven, sleuven, barber greene, Bestanddeelnr 160-0317.jpg. Mrwojo (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd say it belongs to Category:Chain trenchers, although it is old, small and retractable - and that makes it look different -, and the chain has buckets instead of just teeth as most of the examples in the category. Pere prlpz (talk) 17:07, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

This machine's chain of "buckets" is similar to the floating gold field dredges of the American West and Alaska. The buckets work best in wet soils and wetlands. Ooligan (talk) 19:46, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I noticed when moving categories without leaving a redirect – as one may want to for titles with typos or flaws or that are just the plural/singular form etc (pollutes the autocomplete) – links to the category in Wikipedia can become broken.

The move page doesn't inform the user much about this potential issue – it says The old title will become a redirect page to the new title. Be sure to check for double or broken redirects. You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go. but the user may not be aware that the category is linked from a Wikipedia page. One also can't see which Wikipedia pages do – Special:WhatLinksHere doesn't show them and the they're also not listed on the move page. Many Wikipedia articles just link dynamically to whatever Commons category is linked on the/a Wikidata item but apparently many(?) also specify the exact category title.

This is especially problematic when one wants to move a set of categories all named by the same schema. Usually, Wieralee moves files in the moved category to the target category but that's not the case for moves when no redirect is left. When moving multiple categories, one would have to check for each where it's linked on Wikipedia and also correct that(?)

See also Commons:Village pump/Technical#How to move (rename) many categories?

I think there may be quite a few moved categories where the links have not been updated on Wikipedia – is there any way to find them (if possible just the ones with broken links) so these can be corrected? Is there maybe a tool for category moves that would also change these similar to "Move & Replace" for files? Prototyperspective (talk) 00:16, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Another benefit for those wiki's to just rely on Wikidata for this. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 22:45, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is there any tool / query (probably quarry) that could check

• all redirect pages and
• all pages that were moved without leaving a redirect

whether they contain files so that one could for example create a regularly bot-updated report page that lists these categories for editors to fix these? Prototyperspective (talk) 12:19, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

A non-registered user is empying the categoies "World War II ships of the Netherlands]] the previous days. Is that a correct move? Stunteltje (talk) 12:22, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Examples? Functional wikilink: Category:World War II ships of the Netherlands. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:15, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Hr.Ms. Sumatra (ship, 1926) from Category:World War II cruisers of the NetherlandsStunteltje (talk) 19:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I undid some of the edits of this anonymous user, as I don't see why this category is removed. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 15:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@~2025-34477-45: Please use the edit summary field to explain why you made certain changes. Why did you empty these categories? Also please don't edit war but discuss with the user.

@Stunteltje: Have all the edits been reverted by now? Prototyperspective (talk) 21:18, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Forgot to mention here, I made a report at AN/U regarding this unregistered user (see COM:AN/U#User:~2025-32925-15), since they were causing multiple problems other than this one here. The user did not respond there, so it is unlikely they will respond here. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I will try to find te deleted categories.Stunteltje (talk) 09:36, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

• The category is about a quite important subject
• It could contain some of the most educational most useful files
• It could be very useful as a way to find specific files, explore interesting content, filter search results, and organize files

However, it's very incomplete. Could people here help populating it? Does anybody have any ideas for search queries and tool-uses to find lots of files that belong into it?

For example, I imagine one could somehow show all files that are in more than one subcategory of Category:Life expectancy charts by country to put them into Category:Life expectancy charts comparing countries which is a new subcat of Charts comparing countries.

Then there's some categories that likely contain many relevant categories like Category:Statistics of Europe.

Iirc, I added Charts comparing countries as a redcat to some files and didn't yet create it because it's neither close to complete – and I currently didn't want / have the time to work on making it – nor even just containing many files. Iketsi apparently went ahead and created that cat apparently without worrying much or at all about putting files in it.

I know that lots of nonmap/chart files in Category:Our World in Data show data of multiple countries but don't know how one could filter for these to put them all into the cat.

Lastly, please comment if you have an idea how to make this category better findable to places where it's useful and people who may be interested in these, for example from Wikipedia. E.g. there are Wikipedia articles about statistics like Solar power by country and there doesn't seem to be an article for statistics comparing countries but there could be some section somewhere and things like that. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:15, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Should we categorize after the countries that are being compared and which years they are comparing? Trade (talk) 16:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

That would be difficult and also probably not very useful for files that compare 5+ countries (such charts are quite common) to be subcategorized by all the included countries.

