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It's just about portraits. In my personal opinion I find it boring and unimportant. Celebrity pictures can simply be released under CCBY by the celebrities if they wished to. They could release a pic they took themselves or pay/ask a photographer for it for example. It's also not the type of content that is missing much. On the other hand, Wikipedia articles about famous people seem to get read a lot (however many entirely unillustrated articles as well). I wonder why there are essentially no (or nearly no) media coverage about broader issues of missing free media, for example in subjects of science to name one broad domain. Also I think at least one of the photos on the left of that article could be considered better than the new one on the right.Prototyperspective (talk)12:52, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In many cases there are photos in articles taken with compact cameras from the time Wikipedia was founded. There are already many much better photos on Commons but there are not enough people checking if there are better photos available as these articles are not on the missing photos lists.GPSLeo (talk)13:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is something ironic about a news site who cant tell Wikipedia and Commons apart complaining how the site is runTrade (talk)17:52, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was good coverage. No mention of Wikimedia Commons as Trade eluded to, we need to work better at making obvious links from Wikipedia. I was more concerned that the BBC didn't seem to meet file licensing requirements, unless they got permission from the authors?Commander Keane (talk)23:31, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's sort of weird. We have to acknowledge that these images are made by volunteers, where you cannot expect to have always high quality footage and hardware (fortunately, many professionals are thankfully contributing here). It's also kind of funny, because many images of agencies are potentially worse --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk)16:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, For some time now, I see many files tagged with{{Permission pending}}, where they won't obviously be any permission, e.g.File:Sean PNG.png. This last case is typical: no license and author is said as "unknown" and other nonsense information, so no one could send a permission. How brand new users got to know that adding this template might delay the deletion?
I was able to replicate this ina test upload. The template is automatically added in the upload process when when "This work was created by someone else and is free to share" and "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work" are selected.Ciell (talk)08:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, this should not happen. So now, we have obvious copyright violations pending for one month. Bad, very bad... Who can remove this "feature"?Yann (talk)08:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good feature requested from us for cases where people have permission the problem is that some people seem simply lying when clicking the button that they have permission. Maybe there should be a large warning like "When you click this button without having the permission (or if the email is not sent in time) you might be blocked".GPSLeo (talk)08:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tested it and when clicking the "I have the permission" option it is not possible to select a license. This is definitely wrong, choosing this option should always require to set the license.GPSLeo (talk)20:14, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think simply adding the same license list from the own work licensing to the permission option and requiring the selection of a license from the list would be fine.GPSLeo (talk)18:55, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Myinclination is the same asGPSLeo's here, but I'd like to see a little bit of data before making a decision: I'm afraid of flooding the field with junk uploads that look more plausible than before.
Do we have any data on how many uploads per month use "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work"? (I have a few other questions, but they are only relevant if that one has an answer.) -Jmabel !talk20:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GPSLeo Maybe I am wrong here, but if the work is already under a CC license, or any other free license, it would just be better to use another option and to clarify which license the media is released under. So maybe we can rework the prompt here, and make it more clear. Would it work?Sannita (WMF) (talk)13:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sannita (WMF): If the work isalready published under a free license, then they won't be under the "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work" case. This is about the case where they are going to have to use VRT. Commons requires that in addition to marking the file as "permission pending," they also must indicatewhat license is forthcoming. Right now, the latter requires them to edit again after uploading. Experienced users know to do this, but it is very opaque to relatively new users. -Jmabel !talk17:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann @Jmabel @GPSLeo and the others: I discussed it with the team, and we thought of a possible way of action to fix the problems you raised. We openedphab:T391600 about the changes, where we put also screenshot of potential solutions. Please let me know if it works, in your opinion.Sannita (WMF) (talk)16:27, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any red links on commons should not open that page in the editor automatically. unlike other wiki projects, commons users dont ususally create pages by writing a text but by uploading a file. asSpecial:Statistics shows, the majority of pages are in file namespace.
@RoyZuo: what you are saying is true of "File" space on Commons, as on any other project. Of course, we use "File" space a lot more than other projects, but is there any other page space on Commons of which this is true? -Jmabel !talk23:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also use redlinks to create or sometimes mark categories for future creation (and it sometimes irks me when those are removed because it makes it more difficult to create the category when I'm ready).Abzeronow (talk)23:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can I split this into two separate archives (one for 2022 and the other for 2023) for consistency of archived pages, despite 2022 only having one listed DMCA takedown notice?
Clarification on OECD's new licensing policy and compatibility with Commons
Hello everyone,
After abrief discussion] on pt.wikisource, I'm bringing this question here for the Commons community to weigh in. I’d like to clarify the compatibility of OECD publications with Commons’ licensing requirements, particularly for documents published before July 2024.
TheOECD recently updated itsTerms and Conditions as part of a wider policy change toward Open Access, retroactively applying the following permissions for pre-July 2024 content:
Use, copying, and distribution: Free for commercial and non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is cited: "OECD (year), Title, URL." Adaptations: Allowed (commercial or non-commercial), but without the OECD logo/visual identity. Must include: "Adapted from OECD work. The views expressed do not represent the official OECD or its member countries' views." Non-commercial translations: Permitted without prior authorization (no OECD visuals). Requires: "In case of discrepancy, the original text prevails." Commercial translations: "you must request authorisation to translate OECD written content published before 1 July 2024 for commercial purposes. Please send your request to comrights[at]oecd.org with the title of the OECD publication and the name and address of the entity requesting authorisation. If granted, authorisation will be free of charge. No exclusive rights will be granted."
For post-July 2024 content, the OECD now uses CC BY 4.0 as the standard. Questions:
Do pre-July 2024 documents (e.g., 2007 Open Science Declaration) meet Commons’ licensing standards, given the non-commercial restriction on translations?
For post-July 2024 CC BY 4.0 content, are there any additional requirements for upload? Should there be a specific license tag for OECD files?
But for images with no translatable text, there seems to be no restrictions other than to remove the "OECD logo/visual identity". A derivative with those removed would be free. The attribution requirement and the note on not representing the OECD seem fine. –LPfi (talk)10:46, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
April 04
Help update wikis to 4.0
Hi! I have noticed that many wikis still mention CC-BY-SA-3.0 and some even still mention GFDL. I have tried to fix all the wikis I noticed but it is a big task to check all 860+ wikis and it is easier for someone who speak the language to check and fix.
So if you speak Foo it would be a big help if you could check foo.wiki and check if the relevant pages mention CC-BY-SA-4.0.
If the wiki allow upload of files then MediaWiki:Licenses should also mention 4.0 instead of 3.0 (and if possible not GFDL-only). --MGA73 (talk)15:51, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed the former has audios of the narrations of only parts of articles such as their lede mixed with no distinction whether the audios are a (near-)complete read only a small part.
If these are separated, one can for example more easily see which articles have (not) yet been read in full and signify for the uses of the respective audios that it's just a part of the article – e.g. if they're used in Wikidata items or Wikipedia articles.
If you know of a way to more easily find them, that would be helpful. Apparently one can't sort the files by duration (also note that it may take a day or so until the short Dutch pronunciation audio aren't in the search results anymore ofdeepcategory:"Spoken Wikipedia articles by language"). Also copying files to theCategory:Audio files of 2005 etc cats would also be useful to enable querying for the year they were made. Maybe I'll also add this toCommons:Categorization requests. Prototyperspective (talk)13:07, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can see not even one file or one subcategory has been added so far but there's many of these on Commons, all currently undistinguished from audios that read the full or nearly the full Wikipedia articles.Prototyperspective (talk)14:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an ASCII file of 6.2 MB in size. It contains the MD5 and SHA1 hashes of the backups as of 20 March 2025 of 1007 public wikis of the Wikimedia Foundation (including the German-language and English-language Wikipedia, Wikidata, WikiCommons and all other WikiMedia wikis).
If Wikipedia unexpectedly disappears completely, or if there is a suspicion that Wikipedia and the backups are being falsified, it is possible to use these hashes to verify that backups of Wikipedia from 20 March 2025 are authentic.
Please archive on a data carrier (SDcard, USB stick, DVD, mdisk, paper printout, MicroFiche) that is not connected to a computer, preferably in a fire and flood-proof safe.
Thank you for you effort. But it feels a bit exaggerated to me. To have free online works like Wikipedia disappeared isvery hard (especially when it has a rather handy size). There are several hoarders who keep copies and backups of Wikipedia snippets or as whole. Kiwix distributes ZIM files that are like snapshots of Wikipedia. Caution is good, but we should not fear the worst :). Anyway I downloaded all featured pictures on Commons some weeks ago, which make up around 350 gigabytes. For example, the university of Erlangen in Germany has copies of Wikipedias that are up-to-date (https://ftp.fau.de/kiwix/zim/wikipedia/) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk)19:17, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If Wikipedia unexpectedly disappears completely, or if there is a suspicion that Wikipedia and the backups are being falsified, it is possible to use these hashes to verify that backups of Wikipedia from 20 March 2025 are authentic.
Backups aren't public: they are kept in private by WMF (for a good reason, since they contain truly private information).Public dumps can be downloaded by anyone, and are copied to several mirrors worldwide. The problem is that media files are excluded from them, and there are nomedia dumps for now. But maybe an important part of the files in Commons is already stored offline by people even more paranoid than me :-)
This page contains useful information for mass downloading files from Commons, if anyone is interested.
