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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/09. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. For questions about copyright, technical matters, or help that does not relate to the general Commons community as well as proposals, please see the other discussion boards linked in the blue panel at the top. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

#	💭 Title	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Rules on categorizing arms of users	5	4	Kontributor 2K	2025-09-25 13:10
2	Unpublished works USA	8	4	Smiley.toerist	2025-09-28 22:08
3	Is "Self-Portrait with Candles" in Google Art project in public domain?	7	3	Jmabel	2025-09-28 19:45
4	1 second shorteŕ	4	3	DMc75771	2025-09-27 21:20
5	Photo challenge July results	2	2	JoanaImages	2025-09-26 08:38
6	Again, Internet Archive	17	6	Adamant1	2025-09-28 18:18
7	Overcompressed OGG	2	2	PantheraLeo1359531	2025-09-28 17:14
8	Which apps are using Wikimedia Commons?	7	4	Prototyperspective	2025-09-29 18:23
9	The same picture for two scientists	4	3	MPF	2025-09-27 11:34
10	Bad grammar in file renaming tag	4	4	Nakonana	2025-09-28 11:26
11	Election map rename requests	3	2	Geoffroi	2025-10-02 20:45
12	Are these from the 1970s or contemporary made to look like the 1970s?	2	2	Omphalographer	2025-09-28 20:35
13	Batch uploading	3	2	PantheraLeo1359531	2025-10-01 07:40
14	The ban on civilian unmanned flights will last until Friday (Denmark)	1	1	PantheraLeo1359531	2025-09-29 13:35
15	Error 403 and lots of display errors with photos that no longer load	4	3	Tvpuppy	2025-10-02 14:06
16	Commons Gazette 2025-10	1	1	RoyZuo	2025-10-01 20:22
17	Should we split by-camera categories by subject matter of photos	2	2	Nosferattus	2025-10-02 03:57
18	Diagrams by language	1	1	Prototyperspective	2025-10-01 23:23
19	The problem with Golden hour	1	1	L. Beck	2025-10-02 12:38

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Centralized discussion See also: Village pump/Proposals   ■ Archive Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Temporary account IP viewer policy (6 September 2025) User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands#Replace images with .svg version (5 August 2025) Category talk:Heroes' Cemetery in the Philippines#RfC: Cemetery name (18 July 2025) Discussion on Copyright law of North Korea (16 March 2025) Template: View   ■ Discuss    ■ Edit   ■ Watch

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September 21

Rules on categorizing arms of users

Are there rules on categorization of coats of arms of users?

I have uploaded a personal coat of arms for myself and I’m not sure if I should categorize it as though it is a regular coat of arms for all the elements, or abstain from categorization to avoid misleading people that it might be official. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:58, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

@Immanuelle Perhaps you can categorize it to Category:Coats of arms of users. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 23:28, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

I have already categorized it there. But I’m asking whether it should get categories for charges and other traits.

Arguments for inclusion: gives people a better idea of what a thing looks like and makes it easier to find svg assets

Arguments against inclusion: Someone might be searching for a real legally recognized coat of arms with a certain property. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 01:32, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Since there are hundreds of coats of arms of users, it would be possible to create categories like category:Coats of arms of users with pales gules. However, that might not be the most useful way to use your time in Commons. Pere prlpz (talk) 12:54, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Coats of arms of users must stand first in Category:Coats of arms of users, and may be categorized in heraldic categories; redoing user-specific heraldic categories, i.e. deploying parallel tree structures, would cause more confusion than anything else, similar to the problems caused by localized heraldic categories. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 13:10, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

September 22

Unpublished works USA

Somewhere there was a chart for what is PD. Unpublished works in the US is a special case. Protected for 120 years? I recently uploaded a lot of pictures from Belgian family albums (I have the inheritance rigths). I suppose that by the US definitions this is unpublished work. As I use the Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs license, so the files are free for use. But theoreticaly they are unpublished. I have two questions: When I upload them in the Commons, is this a publication? And does the 120 year start counting then? Does the Unpublished works rule apply outside the US? example: File:Tours bridge 1924.jpg This is not PD in Europe, as the author has died in 1967. For the US it is probably PD, because it is before 1930. Or is it not PD because it is unpublished? Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