• Subcategorizing by content / region for charts that compare only countries of a world region makes a lot of sense – Examples: Africa, South Asia, EU, G7
• It would be best I think to have all the files subcategorized first of all by subject area

Often nearly all countries are being compared and either all of the compared ones or the top/bottom fraction thereof shown in the cart. It's more useful to navigate by subject and much more feasible to categorize by it. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why cant we compare by year? There are only one or two of those in each chart Trade (talk) 02:39, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean (and how does it relate to the prior comment)? Did you ask whether Category:Charts comparing countries by year would make sense? I think it would also make sense to subcategorize by decade and year there. Only some charts compare just the state of things in one year for multiple countries, there's many that span several years – see Category:Charts by year of latest data. Nevertheless, it may be difficult to subcategorize into these and make the decade/year cats fairly complete so it would still be better to subcategorize by subject and worry about other ways to subcategorize later imo. Prototyperspective (talk) 16:04, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, It seems the author of a famous photo of the Vietnam War is not the one usually credited: ["Petite Fille au napalm" : un analyste français remet à son tour en cause la paternité de la photo https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/arts-expos/photographie/petite-fille-au-napalm-un-analyste-francais-remet-a-son-tour-en-cause-la-paternite-de-la-photo_7614215.html]. Yann (talk) 11:08, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The category about it is Category:The Terror of War. Seems like there is just one file whose description would need to be adjusted.

The Netflix movie The Stringer wants to determine that whoever actually holds the camera when taking this photo is not Nick Ut, but a freelancer from the same agency, Nguyen Thanh Nghe. Hence the name of the documentary because "stringer" means "pigist" in English, unlike a person under contract. (machine translation) has this been determined yet? If not, the Commons community probably can't determine it but maybe this info should be added to the file's author info. If it is, the file page would need to be changed. It doesn't seem like it would have implications for the licensing. The Wikidata infobox has Creator: Nick Ut (attribution, The Stringer, disputed). Prototyperspective (talk) 15:45, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Edited the file description page. This should solve it, or not? One curious thing is that the file, a quite famous photo, is not used anywhere so far. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:23, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello, some cities in USA have streets with 'east' and 'west' parts, which is sometimes reflected in the name of those segments (e.g. Broadway and West Broadway in San Diego - see https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/32.715874/-117.163117) When putting files into categories, what is the common practice - use separate categories for ther east/west/no parts, or just one category (e.g. Broadway, without further division)? Thank you. --JiriMatejicek (talk) 15:21, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

From what I have seen, only one category. Ymblanter (talk) 15:54, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ymblanter is right for most cases, but there are exceptions like Category:First Avenue South, Seattle: it is rather different in character from the (unmodified) First Avenue, and once upon a time even had a different name. Also, Seattle has an entirely unrelated First Avenue NW, First Avenue NE, etc. (not along the same line) that happen not to merit categories; the same must happen in some other cities. - Jmabel ! talk 23:34, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The category is strangely empty. It doesn't contain a subcat about the ancient Americas. Shouldn't e.g. Category:Maps of the Mayas be in a cat like that?

Moreover, none of the subcats of Category:Maps by year shown or their parent cats are in this category – shouldn't this be changed and if so, how? Also pinging @Enyavar: .

Lastly – and this fits well into a CfD – is the title of this cat and other cats in Category:Maps showing history really appropriate? It sounds as if these maps would show historical developments such as from where to where some people moved (how things developed over a certain period). But the maps each show a situation at a certain ancient time such as population centers on a map. The category is linked to Wikidata historical map (Q459798) described as "map displaying a past event or other historical situation". These maps mostly don't show historical events or historical situations but simply the past of any kind (specifically the ancient past). Prototyperspective (talk) 17:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Categories referring to history are generally not useful. There is no agreement about when history starts. Better to use categories with actual dates. Rathfelder (talk) 19:48, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Prototyperspective: , "Maps of the Mayas" are a subcategory of "Maps of ancient peoples". I do agree that the "maps showing history" category tree feels pretty raw. The history map section on Commons is not fully fleshed out, and I suppose we need a concept on how it should be best structured. I even had arguments with a fellow editor recently on how explicitly regionalized the tree ought to be. (i.e. Maps of Belgium in the 8th century vs. Maps of Luxembourg in the 8th century vs. Maps of the Netherlands in the 8th century: Aren't these just the same? (CfD here, be warned, we are both wall-texters, but the initial proposal is quite brief.)