In any case, both these current worries and theAI bot activity that is affecting Commons (I don't know if anyone has already talked about it here, but it might be an interesting topic), are good reasons, I think, to have media dumps in place again (Commons size has increased a lot, but it's sad to think that for a brief period around 2012 there were media dumps, and now there aren't).MGeog2022 (talk)15:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Commons is already on the radar of the archive team, but I don't have information about the status. But it's true, the remaining of files and data must be discussed broadly, as they are very precious. --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk)16:00, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am concerned about a few users who seem to be trying to extend existing consensus about "copyleft trolling" to apply to a much broader swath of copyleftenforcement. Most directly, this has taken the form of straightforwardlyrenaming the guideline "copyleft trolling" to be "copyleft enforcement". At least on the surface, this seems to say "if you upload to Commons, you can't enforce your license unless the most aggressive enforcers of this guideline approve it", which is well outside any sort of consensus we've established thus far.
Discussions about this subject have thus far been filled with well-intentioned but incorrect/misleading information which has left us in a confusing position. For example, there wasthis long thread, where a closer found consensus for the creation ofCommons:Copyleft trolling and a procedure about CC4, but that stuff about CC4 was based on a false premise -- that CC4 provides a grace period to fix attribution, which it doesn't, and nobody supported it after that was clarified.
Many of these disputes regardDiliff, a difficult case in that he was/is a Wikipedian who contributed photos, not someone who uploaded photosin order to make money like others we apply the label to, and doesn't have e.g. an overly complex attribution statement to try to trip people up. He nonetheless does use Pixsy, a firm associated with copyleft trolls, and seems to demand money even when there's no real damage to him. He's in a gray area where someone doesn't seem to be acting in line with the spirit of openness this project tends to endorse, but also not trolling, so we're left with an uncomfortable question: how do we prevent such behavior without putting a big banner up saying "if you upload here, you give up your right to enforce copyright"? I don't have a good answer to that, but it seems a few users are intent on pushing forward with taking some action on 's images, despitea DR finding no consensus to do so.
To my eyes, it's hard to see a clear consensus for anything beyond a consensus that (a) Commons does not like "copyleft trolling", (b) Commons wants to take some sort of action where there's consensus that someone is engaging in the practice, and (c) we need a guideline explaining the concept and possible actions.
I will not be sad if Diliff's images get watermarked, but I will be sad if we take a vigilante approach to this problem, and I'll be sad if we can't better articulate expectations for enforcement to our uploaders. At minimum, before any of the remedies outlined atCommons:Copyleft trolling can be enacted, we should require have an explicit discussion atCOM:ANU with formal consensus that the person in question is engaging in behavior that runs afoul of that guideline.Then it's time to sort out remedies. That consensus may emerge, but we don't have it yet, and process is important. —Rhododendritestalk | 20:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we are going to ban any enforcement of CC licenses, we may as well bar any CC licenses besides CC0. They arelicenses. They come with rules, and if you break them the rights holder has the right to payment. If we bar enforcing the terms of the license, then why are we allowing people to upload using them?PARAKANYAA (talk)20:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. As you point out, there's been multiple discussions and proposal having to do with this already. So I don't really see how the process isn't playing out or what exactly you think should have been done differently. From my perspective there's two issue here. 1. Diliff's actions 2. How the project deals with it and similar issues. From what I remember there was no consensus to sanction, ban, or otherwise deal with Diliff or their files. So watermarking images is really the only other option left outside of just throwing our hands in the air and allowing uploaders to extort re-users. I would have supported just banning Diliff and deleting their uploads myself, but there clearly isn't a consensus for that. So what other option is there outside of watermarking images or letting people get tooled? Because it doesn't seem like anyone has proposed anything else. Renaming the guideline is a separate issue IMO, but there should at least be an alternative if what people are currently trying isn't adequate for whatever reason. --Adamant1 (talk)20:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Adamant1 If we are going to prohibit peopleenforcing the license on CC licenses, why are we allowing people to upload using the licenses? The only way to protect reusers who refuse to read the actual license is to only allow licenses that require no attribution or share alike status, e.g. CC0 or public domain. It makes no sense to ban people or watermark images for doing what is well within their rights, unless we want basically to treat it like they have no rights, in which case why do we lie about what licenses we accept?PARAKANYAA (talk)20:51, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we are going to do this toprotect reusers, we should ban all licenses that require attribution. Nothing else will protect people who just grab the image off of Wikipedia.PARAKANYAA (talk)20:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@PARAKANYAA: There's obviously a difference between someoneenforcing the license and them enforcing the license in a way that puts users at needless legal risk. I maybe wouldn't say it's our job to protect users more generally, but there is an expectation that if someone uses a file with a CC license that it won't lead to legal issues. If it were me, everything on here would be PD though. Anything outside of that is just needlessly complicated and obtuse. What are they on now, like the 5th version of the CC license? The whole thing is totally ridiculous. But we have to deal with people who take advantage of it or the site somehow. --Adamant1 (talk)21:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is what enforcing the license is, short of legal action there is little one can do. It would be nice if they asked first (and newer CC licenses do have a provision regarding that) but usually people will ignore it until legal notice is brought.
That expectation is false, and if we are doing that then we should ban the licenses altogether because it is against the spirit of the license. Punishing the content creators for enforcing rights that we allow them to have is absurd.PARAKANYAA (talk)21:08, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Copyleft trolling isn't allowed. That's kind of whole point here. Your acting like this whole revolves around a normal enforcement of a license when that's not what happened. No one cares if an uploader enforces their license by following the normal precedures to do so. That's not what this is about. --Adamant1 (talk)21:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"short of legal action there is little one can do"
You can send a message asking for the attribution or removal of the image, though a formal cease and desist letter is probably more effective. Immediately demanding lots of money is not essential.Ikan Kekek (talk)21:28, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strange. I was under the impression that you would embrace such a change of tone, Rhododendrites? That we stop calling those people "trolls" (thus vilifiying them), when they aggressively send bills to re-users of their images without giving them chances to fix it? Our page "Copyleft Trolling" states that such an enforcement practice is out of step with our community's ideals of media that is free to share; and I wouldn't dream of changing those statements. Just, to stop vilifiying them.
It's not ANY form of Copyleft Enforcement that our guideline is intended to act against. The page lines out that there is a grey zone, and that we have to carefully consider each case. But we SHOULD act against those forms that directly ask for high lump sums of money due to minor licencing errors based on outdated CC licenses. We can still act against actual trolling while still calling it by a "nicer" name.
@Parakanyaa, I think you might have come upon this without prior knowledge of the cases. If you add up the money that the specific cases have allegedly "made" from their targets, you're talking about really large sums of money, enough to keep a florishing industry of full-fledged lawyers busy and expanding. The guideline in question is not a broadband remedy to get rid of everyone who checks re-users. It is intended to stop the worst excesses. --Enyavar (talk)21:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's notany form of enforcement that is the issue, then why would we move the title, indicating that it is all forms of enforcement?
I participated in the Diliff discussion. If we can ban users for enforcing rights that we give them then why allow those licenses at all? Why not ban all of the licenses that require attribution instead of doing it piecemeal? I do not think enforcing the rules on people who broke it is the "worst excesses", unless it's someone without a presence here who was clearly doing it as part of some scheme.PARAKANYAA (talk)21:13, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That we stop calling those people "trolls" (thus vilifiying them) I do appreciate this intention, to be clear. Regardingaggressively send bills to re-users of their images without giving them chances to fix it beingout of step with our community's ideals, there is absolutely a conflict there, but you're talking about a very broad scope that's more akin to the Flickr community guidelines that require contributors to the Commons to give people a chance to fix attribution. We can absolutely do that, but there's no consensus for that at this point. This section is trying to head off an assumption that such a consensus exists, and to steer folks who want to go in that direction to a formal proposal to achieve said consensus. It would be a profound change in our guidelines. —Rhododendritestalk | 21:36, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with watermarking Diliff's images. If the basic terms of CC licenses need to be clearer, they should be put in big red letters on every file page. I don't believe in damaging photos because reusers who don't do any kind of due diligence reuse images at their own risk. A big red warning could also appear at the top of every Commons page, if we think that's necessary, stating that people who reuse Creative Commons-licensed images without attribution may risk legal action from the authors. But at a certain point, it isn't our job to protect people from themselves.