The somewhere for the chart might be there. In short, you want to know when your copyright ends in the US? It seems it would be 70 years pma, in 2038 for this photo. As copyright holder, you are publishing the photos on Commons. Each country has its own rules. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:05, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

• Uploading to Commons is a form of publication, since you are distributing a copy of the photo to the public.
• See first section of Commons:Hirtle chart or {{PD-US-unpublished}}. For works that are currently unpublished, works that were created by known author are protected 70 years from their death. If death date is not known or if the works were created anonymously/pseudonymously/for hire, then it is protected 120 years from the year of creation.
• This rule only applies in US, since different countries have their own laws regarding unpublished work. For example, according to COM:CRT/Belgium, like other EU countries, it appears unpublished works are copyrighted for an additional 25 years from their first publication, if the copyright term of the works have ended.
• For File:Tours bridge 1924.jpg, it is unpublished until now, but it is created by an author with a known death date, and the date is less than 70 years ago, so it will not qualify for {{PD-US-unpublished}}. Therefore, as Asclepias mentioned above, it will not be in PD in the US until 2038.

Tvpuppy (talk) 17:17, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

• If you inherited the copyrights then {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}} is valid, whether previously published or unpublished. People have been releasing old family albums since the beginning of Commons. --RAN (talk) 03:22, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Are there any statistics about the use of heirs licences? I seen to be the only one using them. There is an automatic Category:CC-BY-SA-4.0, but no Category:CC-BY-SA-Heirs.Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:48, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is a transclusion count of the template: [1] (or alternatively the full list of files that uses the template [2]), not sure how many of them are your uploads though. Tvpuppy (talk) 18:32, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Also, the template Heirs-license has over 17000 transclusions. I don't know if that includes also its use through other templates such as Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs and others. -- Asclepias (talk) 19:44, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I suspect there are a lot more heirs cases, but they are probably under Own work.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:08, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

September 24

Is "Self-Portrait with Candles" in Google Art project in public domain?

Hello all, I noticed the painting "Self-Portrait with Candles" (c. 1906) by Lily Delissa Joseph‏ (died in 1940) is on Google Art project: [3]. Can this specific file be uploaded to Commons? Its resolution is higher than the resolution of the existing file. פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

@פעמי-עליון: I would think that is certainly PD everywhere. Is there anything that gives you any doubts? - Jmabel ! talk 20:22, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Jmabel maybe the photographer of the painting has copyrights? פעמי-עליון (talk) 20:47, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

@פעמי-עליון: To the best of my knowledge, there is no jurisdiction where the Sweat of the brow doctrine still persists. As far as Commons is concerned, we do not recognize any claim to a new copyright for an accurate reproduction of a two-dimensional work that is in the public domain. It is imaginable that some court in some country could at some future date rule otherwise, but that is true of anything in copyright law. - Jmabel ! talk 21:08, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Uploading is fine: it's the policy of the WMF and Commons that simple copies of two-dimensional artworks do not attract copyright even if they were made in a country that recognizes a "sweat of the brow" copyright.

As for being PD everywhere, it's not PD in Jamaica (life+95, the extension from life+50 to life+95 was explicitly made retroactive, and Jamaica didn't adopt the rule of the shorter term). Copyright appears to have expired in the rest of the world (Mexico is life+100, but the extension was not retroactive). --Carnildo (talk) 21:12, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you Jmabel and Carnildo!

I have another question in a very similar topic: do we consider pictures of two-dimensional artworks on not flat (but smooth) surfaces, like ancient jars, as PD? I mean pictures of paintings on jars like these: [4] [5] [6]. פעמי-עליון (talk) 11:52, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

@פעמי-עליון: generally considered three-dimensional, but an extreme enough closeup might be effectively flat. - Jmabel ! talk 19:45, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

September 25

1 second shorteŕ

When I view the video of the day the elapsed time shows a second off the time showing at the link R. Douglas McKay (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Please be specific – nobody will know which video you're referring to just 1 day after you started this thread. Are you referring to this video? And do you mean that the video duration shows 1:40 instead of 1:41 as in the preview? The displayed time elapsed seems accurate. In any case, this should be discussed at Commons:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:46, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The duration is rounded up, while the current timestamp is rounded down, because subseconds are a thing. As both do not share the same source of truth (the duration is often stored separately), this difference can occur. It is pretty common and not really a concern. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:00, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I think that'll do as an answer..