Maps by year shown (or maps by century shown) should in my opinion not necessarily be part of the "ancient" category, because timespans in history are so hard to define. "Antiquity" was traditionally subdivided into Stone/Bronze/Iron age, which then was succeeded by classical and late antiquity... in Europe and the Near East. The 5th century, when the European middle ages began, was still prehistoric in North America (the Mesoamerican cultures excluded). Right now, I added a disclaimer to the "maps of history by period" category, because I fear that some nitpickers will try and apply the distinction of prehistory and recorded history onto the category to further confuse matters. Aside from that, I have placed a link to "maps showing history by millenium BC" in the OP category. It is a parallel structure though, not a sub/parent cat.

Re "usefulness" of the "history" categories: "History" in our category tree is anything that is about the past. A lot of people are categorizing everything by year and months, and then locate these categories under "history of...". Even the stuff from the 2020s is usually found under "history". That whole practice is often not particularly useful, sure. --Enyavar (talk) 21:59, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

By the way it would be better to click Reply underneath the post to which you're replying to or if editing wikitext set the indentation accordingly.

I saw "Maps of the Mayas" is already a subcategory of that. I doubt that all maps of the ancient Americas are of Maya and even if adding a subcat for the Americas seems missing considering the other subcats of that cat and how it can be found starting from other categories.

and I suppose we need a concept on how it should be best structured Let's discuss it here then, specifically for Category:Maps showing ancient history and secondarily also for the broader Category:Maps showing history cats regarding the "showing history" part in terms of whether maps just showing a long-ago state of things are "showing history" as opposed to just maps where historical events or developments are illustrated.

Maps by year shown (or maps by century shown) should in my opinion not necessarily be part of the "ancient" category, The proposal is to a fraction of these to the category, not the entire category. The time period included can then be easily changed and be oriented toward some academic consensus of which period(s per location) can be classed as Ancient history, where the gray area category/ies is/are e.g. only linked as see also instead of being subcategories. This would benefit from and incorporate the existing finely-set (down to by year not just broad historical era) categories rather than for example copying the files into this cat. This isn't clear and easy to do so this thread could be used to flesh out how a solution.

The 5th century, when the European middle ages began, was still prehistoric in North America Indeed that's part of the problem: periods vary per region. So maybe things can only be done once the Category:Maps by century shown cats are subcategorized into by-region subcategories(?) (or only those subcategories get added).

added a disclaimer to the "maps of history by period" category Thanks. Category:Maps showing history by period definitely should inform that "prehistory [is grouped] into history categories" despite that many main definitions of "history" distinguish it from prehistory (btw many also it as the study of / information about and field about the past from the past itself).

Aside from that, I have placed a link to "maps showing history by millenium BC" in the OP category Thanks, good call. It is a parallel structure though, not a sub/parent cat. Yes that's how things currently are but I suggested here for this to be changed somehow in an adequate way.

Even the stuff from the 2020s is usually found under "history" […] This is not relating to the primary subject of the 'ancient history' cats where this isn't the case. It does relate to the secondary topic of Category:Maps showing history which brings me back to my question of whether that title is (/ these titles are) adequate. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:38, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Categories referring to history are generally not useful. Strongly disagree. Better to use categories with actual dates Agree that it would be better but that's not an either or question: both can be done where the year category is arguably more important. We shouldn't delete Category:History and do away with history cats. The full term here is "ancient history", not just history btw. And it makes sense to have categories for ancient history, middle ages etc because that's making it a lot easier to find things. Organizing also gets better and lots of sources and articles and topics are about such or things by such delineations. Just because it's not perfectly clear-cut doesn't make it useless. There's a lot of other things we organize by that also aren't clear cut.

At Category:Maps by year shown the question or challenge I was asking about is also about how to subcategorize a fraction of these into the cat – if this is done by putting these cats in there instead of e.g. just a fraction of the files – which of course brings the issues of it not being clear cut to the forefront.

I can't now explain you in length why the concept of ancient history is of value but it is and there's good reasons the Wikipedia article about it, Ancient history, exists in 117 language versions and has lots of big sources about exactly that scope, high readership, many articles in its cat, and much info; etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:17, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh yes, of course, history categories per se are eminently useful.

My critique was mostly on the praxis that detailed ("dated") history like Rathfelder preferred above my comment, usually just spans the last fifteen years, as can be seen for example in this random history category: We have files explictly dated by year and month about the "history" shown in random photographs dated between 2010 to 2024: flowers in parks, sunsets, memorials, road and building infrastructure. I firmly believe that in most cases, it matters little whether those photos were taken in the 1990s or this year, unless you can hold them next to each other and point out the changes.