I do agree that suing small reusers and not giving them a chance to correct their errors for a small fee is mean and disreputable, so I don't dispute the description of Copyleft trolls in the beginning of the article about them (I haven't read the other sections), but that's a different matter from defacing great photos. ----Ikan Kekek (talk)21:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A few months ago someone proposed moving licenses to the top of pages but it was rejected. I'd be supprised if most people scroll down far enough to read the fine print though. And it doesn't help we allow for users to create their own licenses and terms that can be (and usually are) pretry different from the norm. Really though, user created licenses should be banned and the template moved to the top of the page. --Adamant1 (talk)21:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
100% agree there's a design problem that could solve a lot of problems(actually talked a bit about that in aWikicon presentation last year :) ), but [how do we stop people from violating licenses] and [how do we articulate and enforce expectations for enforcement within our community] are worth separate conversations. Here I think we're squarely talking about the latter. Specifically, it's about what we do when our uploaders aresuing small reusers and not giving them a chance to correct their errors for a small fee, and where to draw the line. —Rhododendritestalk | 21:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s worth pointing out that all that’s required to attribute a Diliff photo correctly is to include the text ‘Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0’ together with the picture. And that this very short and clear licensing statement is quite literally in bold text on every single image page for every photo he has ever uploaded. Are we really saying that the priority is to ‘protect reusers’ who couldn’t be bothered to follow these simple rules? And that hundreds of photos the community has judged to be of excellent quality should be defaced as a consequence of a handful of people’s failure to do this? Honestly speechless at how little this site seems to value its own contributors’ rights.Cmao20 (talk)22:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re-users are really no copyright experts. We see often enough that people misunderstand "public domain" for "image that is publicly accessible on a website". The CC-license templates oftentimes have a quite lengthy text, and as simple as that text sounds to us, it may still sound like complex legalese to a re-user (or at least it did sound like that to me in the beginning). Clear instructions might be more useful than listing license terms. The file description infobox has a "permission" field where one could insert such instructions in a very short and very clear statement, e.g., "To reuse this image on your website or anywhere else you are legally obliged to add the following text underneath or near the image: 'Image by [information from author field]. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0'. Not doing so might lead to legal consequences."Nakonana (talk)09:01, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I made my position on this issue clear at the time. Copyleft trolling involves uploading images under ostensibly free licenses for the express purpose of trying to make money by fleecing others for minor attribution errors (often in deliberately complex licenses so that correct attribution is made hard). There's no evidence that Diliff did this, what he did do was hire a rather aggressive enforcement agency to chase up offenders because he was fed up of seeing his pictures being used with no attribution. I'm not too keen on what Pixsy seems to do as a company, but all copyright enforcement companies seem to operate fairly similarly, so our content creators don't have much other recourse than to use companies like this if they are interested in preserving rights over their images. (Edit: they could individually try to hunt down license violations themselves and get in contact with offenders, but we are a site of hobbyists and non-professionals who have other jobs and virtually no one has the time or expertise to do this!) If we are basically asking users to entirely give up their rights to enforce proper use of license agreements, then there's no real reason why we should allow licenses that require attribution at all, since we're basically saying the licenses don't really matter and there are no actual consequences for users who don't abide by them properly - we're just making an unprincipled exception so that Commons can still exist at all.
I don't buy the excuse about 'protecting reusers' - reusers have the responsibility to protect themselves by attributing images correctly! Actions have consequences, and where's the consideration about protecting the rights of our content creators, something that I think is just as important if not more important than protecting reusers who cannot be bothered to abide by a simple license agreement.
On the Diliff case, one has to remember that users like Diliff joined Commons very early when its main purpose was to provide images for use on Wikipedia. I can completely understand why it's upsetting to have uploaded a lot of pictures for the reason of trying to support an encyclopaedia project years ago, only to see them all over the internet with no, or even false, attribution. And I absolutely do think he, and people like him, have the right to try to enforce proper use of their images. Otherwise there's zero point in the license. We're basically doing a bait-and-switch on our own uploaders by saying yes you have the right to specify the use of a license, but you don't have the right to do anything about it. So basically you've released your pictures into the public domain, even though we lied about this by telling you that you could reserve some rights.
I thought we'd had this discussion months ago, and yet it keeps coming up - all I can say is that if Commons's policy shifts to deleting or forced-watermarking the uploads of content creators who have produced hundreds of featured pictures for the simple 'crime' of trying to make sure their pictures are not used illegally, then something has gone very, very wrong.Cmao20 (talk)21:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, something has gone very, very wrong. Commons is part of the dream of creating an open-source, free-to-use encyclopedia. Hundreds of thousands of people donated text for Wikipedia, and also media files. And eventually, a few of those people found a loophole to charge people large lump sums of money, with no prior warning. Those few people are the ones which we have dubbed "trolls". And my suggestion was to stop callingall of them "trolls", and to stop vilifying them. While still maintaining our intended policy to mark those images so that re-users can be safe. Again:Copyleft Enforcing is not a crime, the Enforcers are not villains; and neither are Commons and Wikimedia the vehicles to make the big money. And this discussion will keep coming up until we can make sure that we find a balance between the various interests at play here. --Enyavar (talk)21:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but ‘free to use’ means ‘can be used without paying money for the privilege’, it doesn’t mean ‘you can do absolutely anything you like with it and the original author has no right to stop you.’ Our job is not to keep re-users safe who are illegally using other people’s work. I think it’d be reasonable to punish content creators who are uploading content with deliberately incomprehensible licenses in the hope of shaking money out of violators, but this obviously isn’t what happened here, and yet extreme solutions such as deletion or forced watermarking keep being brought up. Mission creep at its finest.Cmao20 (talk)22:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Example watermark
Example image, cropped with CSS, so the watermark is not visible.
Why are you talking about "punishing content creators"? As far as I'm aware, over at Flickr people have been getting banned for years already... while we were busy doing endless debate loops. Being talked about is not a punishment, and neither is the suggested watermarking. Please note the example images, the watermarks are benign and you can even still use the images in WP, without average readers noticing anything. The content is still there, it is fully accessible. It just got an extra extension so that people stop and think before uploading the cute birdie onto their school's biology class's project website and getting the shock of their lives a few weeks later. Naive re-users are not criminals either. The single one thing that the watermarking policy would change in the long run, is to stem the guaranteed money stream for content creators. --Enyavar (talk)22:23, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am talking about punishing content creators because this is simply what the proposals to watermark or delete photos do. And yes, naive re-users have broken the law. Just because Flickr takes a different stance than Commons is not an argument of any worth. The fact that other sites have an expansive definition of ‘copyleft trolling’ doesn’t mean that they are right or we should copy them. What if another photographer decides tomorrow that they are going to hire Pixsy’s services? Are we then going to spend lots of volunteer effort and time watermarking all their uploads too? Rather than just trust reusers to…read the image page and abide by the very simple licensing rules it literally states in bold text!
Commons should be trying to encourage more contributors to upload excellent content, not putting them off. I agree that this watermark is not hugely intrusive, unlike the previous watermark proposals last time we had this discussion. But it still sends a message that we disapprove of uploaders attempting to enforce their rights over their own pictures, which will rightly put people off from uploading at all. By all means punish actual copyleft trolling but this case only counts as ‘trolling’ if we stretch the term to the point of meaninglessness.
As an aside I note thatDiliff’s pictures arecurrently illegally availableon stock photo websites under false attributions at the time of writing. Malicious copyright theft of CC-by-SA images is rife on the internet and for someone as prolific as Diliff in contributing to the project I don’t blame him for a single second in trying to stem the tide. If Commons doesn’t want people to resort to companies like Pixsy then the site should do more to try to defend its content creators’ rights against this kind of illegal behaviour. Instead, we’re debating making it more difficult to preserve those rights. Hence, this proposal does indeed punish content creators, I won’t withdraw that statement.Cmao20 (talk)22:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The irony is, if the duck had been watermarked, the (supposedly illegal) uploaders would have to crop the image again before stock photo websites (or any other websites) are able to use it; and it would actually make Diliff's case against that kind of re-use much more valid. By including his preferred attribution right into the image, we would strengthen Diliff's case, not curtail it.
I'm fully unconcerned with my own (much less professional) uploads - so if a stock photo website illegaly profits off them I don't care. But yes, that kind of illegal userightly concerns professional creators. It should. I support Diliff in combatting large faceless firms who profitteer off of him.
At the same time, the existence of a huge stock photo websites doesn't make it right for him to profiteer off of actual naive re-users who made honest mistakes. The ones that Jmabel calls "some guy with a blog" below. Or school projects and charities. While I can't claim that Diliff ever bankrupted charities: Verch did while boasting to give "free lessons in media awareness". Free lessons costing thousands for those naive re-users, and also costing reputation for Wikipedia where he spammed the predatory content into the articles. Again, to my knowledge, Diliff did not do that. But for sure, he goes after "some guy with a blog". In his defense, Diliff said he punishes the small guys because he couldn't get hold of big business. That doesn't render him criminal, but the morals? Ugh. Ughh.
Maybe we can move past the renaming of the guideline, which seems like a good faith effort to tweak some language rather than to radically change the guideline. I think itwould change the guideline, and is still a bad idea, but I understand now that wasn't the point. I hope this can be more of a discussion about the process of forming consensus that something falls short of community expectations, and thus how to pursue a remedy. I think we've seen a couple cases that we know are egregious, and Diliff is a case where opinions seem pretty well split, so how do we articulate the ways in which Diliff does or does not fall short of community expectations such that we canthen decide whether or not a remedy is necessary? —Rhododendritestalk | 22:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you think there is a correct standard process (forverification, I assume), I'm happy to learn about it. You have started a collection of previous debates about this topic before. I too was against quickly doing a rogue action and just watermark away. That was why I started the thread atVP/Copyright. --Enyavar (talk)22:34, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No one asked me, but my take: when someone clearly has made a good faith effort to attribute a free-licensed photo, and has not done it quite right, it's pretty trollish to start with a threat of a lawsuit. We certainly would not tolerate someone within the Commons community who threatened a lawsuit every time another Commons contributor got confused as to just how to attribute a derivative work.
The more you are dealing with repeat offenders, professional media organizations that should know better, and/or media that cannot be dynamically corrected (books, movies), the more appropriate it is to reach for the legal hammer. But when "some guy with a blog" accurately attributes your photo to you (or to Wikimedia Commons), and doesn't understand that he is supposed to indicate the license in question (or your name), and there is no reason to think he's been down this road before? It seems to me that the appropriate thing to do is to ask him politely to fix the attribution, not to threaten a lawsuit. -Jmabel !talk22:50, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that companies that ask for money for incorrect licensing such as Pixsy are quite authoritarian in their behaviour but I think in practice, given how rife copyright violation is on the internet (note above that Diliff’s pictures are currently illegally available under false attribution on stock image sites), most creators have a choice between: a) do nothing and give up any hope of enforcing their rights, b) spend a lot of time and energy on chasing up copyright violations on the internet and politely asking them to desist, with a low chance of much success and c) farm it out to a company like Pixsy. This is a volunteer site and people don’t have the time or expertise to chase up every copyright violation or to know what to do when they don’t get a productive reply, it’s entirely understandable to me that they would want to get a company to do that work on their behalf. I don’t think it’s fair to call that trolling, even if Pixsy is heavy-handed.