Just got curious as why. R. Douglas McKay (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

September 26

Photo challenge July results

Vending machines: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Selecta vending machine in Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland.	Ticket machines in the concourse of Nuremberg Central Station	Sake, øl og whisky i byen Fuji i Japan.
Author	W8Kp3mZr1j	Ermell	Odd Roar Aalborg
Score	11	8	6

Waterside structures: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	De Adriaan Windmill in Haarlem, Netherlands	Seen on a tour of Norfolk Harbor, these massive dockside cranes will work on naval vessels.	Blick von der 580 Meter hohen Steilklippe „Cabo Girao“ auf die am Ufer liegenden Terrassenfelder in der Nähe der Ortschaft Câmara de Lobos auf Madeira.
Author	JoanaImages	JoannaPoe	Otto Domes
Score	15	14	13

Congratulations to JoanaImages, JoannaPoe, Otto Domes, W8Kp3mZr1j, Ermell and Odd Roar Aalborg. -- Jarekt (talk) 03:01, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

A huge thank you to the voters — I’m genuinely excited my photo was chosen! Thank you! JoanaImages (talk) 08:38, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Again, Internet Archive

I remember reading about Commons planning to extensively use Internet Archive to verify the origin and licensing status of media files. This is not my first comment here about this topic, so I hope I am not too annoying. The true reliability of Internet Archive is not publicly known, but there are reasons for great worry. See here, especially the comments section and the responses by a member of Archive's staff about backups and redundancy (backups are not a regular practice, storing 3 copies not feasible for our organization at this time, and our average drive-life is indeed short, that is most likely due to temperature and vibration in our datacenter, we do not employ dampening mechanisms; for this last one, please remember that both of their copies are in or near San Francisco...).

I've talked about this topic in Wikipedia's village pump (link). I'm not optimistic, but I think (and I'm not alone) that WMF can't rely on Internet Archive, and it needs its own archive, or some other external help, but Archive, as it is (unless it has changed a lot from 2016), doesn't seem to be a valid option for this purpose. You can also comment on this topic in Wikipedia's village pump, if you are interested MGeog2022 (talk) 13:29, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Your link is 10 years old and it is totally possible that their systems are different now. --Zache (talk) 13:58, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I really hope so. What I worried me more was the way the person from Archive talked about it. An organization that claims to be built for the long-term, and an infrastructure that doesn't seem right even for the short-term, and talking about it without showing any worry. It's a miracle that Archive's contents are still there, given how things were back then (let's hope they are somewhat different now). MGeog2022 (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I would imagine that some people have similar thoughts as you and have taken some measures to protect the integrity of the files. But I agree that long-term archiving is too often given too little consideration by people --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 14:57, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The question is what we could do. Something like considering of backing up old US government content, for example? --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 14:58, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Thinking from a Wikimedia viewpoint, there are several things that could be done. In first place (I already talked about this on Wikipedia Village Pump), open discussion between WMF and Internet Archive to know how reliable Archive's storage is now (number and diverse location of copies, etc).

If the current situation can't be considered acceptable, then a solution is needed. I think about several possible options:

• Financial help from WMF to Internet Archive. Of course, this help has to be spent in improving (or even creating) backups of Archive's collections, and in no other purpose.
• Using Archive-It paid service (it is also run by Internet Archive, but it is known to follow standard backup rules) to store all WMF-related content currently in Archive, and any similar future content. By WMF-related, I mean any reference in any current version of a wiki article, or any use such as the proposed one for the original source of files in Commons. It would be fine to also include here any archived page from a WMF website, since some deleted wiki articles or media files can be of great historical interest.
• Partnering with Common Crawl (if that's possible) to use it as a reference repository, in place of Internet Archive. As a rule, Common Crawl does not store any media files, so this would be a problem for the Commons case.
• Creating, with WMF support, a new web archiving project (independent from WMF, but with financial support from it) with better backup policies, and focused on content considered important, including the WMF-related one, and probably more than that. That is, not storing nearly 200 PB as Archive does (!!!), but, for example, maybe 5 PB with 4 copies, making a total of 20 PB. This way, the truly important content could be truly preserved for future generations. Of course, this would need support from far more people and/or institutions than WMF and me :-)