It is good and important to date our photos, but these examples do not show "history" in my opinion. This would be different with media about unique events (festivals, demonstrations, catastrophes).

The linked example shows how one can group content in a better way instead of by-year breakdowns: photos of history markers/placques/monuments get their own category. Old maps get their own category. Registered historical buildings and sites get their own categories. That should be the focus of "history of" categories in my opinion.

I see more or less the same pattern with History of Chongqing, History of Kanchipuram, History of Caen, i.e. all over the place: Detailed and sometimes meaningless by-year subcategorization, while broader subcategories by theme are more helpful in finding things.

Back to the "maps by year shown", those are helpful when the map content can be clearly dated to a year. I also would like to locate these maps as well, like Maps of North America in the 17th century: First collect enough maps for an area and a century, and subdividing into decades or years on a much later stage. --Enyavar (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

--Enyavar (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

My comment was a reply to Rathfelder, not to your comment.
but these examples do not show "history" in my opinion. This would be different with media about unique events that's also what I argued in my opening post (if I understood you correctly).
that detailed ("dated") history […] usually just spans the last fifteen years, as can be seen for example in this random history category off-topic to this thread, sorry, but you could make a separate thread about this subject.
Detailed and sometimes meaningless by-year subcategorization, while broader subcategories by theme are more helpful in finding things. I think I agree but I think that by-year categories are often useful, just usually for such cases shouldn't be the main or only or first criteria to subcategorize by. Also off-topic to this thread.
Back to the "maps by year shown", those are helpful when… as is, also off-topic to this thread. Clearly those are useful. But let's please discuss the topic of the thread and open a separate one about other or tangentially related topics. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:13, 19 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am not against categories of history of any kind, but I dont think there is widespread understanding of when ancient or medieval history began or ended, so I think they should, where possible, be populated by categories by century or millenium. Rathfelder (talk) 17:16, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

When exactly each era started/ended is not important to most use-cases / users that use these categories that adopt a widely-used concept and distinction. Yes, they should be also categorized by century or millenium or year. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:28, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've found one user who names all the files with their own name. Something like <subject>_<name>.<ext> Name space is already very polluted and this thing pollutes it even more. At the same time I understand that looking for new name is a bit hard task. So...

1. Is it normal to do use such namings? 2. If it is not desirable naming scheme, what should I do? I should go to users talk page, politely explain and hope they will understand? DustDFG (talk) 11:25, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's not 'normal', it's not encouraged, but nor is it forbidden. This isn't helped by a couple of prominent and very active editors here (inc. at least one admin) who do this, and will angrily defend against any renaming.

BTW, the same policy of 'free choice' that makes this possible also means that it's nearly as easy to rename them otherwise, should one of the other general conditions for renaming be met. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:32, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

To be clear. Ppl have no RIGHT to demand this name is preserved, similar to how they have no right to retain metadata in the exif, or a specific mark inside a photograph. These are not rights that the license provides them, literally the opposite, the license explicitly permits others to make such changes.

They get their name somewhere, the license somewhere and often the share alike provision and thats it. The rest is a courtesy, and the more people abuse a courtesy (for instance by plastering their names over each and every wiki page that uses an image) the more likely they are to eventually cause every person to loose that courtesy. (Aka. Why we cant have nice things) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:32, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The topic of rights is irrelevant here. Commons instead has policies, including a naming policy that outlines which files should and shouldn't be renamed, and if a filename meets the naming guidelines otherwise, there are no grounds for renaming files just to remove the author's name from it. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:45, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ReneeWrites I was just saying that that is a choice. If people start misusing policy because they figured out it is a good way to insert their name everywhere without other people being allowed to complain about it, then we can amend the naming policy (and in my opinion should [but I haven't looked into how much of a problem this actually is right now, so no opinion on that]). This is somewhat alike to the whole GFDL debate. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:12, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Abstract Wikipedia, Multilingual Wikipedia, Wikiabstracts, Wikigenerator, Proto-Wiki. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you!

-- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

(This message was sent to Commons:Txokoa and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

I'm a bit confused by the fact we simultaneously have categories like Category:1930 paintings from Mexico and Category:1930 paintings in Mexico. What is the distinction between them? Sdkb ^talk 18:34, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just a guess but it seems like the former is paintings made in Mexico in 1930, while the latter is paintings made in 1930 which are currently housed/located in a public collection in Mexico. 19h00s (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

That makes sense. As a meta thing, I wish we'd do a better job of building out descriptions as we build out categories. The proper domain of a category is always obvious to the editor who creates it, but not always to others. Sdkb ^talk 18:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also a meta thing: we could really use some better guidelines on how to use prepositions in category names - right now it feels like we pick randomly between "in", "of", and "from", and a nontrivial number of categories end up duplicated and/or with inconsistent names as a result. Omphalographer (talk) 20:20, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

cc @MarbleGarden because of your edit to Category:Prometeo (Orozco), which is a mural done in the U.S. by a Mexican painter. Sdkb ^talk 20:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

My understanding based on the guidance for the country categories for "portrait paintings from", was that the "from" category is based on the nationality of the painter. MarbleGarden (talk) 20:56, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

That doesn't make sense as guidance, though, imo. A Mexican portrait painter working in, say, France, is by definition not making "portrait paintings from Mexico". 19h00s (talk) 21:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Its not just paintings. There are many categories where it is clear many editors dont understand the intended differences between in, of, from, and the like - stuff that doesnt translate easily. No easy answer, but I think we should at least have some explanations. Rathfelder (talk) 16:47, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have handwritten categories, but I dont see any handtyped categories. This example is clearly typed with a classic typewriter, not even an electric one, where the impact is constant. Nowadays this type of text is not made anymore, but (laser)printed. The most handy solution to make the handwritten text in Category:Lettre posthume de Bernard à Estelle is of course to write out the text in the French Wikisource, but in the meantime... Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Smiley.toerist: I've recently been wanting to categorise typewritten documents by equipment as well. I've not thought to distinguish between electric and manual typewriters, but that totally makes sense if it's determinable. We have categories for Handwriting and Writing by medium and Writing equipment, so maybe Writing by equipment used would make sense? With Written with electric typewriters, Written with manual typewriters, Written with fountain pen etc. as subcats? Sam Wilson 03:21, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is Category:Typed texts from Gallica, so as a first step I created Category:Typed texts. There are many categories under Category:Writing systems. Also interesting are the typefaces. Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:39, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Smiley.toerist, should that new Category:Typed texts, include the category "typewriters?" -- Ooligan (talk) 00:45, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

No typewriters are included in the broader Category:Writing systems. Typewriters produce Typed texts, but typewriters is not a subcategory of Typed texts.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:50, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

To say I'm surprised by the undeletion (a supervote?) at Commons:Undeletion requests/Current requests#File:Nintendo Advanced Video System cartridge console, data recorder and keyboard all together-February 1985 Computer Entertainer.jpg is an understatement - but I'm not clear where such an action should be challenged. Is here a suitable place for discussion? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:15, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

As the uploader, I'd have been fine with it remaining deleted. Abzeronow (talk) 00:28, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would say that COM:VPC is a better page than this. On copyright principles, I'd let it be. Continued fighting over something like this drains energy from a community quickly. It's not really a supervote; there was only like one explicit opposition and one explicit support, making it two to one with the closer's vote. But if you feel the admin has an issue with closing votes inappropriately, it'd be COM:AN or COM:ANU.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

...hmmm... nobody thought of a courtesy ping, as I closed Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nintendo Advanced Video System cartridge console, data recorder and keyboard all together-February 1985 Computer Entertainer.jpg. I agree this is highly likely copyrighted by the manufacturer. It can be nominated again for deletion of course, but we can also spare our energy. I am amazed how PCP seems to be turned upside down. Ellywa (talk) 00:03, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

To me it looks like the same quality and taken in same conditions as other photos of devices from different companies in the magazine  ${\displaystyle 999}$ REAL 💬 ⬆   01:05, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Of course. (1) Did the magazine obtain full rights on these photos? (2) Did they just publish press photos without even attribution, which is quite usual? (3) Or did they make all these photos with their own photographers? If 2 is true, we cannot keep these photos on Commons. Ellywa (talk) 08:23, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

They are photos of devices from different competitor companies, there is also no information on where to buy them so they are unlikely to be photos from a store. I searched newspapers in 1985 and can't find that press photos of this console were distributed  ${\displaystyle 999}$ REAL 💬 ⬆   13:34, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't see anyone suggesting they were from a store; that's a straw man. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