I won’t comment further for fear of being accused of bludgeoning the process but I’ll just add that if Commons is really serious about improving this situation it should provide an option d): have its own portal/mechanism by which uploaders can report copyright violations and Commons chases them up. That would remove companies like Pixsy from the equation. But I am sure people will invent a million reasons why we can’t do that…Cmao20 (talk)23:04, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think Commons as an organization can do anything like Cmao20 suggests, but it can help photographers and set up examples of how copyright violations should be handled. Perhaps a warning could also be added to the license templates, about what legal action can be taken if an image isn’t credited properly according to the CC license. Something like “Failure to credit the photo properly, may result in the author contacting you and ask you to correct this. If the credit still isn’t made, the author could have grounds to bill you for the use of the image.” Sorry my “legalese” is very bad, but you get the idea.
When I see one of my photos used without the proper credit, I sometimes take action if it is used in a commercial context. I never bother with educational, small bloggers, charity or things I can support, only with large companies. I contact them, explain the situation and give them the choice to credit me properly or pay me a small sum, usually about what I would get for a photo if posted on Shutterstock or similar sites, for the one-time use of my photo. I don’t need to threaten with lawsuits or anything, we always come to an amicable agreement, the company is happy to be able to use the photo and I get a small compensation. This is the sort of things that Commons could help set up guidelines for if it wants to help photographers and “cut out” firms like Pixsy. It might also give some photo poachers a second thought if they see that there may be consequences. Btw, I don't think watermarking works at all, it's too easy to remove. --Cart(talk)23:54, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, irony.I don’t think it’s fair to call that trolling wasmy original take that spawned this whole debate today. Sorry for spilling so many words on the topic, on a single day. --Enyavar (talk)23:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[undent] I don't believe in using special watermarks for Diliff's photos. If we decide to go down that road,every CC-licensed photo needs to have a watermark. Instead, the idea of putting the license on the top of every file page - and as I have suggested several times, in oversized red letters - is IMO a good idea. --Ikan Kekek (talk)23:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it matters where on the page the license is. To a photo snatcher they just look like invitations to "borrow" the photo. They only thing that could be of interest to them, is what the consequences might be if they don't follow the rules of the license.That should be made clear on the file page. Today there are no visible consequences. See my suggestion above. --Cart(talk)00:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your suggestion is good. Put a warning of legal action for not attributing photos to their authors in big red letters, then. --Ikan Kekek (talk)00:08, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with both Ikan and Cart's suggestions here, this would be great at combating this issue in future by giving uploaders more confidence and providing a deterrent factor.Cmao20 (talk)00:14, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You'd just be scaring off re-users that way. I've always been of the opinion that people on here bend over backwards to accommodate uploaders while treating everyone else like they don't matter and should just piss off. This whole thing is a perfect example. Don't put off uploaders by putting something at the bottom of a single users images, but then it's totally cool to warn re-users in big red letters about potential legal action if they don't reuse the image in a 100% perfect way. Right. Screw everyone but uploaders. --Adamant1 (talk)00:16, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's like saying that people would be scared to park their cars for the threat of parking tickets, instead of learning how to park the right way. --Cart(talk)00:27, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@W.carter: You could say the same exact thing for putting a notice on the bottom of a couple of uploaders images. "That's like saying uploaders would be scared to park their car if there's an address on the curb." It's not an argument. --Adamant1 (talk)00:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as I said before, I'm not for water marking, it's too easy to remove. Second, I don't think we should be discussing this to solve the problems with just one or two users' photos. We need a more overall solution that will work in the long run for many more uploaders. I have never before seen Commons and Wikimedia make rules for just one or two users, changes in policy should be something that works for all users and re-users. --Cart(talk)00:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What's your solution, or would you rather just keep things exactly as they are? My main concern is not to deface photos, but I'm fine with clearer warnings. On Wikivoyage, when we have to upload otherwise free images of copyrighted stuff that lacks commercial FoP, I like to put warnings on the file pages to the effect of: "Not to be used commercially. If you nevertheless choose to use this file commercially, you do so at your own sole risk." I wish Commons had a large category of such photos that could be used non-commercially only, with such warnings, but the Wikimedia Foundation will probably never agree to that. --Ikan Kekek (talk)00:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. Ban uploaders from creating their own licenses 2. Do what you suggested but maybe as a link to the license section next to the "From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository" at the top of a file 3. Move towards depreciating older CC licenses and consolidate some of the more obtuse ones having to do with public domain. Like there's 18 PD templates for works of the United States government.
At the end of the day there should be one or two PD licenses per country, one general purpose CC license, and that's essentially it. To use an analogy, you get the class you teach. This is just the natural outcome of the substantial amount of licensing options and "old west" mentality towards the whole thing on here. It's totally unrealistic to expect anyone who just wants to use an image for their personal blog, scrapbook, or whatever to sort through or understand it all. You have to design things for regular people though or there's just going to be problems. --Adamant1 (talk)00:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it would be great to have "license plates for Dummies" like you suggest. That would be heaven, but I don't think Commons has any say over the the 18 different PD licenses used by the United States government. And good luck with getting this administration to consolidate them. We need to work with realistic goals, things we can actually change. --Cart(talk)00:57, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@W.carter: From what I remember a good portion of those licenses were created by users on Commons purely for tracking purposes and aren't actually necessary. --Adamant1 (talk)01:15, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My view on this hasn't changed since last year. If there is a problem with reusers being sloppy about attribution, the solution isn't to punish the creators who notice the fact and do something about it. Making the license information more prominent might help, but it's not as though it's hidden.Mackensen (talk)00:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 - no idea why we should prioritise 'protecting reusers' who are using pictures illegally. No one who used these pictures legally has had any issues - people need to realise that not everything on the internet is free for them to use with zero consequences or requirements. There wouldn't be a Wikimedia Commons without the generosity of our uploaders and as long as the reuse requirements are not ridiculous and don't violate Commons licensing policy, we should support their right to seek to enforce proper attribution.Cmao20 (talk)01:09, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For those arguing that this is 100% on the side of reusers, a reminder that one of the only clear findings of consensus we have is to establishCommons:Copyleft trolling at a guideline. Thereis a point at which the behavior of copyright owners can go too far. This is about figuring out how to better draw lines and/or a process to figure out when someone "goes too far" (to use the most general possible language). —Rhododendritestalk | 01:10, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is why, while I made my suggestion about warnings above, I also hinted about some general guidelines for how authors should behave if their work was used in an improper way. I don't think we have any such help right now. Photographers are usually not trained in legal matters and they often have trouble writing good letters about the situation to companies using their work, so they turn to services like Pixsy that enforce too much. Even a simple message to copy would be a start. Both parties need some help with this and clear guidelines. --Cart(talk)01:20, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Cmao. If ever "copyleft trolls" are a problem for Commons, it's surely one of the lesser problems with users. Unlike harassment, hatespeech, and, more generally, human stupidity.
I also oppose any watermarking of Diliff's images, and if we have "copyleft tolls" here on Commons I still don't think Diliff is one of those. For me, he is just a formerly active Wikipedian with lots of useful contributions, who meanwhile ceased to contribute actively. If he is enforcing his copyright via Pixsy, it's still his right to do. As for me, true "copyleft trolling" is some kind of a "business model" including single-purpose account(s) with careless uploads and aggressive pushing of pictures in Wikipedia aricles + Wikidata items --Livio & socks would be a good example for that, if we had straight evidence that he takes money from re-users (I don't know if he does, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if he does).
But: if that's an existent "business model", I doubt it's a really profitable one, and apart from a few real trolls who are easy to reveal (such as Livio) that's lesser a problem for Commons. The community should appreciate real contributors and acknowledge that they have a copyright and the rght to enforce it if necessary. --A.Savin04:06, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this. I'd add that people who post blatantly stolen images either maliciously or because they have no understanding of copyright and think it's OK to just grab everything they saw on a website and others who request deletion of images for nonsensical reasons (or worse, improperly speedily delete images for meritless reasons after they were duly kept in discussions) are also much bigger problems than people who aggressively enforce their copyrights. If you violate someone's copyright and they go after you, that's unfortunate for you, but they have the right to do it. I remember back in the 1990s Usenet days, there was a user who went by Muad_Dib who posted thousands of photos stolen from Penthouse.com and was sued and had to settle for some $100,000 in damages plus an online apology. That was a very expensive lesson for him. --Ikan Kekek (talk)05:54, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with gettingCommons:Copyleft trolling renamed.I find it a misguided term that is embarrassing to link to. Why use neologisms? Call the pageCommons:Copyright enforcement and discuss trolls/copyleft/uploader's rights/reusers abuse of license terms there.
A concern seems to about protecting unaware reusers. Education is important for that:
Redesigning the file page so that licensing is clear
I don't mind a prominent template on the file page ("This creator aggressively enforces licensing terms")
Getting Wikipedias to put a credit/license line in file captions - why would an oblivious reuser do that if Wikipedia itself doesn't obviously credit anyone for anything (text or files).
I don't agree with watermarking Diliff's photos. Although providing an on-the-fly watermarking service for reusers would be useful, picking and choosing which images to watermark may be counter-productive. If A.Savin gets annoyed with Commons can they send out a few $900 demands to infringers to get their 1000s (?) of high quality files watermarked?Commander Keane (talk)07:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I checked the files of mine that they use. None of the uses had that template. In the articles where I found my images, only some historic images were attributed. –LPfi (talk)18:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Everything above tldr. i just have one question:
is there an agreement on where the line is, between "acceptable copyright enforcement" and "unacceptable copyright enforcement"?RoyZuo (talk)07:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Acceptable enforcement means appropriate response to the infringement: "some guy eith a blog", charities, and even small-scale private business websites shouldn't get900-1500 $€₤ bills out of the blue, but a fair warning first. (Sure, big publishers are a different matter.)
Inacceptable behaviour: systematically enforce CC licenses with no warning; usually by abusing loopholes of outdated CC licenses.
Also@A.Savin: yes this is actually a very profitable business model to the point that several agencies/law firms are specialized in enforcement, notably Pixsy. Not addressing this very real problem makes it worse because more people will begin to participate in it, upload photos on Commons just for the money. --Enyavar (talk)12:32, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you upload 100 photos on Commons and do nothing else, then after 5 years and running Google search for all 100 the likelihood of finding ONE of that photos being used somewhere on the Web w/o attribution is ... pretty low. If you upload 10,000 and do nothing else and wait 10 years before the search, then yes perhaps this likelihood is a tiny little bit higher. --A.Savin13:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, the 10k approach you describe was whatMarco Verch did: pay volunteers to take and upload as many photos as possible, then use those stock images as bait on Commons.
However, we are not talking about any random photos of odd potatoes or nice sunsets... We are talkingtechnically flawless imagesof popular places/objects. Keyword SEO and used in as many language versions as possible, too. That is actually what Commons expects the perfect contributors to do.
With that in mind, please re-calculate the odds of images finding re-use. And again, the authors of the two images should reserve all rights to billmalicious moneygrabbers who steal the images for posters. Yet they also billinnocent naive re-users in a manner we wish to prevent from happening. --Enyavar (talk)21:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Here is my experience in copyright enforcement. I rarely check or try to correct uses of my pictures, but when I have done, I usually got attribution fixed within a day. The exception was a French political party using of my picture for their election material, online and printed, and not doing anything even after 3 mails. So I hired a lawyer who got some money from them. I was quite pissed off in this case, as the they are not a poor blogger, but a professional organization which can even bother to hire a photographer for their business. So I disagree with "copyright enforcement is difficult". It is quite easy and straightforward. However I don't know the solution for copyleft trolling.Yann (talk)10:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The solution to copyright trolling is to have fair legislation, which doesn't allow it, or at least doesn't make it profitable, The problem is that the big commercial players want to be able to hit hard on anybody who uses their material, and they have quite some lobbying power. –LPfi (talk)18:34, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose watermarking any of images on Commons. So-called "copyleft trolls" is not a problem for Commons. Hence, we shouldn't delete/damage useful content. So-called "copyleft trolls" is a problem only for goofy/irresponsible "reusers"Юрий Д.К13:17, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And naïve users, i.e. most of the people out there. People in general don't learn even the basics of copyright law, except those who make an effort for professional reasons, or out of interest such as many here. –LPfi (talk)18:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to add that having author's name and/or license in the image caption on Wikipedia's pages is simply a waste of time and space. Every time someone has used one of my images in a less than good fashion, I have got the comment: "But I didn't take it from Wikipedia, I just found it online." Those looking for images to use, do so online and they end up at the Commons file page, or they search directly on Commons for good photos. Our QI and FP categories are like catnip for images poachers. We are literally telling them where the best images to steal are. In any case, they always need to go to the file page to download the image, so any info, licenses or warnings should go on those pages. Those grabbing the image usually also need to download it by clicking on the image or one of the size links below it. A first step could be to place a warning at the top of the page that opens then. That way the warning is not too visible/intrusive for those who just click on the image from an article, but will appear only when you open it larger. Just an idea. --Cart(talk)13:46, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Part 2
This thread is all over the place now. One of the things we do have consensus for is that uploading images with the intention of exploiting free licenses to sue people who use our media is not acceptable on Commons. We also seem to have consensus that this is a very difficult and even divisive issue. What we don't have consensus for is a one-size-fits-all solution and especially what to do in edge cases that we can call something like "aggressive copyright enforcement". There's also pretty clear consensus that we could do more to explain/present terms of a CC license better. IMO I don't think the opinions that "it's all the reusers fault" or "everyone has to agree not to take legal action/give people a chance to fix the error" are that helpful as they're extremely unlikely to gain consensus and thus fill these discussions with emotion rather than working towards a realistic compromise/solution. For anyone who thinks Diliff is exemplary of what people are talking about when they say "copyleft trolling is a problem", you could read something likethis piece in Computer Weekly that involves Commons (or any of a number of posts by Cory Doctorow on the same subject, or the statement Creative Commons put out itself condemning "[CC] license enforcement as business model"). This is all to say, the reason the conversation about Diliff is so difficult is because his case is not "copyleft trolling" but a form of "aggressive copyright enforcement" that in some ways looks the same as copyleft trolling. —Rhododendritestalk | 14:19, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this is the Commons so you can't expect a clear streamlined debate. But if we are to use Diliff's photos as a first case trial, why don't we start with putting a template on his file pages, stating something like "This photographer uses aggressive copyright enforcement, please read the terms of the CC license carefully and follow them." --Cart(talk)14:37, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All of his filesARE using a template, stating very clearly how Diliff wants his images being attributed upon re-use. This very clear template hasn't stopped people from misunderstanding or overlooking those directions, not the least because Commons doesn't allow license texts at the top of pages. About a dozen times upon receiving bills from Diliff's lawyer without prior warning, people went to Diliffs talk page on Wikipedia and asked questions: That they were sorry; that they honestly didn't know; that they would fix the attribution (actually legally impossible: you have to pay up AND remove the image that was "violated"); and if Pixsy was even authorized by Diliff; and yes also that they couldn't afford the payment.
Those were not theimage poachers whoblatantly steal images, those were naive re-users who (rightly) expected to find "free" images on Commons and just didn't realize the catch that they had toexactly reproduce Diliff's licence text including the links. Forgotten the attribution? Minor errors, or creative solutions like maybe alt-text? Nope: PAY UP.
We also have not a clue how many cases Diliff pursued and settled off-site. The idea of tools to help Diliff* with managing re-users? He has no need for tools, help-pages or guidance to settle his cases. He has efficient and automated workflows, off-site. And so do the other copyleft-enforcers we're talking about. I have read from your statements that you (@W.carter:) have a much more mindful approach, and as a result there probably won't be distressed calls for help towards the Commons community. Content whose copyrights are gently enforced, with warnings? That won't bear forced watermarks.
And that is where the watermark comes in: Within Wikimedia projects, we have templates to hide it. Outside of Wikimedia, the naive re-user can simply place it in their social media post or wherever, and be sure that they fully reproduced the correct license. While the malicious re-user who crops the watermark on purpose? Yeah, that last one must fully deal with the consequences on their own. --Enyavar (talk)21:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Diliff's files do contain a template about the license, but it's totally lame and information-wise a disaster. To call something"Summary" in very big letters is misleading and makes you just skip that part thinking that it's a summary of the text about the image. The big letters should say: "How to use this file", there should be colors and at least some frame, perhaps a picture. As mentioned above, the warnings about use needs to be so well designed that even the dumbest re-user will notice and understand it. Take a look at some more intimidating pages created by people who are more experienced at layout:Example 1 (heck, even I would think twice before doing anything with that file!) andExample 2. If you redesign the licenses, please let it be done by people who know about such designs. --Cart(talk)12:33, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment And by the way, since Diliff's files and behavior is causing so much trouble for Commons, can't we simply upgrade the design of his template per above to make it stand out more on the page? I mean that text is under the usual CC here on the site, and even if we are very polite and don't edit each other's things more than necessary, we have after all discussed everything from deleting his files to adding watermarks. Just making that template more noticeable/"legal-looking"/(frightening?) isn't really such a big infringement on his rights, since it is forcing us to have these long discussions. --Cart(talk)12:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One particularly nasty detail of Diliff's license text is theSuggested attribution: "Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0" - which istechnically insufficient as attribution because it only names the license without linking to it. That feels very close to a deliberate trap. If Pixsy is going after users for that deficiency, we have every reason to take action to disarm that trap.Omphalographer (talk)18:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea, but it's incompatible with the way the template is used in some of Diliff's image descriptions, e.g.File:Skylark 1, Lake District, England - June 2009.jpg. I've rolled back these changes and replaced "CC BY-SA 3.0" with a URL to the license to make it maximally clear that the URL needs to be included. (The name of the license is not required.)Omphalographer (talk)23:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a lot of the above isvery unrealistic. Have a look at what I've put inCategory:Images by Joe Mabel as a media source. I believe all of the uses mentioned here correctly mentioned my name (I might be wrong about one or two); I would be surprised if more than a dozen or two got the licensing entirely correct.