What Andy and Ellywa are insinuating is that Nintendo took the photograph (since they were the manufacturer), not that these were from retail. Abzeronow (talk) 01:30, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems to me, though, that if Nintendo repeatedly gave them photographs and made no objection to them repeatedly publishing without copyright notices, we'd be back to {{PD-US-1978-89}}. No? - Jmabel ! talk 01:48, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The magazine had an overall copyright notice, so no, unless they were straight up advertisements  ${\displaystyle 999}$ REAL 💬 ⬆   11:42, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am saying that all the photos of devices from different competing companies look like they were taken in the same conditions at the same time. Nintendo was not taking and distributing photos of Commodore and Atari machines, that's why I brought up being from another third party which would be a possible reason for all photos to look the same  ${\displaystyle 999}$ REAL 💬 ⬆   11:41, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would like to raise an issue regarding recent category moves involving Munich/München. According to COM:NAME, category names should generally use English. The main parent category on Commons for this city is Category:Munich, but a number of subcategories were moved from Munich to the German München without a clear community consensus, and seemingly against Commons' naming policies. Similar moves have affected dozens of other Munich-related categories, often at the hands of the same user, resulting in inconsistency within the category tree.

I'd like to get wider input on how these categories should be handled and hopefully establish a consensus, so these inconsistencies can be ironed out one way or another. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Pinging L. Beck as he started the CfD, and DALIBRI for having made this move (among many others). ReneeWrites (talk) 13:27, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Proper names are generally used as such. However, there are exceptions, namely when a common English name exists (for example: Nürnberg - Nuremberg or Köln - Cologne). Therefore, all categories where the name München appears should be renamed to use the English name. Lukas Beck (talk) 13:32, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category names should generally be in English, excepting some of proper names, biological taxa and terms which don't have an exact English equivalent. Lukas Beck (talk) 13:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to get wider input on how these categories should be handled As Lukas Beck noted the policy is for category names to be in English. If you want things to be multilingual at scale and in reality so that categories can also be found by people searching the Web or Commons in their own language and category titles be better understood by people not speaking English well, I suggest you vote on m:Community Wishlist/W214.
Proper names with any translation solution would need special treatment as they often shouldn't be translated and the labels of Wikidata items can be used for that, albeit in this case (and cases like it) 'English Garden' and its translations wouldn't necessarily be inferior to the proper name "Englischer Garten". Prototyperspective (talk) 14:08, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I removed the link to the CfD, so as to not cause further confusion. This is about Munich vs. München, not Englischer Garten. --ReneeWrites (talk) 14:19, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Because you're replying to me: had understood that and there's no need to remove it. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Clearly "Munich". Is there any existing category that uses München, or any current CfD proposing that one should? - Jmabel ! talk 23:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Englischer Garten (München) and many subcategories for example. Lukas Beck (talk) 09:47, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jmabel: Lukas linked to an ongoing CfD with the user who had been moving these categories. But am I correct in understanding that these moves went against established policy, and I'm at liberty to change them back? ReneeWrites (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Certainly if they introduced "München" rather than "Munich" as a disambiguator, that should be changed back.

There are rare cases of a proper noun phrase where "München" could be correct, but this is not it. For example, we have Category:FC Bayern München (though I see there is a current RfC about that) and Category:Zoologische Staatssammlung München. Those are certainly at least defensible, but (for example) I would say Category:Stachus (München) (which has now had that name for over a year(!) and does not appear to be undergoing an RfC) is misnamed. - Jmabel ! talk 18:52, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is the purpose of this category? And why is this category full of art that is not line art? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:10, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jerimee: this appears to be your handiwork. What's going on here? And why are thousands of images categorized as lineart that aren't? ReneeWrites (talk) 16:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello @ReneeWrites! I appreciate your help. This hidden category houses some of the images that have SDC with instance of (P31)→line art (Q365552) and lack depicts (P180)

The category has documentation on the talk page and I'm happy to improve that documentation.

One would need a narrow definition of "line" to access hundreds of images as miscategorized in this category. I find a more broad definition to be useful, considering that there 79,327,945 files without any P31 value. Broad categories are useful; categories are as unique and numerous as the items themselves have limited utility.