People—even well-intentioned people—simply do not understand how to properly indicate a CC license. This shouldnot result in hundreds of threatened lawsuits. -Jmabel !talk17:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the key is to find a fair balance protecting creators’ rights to enforce proper attribution while not discouraging users or complicating legitimate image use. A clear, agreed-upon process should be established to determine when license enforcement crosses the line providing users with a warning and the chance to correct mistakes before taking drastic actions like deletion or watermarking. The issue also lies in the lack of visibility for license information. Previously, clicking an image on Wikipedia would lead directly to the Commons page where author and license details were prominently displayed. Now, the image opens in a popup for a larger view, which significantly reduces that visibility. This change was made without community consultation, and actions taken outside Commons are beyond our control. Limiting uploads or adding watermarks is not a valid solution; instead, we should work to restore or improve the visibility of license information on CommonsWilfredor (talk)01:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It was discussed above byUser:Ikan Kekek,User:Adamant1,User:Rhododendrites and other to put the license template at the top. I think it would be better to edit the layout of the license templates instead so there is a more clear warning for example mark the words in{{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} so it says "YOU MUST..." in bold and red text or a text saying "To meet the requirements you usually need a line like: "Photo/work by <insert author>. License: <link to license added by template>". Perhaps someone could make a suggestion so we can see how it could look? --MGA73 (talk)10:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It should be made clear that copyleft trolling and copyleft enforcement are fundamentally different. Copyleft trolling is actuallycopyright enforcement following a copyleft trap. Copyleft enforcement could very well be encouraged - we could even have a page for reporting wrong attribution and templates in place for easier notification by the community. Note that Pixsy only pursues compensation for CC 4.0 files if the user shows they've reached out to the transgressor to no avail. To be honest, if you've reached out to someone and they ignored you for 30 days, really, it's hard to believe that said transgressor is acting in good faith. Release the Pixsy hounds, for all I care.
Beyond that, I'd also support implementing a much clearer warning on file pages stating that correct attribution is a condition of reuse and that failing to meet this requirement may constitute a copyright violation. This would help ensure that reusers are aware of their obligations up front and reduce unintentional misuse.Rkieferbaum (talk)17:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
May constitute a copyright violation and could incur legal penalties to the reuser, including heavy fines. That or other words to that effect should be in the warning text.Ikan Kekek (talk)18:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Cart,Rkieferbaum, andWilfredor: Putting more warning text on the file pages won't solve copyleft trolling. Many of the people who have been targeted by copyleft trolling were actually trying to follow the rules, but made a mistake. For example, the most recent victim of Diliff apparently did credit him, but the credit was accidentally hidden under the border of the website so it couldn't be seen. Many other victims have credited images to "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia Commons" because they didn't understand how attribution is supposed to work. I myself have incorrectly attributed images by accidentally listing the wrong license. I strongly support enforcing copyrights, but none of those conditions should result in someone facing demands for thousands of dollars without any opportunity to fix the error.Nosferattus (talk)02:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Watermarking photos undermines the core principle that images should remain freely accessible. For years, I have personally removed watermarks from images in our commons collection because they introduce distracting visual noise and diminish the photos' natural appeal, encourage self-promotion over genuine sharing, and ultimately contradict our foundational philosophyWilfredor (talk)11:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
distracting visual noise is no problem: together with the watermarking, we can add a link users to provide the template that removes the white attribution line (when used in a wiki, see the example image above).remain freely accessible: well, the photos will still be freely accessible. However, once watermarked, they are no longer an instant free money generator for those uploaders who violateour foundational philosophy. --Enyavar (talk)12:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Wilfredor: If people stop using Commons because it has a reputation for being a trap (which is already the reputation it has on Reddit), what good are our founding principles? Free images that no one wants to use are worthless. Do you ever wonder why people are willing to pay $50 to use a public domain image from Alamy or Getty instead of getting it for free from us? This is why. I have also removed lots of watermarks from photos and am not a fan of watermarking. In this situation, however, it is the least bad solution.Nosferattus (talk)22:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We’re everyday people who donate our time without expecting any compensation, we aren’t employees, and comparing us to large corporations isn’t fair. Everyone here gives what they can. IMHO every project has a lifecycle, and the mismanagement of WMF has contributed to a decline in its user base factors that are ultimately beyond our controlWilfredor (talk)22:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also: the type of watermarks that are being proposed here are a strip along the bottom of the image, not an overlay like some stock image sites use on their previews - seeFile:Skylark 1, Lake District, England - June 2009.jpg for an example. They don't intrude on the image content, and are trivial to remove if you're attributing the image in another way.Omphalographer (talk)23:19, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my 2 cents:
make a policy or guideline that requires commons users who attempt copyright enforcement to:
first warn or request copyright offenders to rectify the mistakes by any non-monetary methods (re-adding attribution, making public announcements / addenda...) within a reasonable time frame (such as 2 weeks or more?)
only after #1.1 fails can commons users start monetary / legal threats.
set up a group of users, who will be tasked with reviewing complaints against commons users who fail to follow #1 (issuing threats without first serving warnings / requests). if the complaints are deemed true, then submit the case for the community to decide whether those commons users should be banned.
A problem with (3) is that it would provide a way around an otherwise perpetual licence: courtesy deletion declined → start copyleft trolling → image deleted. –LPfi (talk)06:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I got pinged. I've read through the above discussion and am pleased it seems more reasonable than the previous one. But then I seeCommons:Village pump/Copyright#Copyleft trolling - proceeding to watermark images and despair what a few hot heads can do. Watermarking is a dumb ass solution. Go ask WMF to help you with a better UI for images on Wikipedia/Commons that informs our readers and potential image users of what they need to do. That solution works for all of us with CC licenced images. And you need to stop with the "copyleft troll" immaturity real soon before someone ends up on the wrong side of a libel action and finds out how much being stupid and hot headed on the internet can cost. Trolling is the deliberate posting of supposedly free images in order ensnare those who use them and fail to follow the licence conditions to the letter and dot and crossed tee. Diliff did not do that and we have no evidence (actual evidence, not random posts on the internet) that anyone making a licence attribution mistake has been perused. Diliff created thousands of professional-class images that are very widely used on Wikipedia and elsewhere according to the licence conditions. The previous big discussion involved someone who admitted they thought the images were free to use without attribution. Which had all the intellectual weight of me assuming that since the cookies are free at the church fair, they are also free at my local Tesco.
Wrt Flickr comparisons, Flickr is a community project that exists as long as photographers want to belong and pay. Commons is an image repository. That many of the images were created by people who are users here is a bonus but on Flickr licenced images can only be uploaded by the creator. That isn't the case here. It makes our ability to sanction the image creator harder. Many of the suggestions made are off the cut off your nose to spite your face variety and ignore the many tens of thousands of re-uses of Diliff's images elsewhere that are licence-compliant. The copyleft-zealot-hotheads are only going to end up ruining things for all those users (and potential users) because, what, a mere handful of people were Stupid On The Internet and went to Diliff's user page to complain.
And I repeat that if Commons does something stupid with Diliff's images like watermarking -- the above linked post has the idiocy of a watermark saying this attribution must be retained, and then immediately below, an example of using it on Wikipediawith the attribution cropped off. I thought that level of stupidity was restricted to US presidents -- then all that will happen is Wikipedia will fork the images without watermark and Commons is no longer being used as a repository for them. It might even provoke English Wikipedia to decide to dispense with Commons, who clearly can't be trusted to host an image repository without vandalising the images that don't belong to them.
Please move on with some of the more productive ideas on this page, about informing users of all our licenced images. Rants and vandalism belong on Twitter. Commons is an image repository of images with a valid licence. Those licenced images are still copyright. Users who have a problem with that are welcome to start their own CC0/PD project. --Colin (talk)13:54, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The copyleft-zealot-hotheads are only going to end up ruining things for all those users@Colin: Realistically what's the actual effect of putting a watermark at the bottom of an image going to be? It's not like whomever uses the reuses an image can't just crop the watermark out. Big whoop-de-doo. Your the one acting like people are being "zealot-hotheads" by supporting watermarking. Are you seriously going to act like someone having to edit an image to use it is that much of an issue? Come on. --Adamant1 (talk)19:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Watermarking photos is a really stupid idea to force people to give attribution. It dirties the image, alters the original, and introduces the risk of invisible modifications (such as changes in color space, image quality, compression, or even invisible metadata alterations that can damage the file). What are we supposed to do with TIFF images, for example? It also contradicts the principle of preserving works in their pure, unaltered statesomething that is especially important in archives and museums. Nobody wants to use images with added text. What happens if someone wants to create a derivative work? Does the watermark stay and an additional attribution gets added on top of it? Technically, adding a watermark can be seen as an additional restriction, which is not allowed under licenses like CC BY or CC BY-SA.Wilfredor (talk)10:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Commons offers to download an image in different resolutions... what if one could add an additional download option labeled "image with examplary license conforming attribution" which would download a watermarked image?Nakonana (talk)12:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{[ping|Nakonana}} "examplary" is not a word, so I'm not sure what you mean here. "exemplary"? "example of"? Something else? -Jmabel !talk17:59, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I assume "exemplary" is what was meant. I don't agree. A watermarked image is not exemplary – if it were, why isn't Wikipedia attributing authors in bylines? Rather, the way we do it here, with file description pages, is exemplary. WMF has added the functionality of showing an attribution line, which is the crucial thing. The issues are whether people understand in the first place that they must attribute properly and that attributing Commons isn't enough, and our user interface constructing licence-compliant attribution lines. –LPfi (talk)07:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I meant "exemplary". I don't mean the image to be exemplary but the attribution text. Such an option would make it easy to attribute an image correctly even to people who otherwise can't be bothered to educate themselves about correct licensing. Like an "idiot-safe" method: if you don't know how to re-use the image, just download this version of the image and use that, 'cause it already has all the required information.Nakonana (talk)10:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Content of users who act against Commons guidelines
I think before we can decide how to handle uploads of users who aggressively and with monetary interest enforce their copyright we need a general guideline how to proceed with uploads of users who violate our guidelines in cases where the content itself does not violate any guideline. For new contributions it is clear that a blocked user can not upload new files, but what do we do with existing uploads?GPSLeo (talk)07:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"For new contributions it is clear that a blocked user can not upload new files." If that's clear, why did a proposal to delete photos by Livio Andronico and socks get voted down in flames? I don't think it's clear, because the fact that a user is blocked doesn't make the photo violate any policy or guideline inherently, especially if it'sCOM:INUSE, as many of Livio's photos are. --Ikan Kekek (talk)07:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
GPSLeo, sorry: I don't understand the whole question. We have a guideline aboutCopyleft trolling. We do not usually block copyleft trolls. Nor do we usually take down their uploads. That is the exact reason in the first place, why we should watermark those uploads that are effectively Copyright traps. If that little can be agreed upon, I have no problem with even known Copyleft trolls continue to upload images - we'd just watermark them. --Enyavar (talk)13:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Enyavar: Livio Andronico isUser:Livioandronico2013. This user was blocked, and then globally locked for harassment and abuse mainly in thefeatured pictures contest. Nothing to do with copyleft trolling. However we should block and ban copyleft trolls, i.e. people who create content under a free licensefor the sole purpose of suing reusers. While I don't like people who use Pixsy or similar companies to enforce their copyright, they are not all copyleft trolls. Specifically Diliff didn't upload pictures on Commons for the sole purpose of suing reusers.Yann (talk)13:42, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not for the sole purpose, no. Yet acting that way, now. And if we want those pictures on Commons, we cannot just ignore that behaviour that harms our users and our reputation. --Enyavar (talk)14:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If a user acts against Commons in a way that we decide that we forcibly alter all uploads of this user (by adding a watermark) I can not imagine a case where we do not block this user.GPSLeo (talk)14:32, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a problem with the watermark solution: CC-BY(-SA) requires attribution as prominent as for other similar contributions. Deliberately attributing copyright trolls more prominently than other contributors seems very much backwards. –LPfi (talk)07:08, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FYI: I have been working on "Media needing categories" for years, and my experience is that using Wikidata is very helpful. In the search box you can enter the name of the person or the relevant word of the topic in any language. The result can ideally be the Commons category or a link to a Wikipedia article or a page within Wikidata. If there is no result, it depends on the description of the image what should be added as a category. If there is a positive result, I add the image to Wikidata if there is no image or a very bad image. I also check if the image can be useful on a Wikipedia page if there is no direct transfer from Wikidata to Wikipedia (for example the English and German WP).Wouter (talk)13:39, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone and categorized about ten files. It might seem little help, but I don't have much time. Anyway, if all readeers entered and categorized some files, a great decrease would be done.
And don't be shy! There are stuff in Cyrillic, yeah, but quite some files are pretty straightforward to categorize. I found one from a football team in Colombia, a place clearly in Chechnya, a monument related to castellers in Barcelona... And a lot of things I don`t know, but maybe you, you or you are familiar with that tree, language, flag or ''chisme''.
Besides it only being up to 2018, aren't there also many files that don't have categories that aren't in these by year cats? Example:Special:Diff/1019907777. Also, many files have a category but not the category/ies most relevant / where the file would be most useful or likely to be looked for. Overall, I think on the issue of missing categories, some bot is needed that suggests categories (if not adding a subset automatically) that then only need to be checked with a short click. Otherwise it won't scale to even just the files in those by year cats and will take too much time while many cats will get missed being added. See also Suggested edits (e.g.here).Prototyperspective (talk)14:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any definition of the categories that can do that for you? The Wikidata entry may have coordinates, but the relevant categories may be on country, province or municipality level (or something else, like parish) – the neighbouring municipality usually has coordinates closer than the country. For some of these entities, there are geoshapes in OSM, which would tell whether the subcategories of it are relevant for the location, but the tool then needs to find and propagate the "is in" to any (?) subcategories. The category tree often isn't straight forward.
I don't know whether needed computational effort is too big or if this only requires writing the code (categories that cannot be automatically bound to the location would still be ignored – but listing subcategories, like the Upload Wizard, would help).
Kartographer already can show "nearby articles", but on commons they show galleries, which are not commonly created, and not what we use for categorisation / depicts.
there's already the coord on the page. i'd like an easier method to get from the coord to a view of items around it.RoyZuo (talk)14:54, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you won't findCategory:Dogs in Hong Kong and its subcategories, as the coordinates for Hong Kong aren't close enough. I was referring to that kind of categories, which in many cases are more important than categories of the more specific location. –LPfi (talk)10:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure, but I'd just note that there are cast iron mail boxes with royal ciphers elsewhere in the world (e.g.), so is there a chance that this is from some British colony rather than the UK?SamWilson12:02, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all red post boxes are British; not all British post boxes are red. There are many British post boxes around the world (even if the many in Ireland are discounted). A specific category would seem sensible.Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits17:56, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Abzeronow: I think that should be moved back. The 2025 date was discussed, and is the date ofde jure adoption. No one user should change that without building a new consensus. -Jmabel !talk20:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What are the rules of dioramas on Commons. I have a photo of a castle model located in Polish museum, it was based on old drawing and some old documents from XVI century. I see a lot of Dioramas inCategory:Dioramas in museums is there some official statement about them? Can I upload my diorama to commons?Jakub T. Jankiewicz (talk)21:48, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the general practice is on here, but I've felt like dioramas should have to follow the same rules for freedom of panorama as anything else. Ifthese statues of Nazi soldiers were outside then the photograph would clearly be a copyright violations per Norway's freedom of panorama laws. There's alsoCommons:Derivative_works#TOYS. But for some reason they get a pass "because diorama." I really don't see any reason why such images should be allowed on here though. --Adamant1 (talk)21:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have some other diorama pictures. The original dioramas are old (1910-ish?), but they were restored and modified to some – unknown – extent in the 1980s or so. These include stuffed animals, arranged foreground landscapes (stones, shrubs etc.) and background paintings. I assume the original settings were respected; would slight improvements be enough for a new copyright (this is Finland)? –LPfi (talk)07:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't say anything definitive, except that usually when something is refurbished, the changes aren't creative enough to generate a new copyright. -Jmabel !talk18:10, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The subcats in this category are sorted by the name of the city they are for. However, when I look at the category, I see the subcats for cities starting with the letter "I" first, before the subcats for cities starting with the letter "A".
I've tried several things to get the "I" categories to move to their correct place -- null edits, retyping the sort key, retyping the entire category with sort key (in case there was a non-displayable character or something), clearing the cache after trying the above -- but I can't get things to sort correctly. Could someone take a look at this? Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk)04:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Omphalographer: I fixed it, thanks to your clue. I deleted the category altogether fromCategory:Museums in Iglesias (Italy). Then the other I-ones sorted correctly. Then I added the category back and everything looks good now.
Indeed. The problem is sometimes a very sophisticated programmer is needed who is fluent in programming languages, scraping needed information and knowledge about how to build up a bot. So I guess it's highly dependent on what resources need to be transferred --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk)14:28, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it can be done with AC/DC but the first thing is to remove creator (P170) individually (If I try to add the new one and remove the old one at the same time it removes both). Then add creator (P170), right click the 3 dots on the side and select "Some value" and copy/paste the right valuesREAL💬⬆21:16, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AC/DC is for batch edits to structured data, it can load a whole category at once or 500 at a time from search (by select all the files in Cat-a-lot and then open AC/DC it will load them).
@DaxServer: Thanks. I just want this toinclude something consistent with the way SD has chosen to represent my normal uploads, so that someone searching for my uploads will not fail to find those that came in by other routes. I don't really care whatadditional information it may or may not have. If I really had my druthers, I'd want a Wikidata item for myself to be used as the author of these, but I take it that I would have to be more "notable" for that to happen. -Jmabel !talk18:28, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Web page for torrents of US Gov and other free media
I stumbled uponFile:Erlend Apneseth Kongsberg Jazzfestival 2018 (181337).jpg which is properly licensed and templated as CC BY-SA 4.0. However in the Permission field in the information templateUser:Toresetre/PhotoreleaseTore-CC BY-SA 4.0 is used which asks for more favors than the license requires (in particular, making it looking like a CC BY-ND license). As this is under the heading Permission, it may be confusing for reusers. Do we have any documented policy about this? I found an old and slightly similar discussion abouthome-brewed licenses but this seems to perhaps dodge it by having a regular license template as well.Ainali (talk)07:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) The licensing seems invalid. The "I kindly ask" seems to apply only to the rest of that sentence, while "Credit […] in the immediate vicinity of the image" seems to restrict the ways to attribute from what the CC licences say (3 a 2: "in any reasonable manner based…"). Additional requirements are not allowed.
Thus, either one needs to comply, in which case the file isn't CC licensed, or one can ignore the additional text. I think we should askToresetre whether they want to remove the CC licence or change their template to clearly state its content is a friendly request, not a requirement.
Hi, I sent a request by email (to oversight-commons@lists.wikimedia.org) 2 days ago, but no answer so far. What's happening?Yann (talk)10:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Still, they need to reply. In the English Wikipedia I always get a reply within 24h, typically much faster, something like a few hours,Ymblanter (talk)17:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Le délai d’attente du serveur a été dépasséLe temps de requête maximal de 60 secondes a été dépassé.[93e526fa-9c6f-4b93-8dd1-12525ff4f3f8] 2025-04-09 10:51:25: Erreur fatale de type « Wikimedia\RequestTimeout\RequestTimeoutException »
Can someone realign or suppress the reference in the page ? Thanks.