That said, I did immediately find one image that was miscategorized, and I'm sure there are others. The documentation on the category talk page has a few saved queries to help in that endeavor. -- Jerimee (talk) 18:09, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jerimee: it looks to me like you have also applied instance of (P31) -> line art (Q365552) very arbitrarily to etchings, few of which are line art. - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jerimee: "I find a more broad definition to be useful". It's not about applying a broad or narrow definition, but one that is accurate. Categories exist to catalogue specific types of images so that other people have an easier time finding what they're looking for. Categories that are bloated with content that doesn't belong in them are not more useful as a result, that's why they're not used in this manner. What definition of lineart have you been applying? ReneeWrites (talk) 11:19, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

You can turn off the visibility of hidden categories. And, yes, the goal is to make the images easier to find Jerimee (talk) 15:03, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The question was "What definition of lineart have you been applying?". I, too, would like your answer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:04, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do you all not remember the conversation about this nearly a year ago? Each person on this thread was also on that thread.

The category itself can't be the problem, right? There are tons of this sort of maintenance category, typically without any sort of documentation at all.

I'm at a loss as to how to help. Can you tell me what problem you're trying to solve?

As far as what I consider line art:

• Art with distinct lines
  • Typically I try to consider what the specific digital representation looks like in and of itself, and not put too much emphasis on intent or the original. The file Jmabel mentioned is a useful example because it is of low enough resolution that the lines are hopelessly blurred. So I agree it is a poor example of line work.
  • Color washes applied over line art do not typically detract from line work
  • I'm happy to explain further if it would genuinely be useful - just let me know how much detail you actually want
  • I'm not wedded to the label; I'd be happy to use anything else sufficiently broad
• Here are a number of examples: Category:Line_art_without_P180
• I've bookmarked queries here, which I consider documentation: Category_talk:Line_art_without_P180
• My motivation is to make it easier to find images, especially via SDC.
  • Commons:Structured_data
  • Commons:Structured_data/Modeling/Depiction#Level_of_detail
  • ...structured data makes it possible to use Commons' media in new ways, and makes the files on Commons much easier to view, search, edit, curate or organize, use and reuse... Commons:Structured_data/About
  • {{Search instances|Q365552}} → find instances of line art (Q365552)
• A taxonomy only works by approximating; if it were perfectly accurate it would tell you nothing. A useful system of organization requires some degree of generalization.
  • w:On_Exactitude_in_Science
  • Which, to answer User:Jmabel, is why I tend to categorize etchings as line art. Applying both values to P31 would be even better IMHO, but of course this is debated. And I'm sure there are people that would say "this is not an etching, it is an Aquatint, Sugar Lift, Spit Bite, Mezzotint, intaglio etc"
    • find instances of etching print (Q18218093) returns 14 results
    • Etchings are typically considered coincident with line art.

I don't claim the authority to define these things with perfect certainty - I'm glad we have a variety of viewpoints. Jerimee (talk) 03:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I remember User talk:Jerimee#Line art, where I objected to your categorisations (I still do), and Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/01#Line art, where you did not contribute, and which remains unresolved.

User:EncycloPetey was the only other person to comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:24, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jerimee: I noticed that you're still adding metadata and categories to non-lineart images despite this conversation being ongoing, could you please pause your activity until this issue is resolved? ReneeWrites (talk) 14:44, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

It should have stopped in January. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

While I appreciate the thoughtful and generous nature of this proposal, I have some reservations. Rather than list all my questions out here, perhaps you could point me to some past issues you have successfully resolved? Jerimee (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Feel free to list any questions you have, that's what discussions like these are for. ReneeWrites (talk) 18:13, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

You don't appear to be taking this seriously.

If you don't stop voluntarily, until consensus is demonstrated, the next step will be to ask for administrative action to prevent you from continuing until it is. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Re: "I tend to categorize etchings as line art". Is there a reason for this tend? You've made assertions with no reason or authority or citations. I've looked at the relevant article on English Wikipedia, which, as a general article, is devoid of references and most of the gallery examples were added by a single individual last year without documentation. Most Wikipedias do not even have an article on "line art", and I own no good authoritative book on the taxonomies of art, but it the above reply I see no source for the taxonomy being applied, merely an appeal to inexactitude. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:49, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Certainly "line art" is a common enough term in graphics especially and in art more generally. Certainly the category makes sense in principle; the problem is that, at a quick assay, it looks to me like roughly half of what is here isn't line art. If these all have instance of (P31)→line art (Q365552), then that assertion is being made incorrectly as often as not. And while an etching can be line art, most etchings are not; they have solid areas, areas that have been etched with a wire brush where the individual lines are not under the artist's conscious control, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 16:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is there a template for when an anonymous author releases their work into the public domain? Right now I'm using {{PD-author}} with {{Anonymous}}, but that's grammatically incorrect. Based5290 (talk) 09:10, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Which work(s)? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:57, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Something very similar (though not PD) came up recently for File:SedeGEM.jpg. - Jmabel ! talk 16:30, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