Investigating a bit about the behaviour I see it takes a long time to reply. BUT it works if I call the result in a NEW tab of the browser (on desktop, or on tablette). Here for FR version of page Special:Transcode_statistics :
@Trade: Depends what you mean by "collage". Obviously, the general case would require something like GIMP or Photoshop, but if you mean all aligned in the normal fashion and with no overlaps, there are a lot of possibilities that can be done with just the capabilities of HTML tables. A modern version of something likeFile:Seattle and the Orient 58.jpg could probably be achieved with some very complicated CSS, but I'd suggest it was easier to build it in GIMP. -Jmabel !talk18:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't checked but most likely it's some website among the results when searching for "collage maker" or sth similar. (Things to consider is whether it reduces the resolution and whether there is any watermark.)Prototyperspective (talk)21:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some people are dealing with uncategorized files and I popped into this one. I've found who is Ismael Cala, and there's a category. But the picture is signed by the photographer in the very middle. I don't know if that's enough to ask for a deletion. Is it?B25es (talk)15:58, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What would be the deletion rationale? The source link isn't dead, you can see that the license is valid. Sure watermarks are discouraged but the license permits to edit the image as one pleases so anyone can remove it if they feel like it.Nakonana (talk)17:15, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@B25es Watermarks are only significative if they somehow interfere with the educative use of the image. I can't see how it would be the case here. And on top of it, from the tags we can see it even documents the writer in a specific event, "Make It Happen Venezuela".DarwinAhoy!21:50, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are many files that need an update, including many that are used a lot across mainspace Wikipedias.
Could there be some coordinated / routine efforts to update outdated things like outdated charts that are used?
I think this is really important, posting about it already even though there could be more info and guidance. Comment if you have an ideas or more queries / tools that could be useful for this.
I agree that the change previously proposed shouldn't have been made (if for no other reason than we don't have or seem to want an ArbCom). But I think some changes are warranted: both in their own right, and to address the U4C's concerns. I've made a proposal below. Some commentary:
It is much more minimal than the previous proposal.
It also doesn't say outright that the standards for administrator conduct are/ought to be higher than for non-admins: I think that would be more appropriate to say in eitherCOM:Civility orCOM:A than the de-adminship policy. That said, if this is a community expectation (as I hope it is), the final bullet would cover it.
I added the word "egregiously", as if an admin acts badly enough on one occasion, I think the community ought to have the power to de-admin them. (Of course, if e.g. the community is persuaded that it won't happen again, the community doesn'thave to de-admin them.)
The logistics, including the requirement of some consensus at a prior discussion, are unchanged from the current policy.
Here are the changes. The left is the current policy, the right is my proposal.
−
== De-adminshipprocessasaresultofabuseofpower==In the rare case that the community feels that an administratorisactingagainstpolicyandroutinelyabusingtheirstatus, it may seek de-adminship in the same way as adminship is sought. Please note this process should ''only'' be used for serious offenses in which there seems to be some consensus for removal; for individual grievances, please use [[Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems]]. De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible. [[Commons:Administrators/Archive|Previous cases]] may provide some guidance.
+
== De-adminshipduetomisconduct==In the rare case that the community feels that an administratorshouldlosetheiradminshipbecausetheyroutinelyoregregiously:*abusetheirstatusasanadministrator,*violateCommonspolicy,*violatethe[[wikimedia:UniversalCodeofConduct|UniversalCodeofConduct]],or*otherwiseviolatecommunityexpectationsofadministratorsit may seek de-adminship in the same way as adminship is sought. Please note this process should ''only'' be used for serious offenses in which there seems to be some consensus for removal; for individual grievances, please use [[Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems]]. De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible. [[Commons:Administrators/Archive|Previous cases]] may provide some guidance.
I highly doubt that this proposed change will be accepted, especially considering active administrators voting or involvement in the discussion. Additionally, there's already an excessive reliance on the UCC. Personally, I believe that fewer rules would significantly benefit the project, and ideally, fewer administrators as well. Unfortunately, Wikipedia/commons has increasingly become more bureaucratic, burdened by countless rules, templates, and individuals compulsively adding unnecessary templates in the usertalks. I imagine this observation applies broadly to Wikipedia in general. Please refrain from pinging me about this issue in the future. I'm not interested in sparking any controversy; I'm already aware that my viewpoints can be particularly polarizing. --Wilfredor (talk)23:11, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also support this proposal. I don't see this as excessive reliance on the UCC, merely putting our guidelines more in line with it, a criticism from U4C which has jurisdiction here as we as a community do not want a ArbCom. One of the things about the amount of rules we have is that this project supports more than 200 others, so some things here would have a big impact on other projects.Abzeronow (talk)23:44, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping:
Regarding Wilfredor's point about rules: We have shockingly few rules outside of copyright and rules that apply across all project considering our impact, and we don't have enough admins, we currently need about 200 more just to handle the flickr LR queue as it is. This doesn't include the catch all LR catagory that's over 100k files at this point. We also need at least 3 dedicated admins to rewrite our abusefilters for temporary accounts, as IP edit checks will all break because temp accounts have age now. As to our opinions regarding UCC, If our policy on a topic isjust meeting UCC, we should try to stay well above it, the UCC is abare minimum, not a maximum . Do admins have aen:w:SUPERVOTE on commons? Maybe, but they are also the most respected users on commons, that's why they are the admins.
As to the actual text, routinely should be repeatedly, because while admins aren't perfect, a pattern of repeated misuse is a indication they shouldn't have the tools.
Support Although IMO a good percentage of what instigated this whole thing was because of admins playing defense for A.Savin, not the lack of a process for desysopping an admin per se. Whatever helps though. But it's not like the same circling of the wagons can't, or won't occur, if this is approved. Administrators need to stop giving each other a free pass when it comes to bad behavior. Otherwise this will just be toothless. --Adamant1 (talk)03:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you have in mind with the „otherwise violate community expectations“ point? I want to avoid that people who do not like the outcome of a deletion decision where a majority supported keeping the file but the admin deleted it demand sanctions based on this. Maybe we should add that acting against majority in some cases especially deletion requests is no violation of community expectations.GPSLeo (talk)05:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GPSLeo I agree that desysopping should be unavailable in that case. But the community expects and wants admins to have aw:en:WP:SUPERVOTE where policy is being violated (seeCommons:Deletion requests#Overview and the last bullet inCommons:Guide to adminship#Checklist of stuff you should know), and an admin who does so is meeting -- not violating -- community expectations. So I don't think that that there would even be "some consensus" for removal at the required prior discussion in that case.
What I have in mind is behavior that doesn't violate *policy*, but isn't acceptable coming from an admin (or, often, anyone else). For example, edit warring isn't technically prohibited by policy (although the blocking policy says that people can be blocked for it). But desysopping could be warranted for an admin who repeatedly gets into edit wars, even if they don't abuse the tools while doing so. —Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs)15:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
April 13
Renaming multiple files
Hi, I uploaded a few photos of cows yesterday, but I've realized that I had put incorrect information about their breed in the file names. Is there some sort of gadget that would let me mark all the files for rename at once without placing {{rename}} on every page manually?Mikinisk (talk)11:02, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you are not comfortable with using regex but the files follow the same naming pattern, you could still use VFC by loading your own uploas and choosing the option "prepend any text" and add the{{Rename}} template (with filled out parameters) to all selected files, plus, a note that the file mover should add a different number to each file name so that the files have different names.Nakonana (talk)11:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, I haven't done this before, but it sounds doable to me? Would the renaming process be any/significantly different for a file mover if one would manually add the renaming template to each file instead? It would still be the same amount of files that need to be renamed, and file movers don't always use the name one suggests anyway, so I think it's reasonable to make such a request? Maybe there's even some mechanism that automatically prevents file movers to rename a file to a file name that already exists, so that it would be clear that a number needs to be added for any subsequent file?
Would your masserename tool be helpful for such a task by any chance?
As for wording, maybe something like{{rename|1=Cow.jpg |2=3 |3=Please note that I've tagged several files for renaming with the target file name always being "Cow.jpg". When moving the tagged files, please add a number to the target file name to prevent overwriting, e.g. "Cow 1.jpg", Cow 2.jpg" etc.}}.Nakonana (talk)16:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What sorts of improvement or editing are you trying to achieve? Your question as is feels like a solution in search of a problem; you should instead start by identifying a problem and then see if there is a solution. –BMacZero (🗩)16:15, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
New meta page describing how to upload files from studies and about science media on Commons.
Scientific media (mainly datagraphics and scientific illustrations/diagrams) is probably some of the most educational and most useful and often used in Wikipedia articles. However, still nearly nobody else uploads many of these so more participation would be good.
Maybe users here have some further info to add to this page. It details the current procedure in ca 17 steps which also is relevant if people would like to improve it, e.g. to make it smoother and quicker.Prototyperspective (talk)13:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Oppose watermarking any of images on Commons. So-called "copyleft trolls" is not a problem for Commons. Hence, we shouldn't delete/damage useful content. So-called "copyleft trolls" is a problem only for goofy/irresponsible "reusers"Юрий Д.К13:17, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment And by the way, since Diliff's files and behavior is causing so much trouble for Commons, can't we simply upgrade the design of his template per above to make it stand out more on the page? I mean that text is under the usual CC here on the site, and even if we are very polite and don't edit each other's things more than necessary, we have after all discussed everything from deleting his files to adding watermarks. Just making that template more noticeable/"legal-looking"/(frightening?) isn't really such a big infringement on his rights, since it is forcing us to have these long discussions. --Cart(talk)12:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support disarming that trap. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ pleaseping ortalk to me🇺🇦23:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]_Berlin_Reinickendorf_06.jpg)
Done Move has been reverted. And your reasoning was included in the message.Abzeronow (talk)20:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]_(cropped).jpeg)
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