This came up at File:2003 birthday letter to Epstein.png. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that an unknown author released it into the public domain. Based5290 (talk) 18:31, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see no evidence that its author has released it into the PD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:33, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like something to take to a deletion discussion if you disagree with the abandonment rationale. Based5290 (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

What "abandonment rationale"? Where did I mention disagreeing with one? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:45, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

My bad for misinterpreting your reply. What did you mean? Based5290 (talk) 19:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

All right, I'll start the DR. - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I yesterday had an argument with {{ping|Fantaglobe11} (still findable at my talk page, User talk:Ymblanter#June 2025 in The Hague). The point is that they are doing mass recaterigorization, saying they are diffusing categories. As an example, this file, which I added at upload to Category:June 2025 in The Hague (regular) and Category:Netherlands photographs taken on 2025-06-14 (hidden), is now categorized only at Category:The Hague photographs taken on 2025-06-14 (hidden), i.e. the file disappeared from a regular category and was transferred to a hidden category. I restored the original category, Fantaglobe11 reverted all my edits and took the position "show me the policy which says I may not do what I am doing, and until that happened I will keep doing it". They made literally thousands of similar edits. I know of course that the community proved itself incapable to resolve a general issue at Commons:Requests for comment/Categories of photographs by country by date, but may be it has an opinion on whether removal of file from regular categories and adding them to hidden categories is ok? Ymblanter (talk) 21:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are differing opinions on hidden date/place categories, but there seems agreement that files should always have at least 1 relevant non-hidden category. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The files I uploaded always have non-trivial non-hidden categories (related to the subject and location, not to the date/place). Ymblanter (talk) 21:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I found this village pump discussion and this CfD where there seems to be a community consensus against creating "Photographs of city by day"-categories. A few categories are so old and/or numerous that nobody's taken an axe to them (New York City and Tokyo come to mind) but I think at the very least no new ones should be created - at least until there's consensus to do otherwise. And like Infrogmation said, if an image is moved to a hidden category it should be in at least one relevant non-hidden category. ReneeWrites (talk) 22:07, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Courtesy ping to @Fantaglobe11: as the ping in the original comment appears to be broken. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:19, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

In first instance, I would like to set things right. I moved pictures from a hidden category (Category:Netherlands photographs taken on 2025-06-14) to another hidden category (Category:The Hague photographs taken on 2025-06-14). According to Commons:Categories#Over-categorization, I subsequently removed the parent category (Category:June 2025 in The Hague). Please understand that it is hard to consider any consensus on any discussion pages. I take my cue from the example for German districts/cities/municipalities, where there are countless such cases. Best regards, Fantaglobe11 (talk) 10:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

• File:Trump Is On the Epstein List (54673829027).jpg

Context: On ENWP i was told we were not allowed to use this particular photograph in any articles because it violated their BLP (specifically that of Donald Trump)

Do the Commons community share the same opinion? Keep in mind that while the photographs does not actually depict Trump per say Commons:Photographs of identifiable people still mandates that Commons are required to "consider the legal and moral rights of the subject" --Trade (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it's fine to host. The image documents a protest of a very public figure, and that falls in our educational scope. It'd be a different situation if the sign targeted a relatively unknown private individual, which could violate reasonable privacy expectations and would have little to no educational value. But this is the case of a protest directed at a U.S. president (and there are little to no legal concerns here, as the right to protest is strong in the US). ~Kevin Payravi (talk) 03:58, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Kevin. Trump is a public figure and American rights in this case are strong. This is in scope as a photograph of a protest and public reaction to the Epstein files. BLP is a Wikipedia policy, it doesn't apply as much here since Commons doesn't write biographies. Abzeronow (talk) 02:01, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The opening picture of this article in The Denver Post [1] states "Provided by Bruce Schmacher/U.S. Forest Service" in its caption. Therefore, it should be public domain (tag: PD-USGov-USDA-FS) and good to use? Thanks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:29, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I agree. --RAN (talk) 21:33, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is there anyway to automate the matching of these names in this list? File:Charter Members of the Ninety-Nines.jpg --RAN (talk) 21:35, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure what you mean by "the matching of these names". Matching them to what? Categories? Wikidata? Wikipedia in some language? Something else? - Jmabel ! talk 00:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Very confusing that Commons:Primi passi is completely different from Commons:First steps/it, which has the title "Primi passi". - Jmabel ! talk 00:38, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Reply