I don't consider the option of WMF hosting its own archive of non-free content, since this has already been ruled out in the past. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I think backing up several hundred petabytes needs to be done with the help of a professional company that helps with the infrastructure (how many hard disks would be needed for that, 7000 to 10000?). WMF focuses on the access to free knowledge. The question would be, what could be useful for the standpoint of WMF to investigate in this situation. Of course, a free world wide web is preferable, but the vast majority of the content is unfortunately not. Hmm, I think it could be a huge step to partner with the Internet Archive, but it could be too risky for WMF if there are some unclear legal circumstances at the IA. But I agree with you that this data must be safe/saved :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:38, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

IA and WMF already have some partnership agreements. Internet Archive is fully legal under US copyright law (fair use). If an author asks for pirated content to be deleted from Archive, it is deleted. Public legitimate webpages fall under fair use even if copyrighted (provided that they are used only for preservation or academical purposes). The legal problems they had were due to unorthodox interpretations of fair use, and both lawsuits are now settled. Let's hope they don't make legal mistakes any more, after this experience. MGeog2022 (talk) 10:05, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

IA serves up a lot of unambiguously copyrighted content; see https://archive.org/details/anime for a sample. Their project's stance on copyright is much closer to "we'll see what we can get away with" than the WMF's position of "only content that's really, truly freely licensed". Omphalographer (talk) 16:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

What you say is absolutely true, but it's still legal. The only legal obligation is to delete user-uploaded pirated content on request by the copyright holder, and Internet Archive complies with that. WMF's approach is more for protecting users from reusing copyvio files while thinking they are freely licensed/public domain, than for legal reasons. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I remember reading about Commons planning to extensively use Internet Archive to verify the origin and licensing status of media files. @MGeog2022: I have an idea for a possible solution but what exactly are you talking about and why is it necessary to verify the origins and licensing status of media files in the instances that your referring to (whatever they are)? --Adamant1 (talk) 06:32, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

@Adamant1, I have nothing to do with that proposal, I only saw some mentions to it (see here), and I don't know about the details, but I think it's an excellent idea to prevent false positives in copyvio deletions (we need to care about keeping our legitimate content, as much as we care to delete the illegitimate files), as long as the place where the source pages are archived is reliable in the long term, and we don't have any evidence that Internet Archive is. MGeog2022 (talk) 09:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Hhhmmm well. My idea is to just archive a screenshot of the page with the license on here and then immediately nominate it for deletion as OOS COPYVIO but retain a link to the deleted on screenshot on the file page so it can still be checked by an admin if or when there's a need to. We have unlimited storage though. So I don't really see why we can't just archive proof of licensing ourselves. --Adamant1 (talk) 12:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

That could entail a crazy amount of work for admins, since we always have to check a page before deleting to make sure it's not someone with a bogus reason to delete a page. Sometimes that even requires checking the history. - Jmabel ! talk 02:02, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

A possible solution would be to do this in a proper way: having an option for including the licensing proof as an image, and that image would be hidden from public view from the beginning. The image would be captured by Wikimedia software, so it can't be a fake one, as it could be (and I'm sure in many cases would be) if uploaded by the user, so it would be of little utility, in addition to the workload it would create for the admins. My idea requires some work by WMF or voluntary source code contributors, but automatic archiving in Wayback Machine also does. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:08, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

We have unlimited storage though. By the way, we don't have unlimited storage (nobody has). Storing the screenshots would take negligible storage space, but it's an error to think about storage space as unlimited. At WMF, everything is stored at least 8 times in disk (2 production copies plus 2 backups, across 2 datacenters, and all of them in RAID disks, so this makes a total of 8 copies), and this is not a paranoid silly thing: it's the minimal standard for a serious organization that wishes to keep its data safe for the long term (very different from the awful situation Internet Archive had in 2016, I really hope it has changed since then). MGeog2022 (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

That's fair. I wasn't trying to say people could just endlessly upload 4K videos without a problem or anything. Obviously there's a limit to it. With the Internet Archive specifically, I'd be more concerned about them getting taken off line due to the repeated lawsuits they seem to keep losing. That's way more likely then them not having a proper back solution. Especially now with how things are going in the United States. Really, with how things are going right now I wouldn't be surprised if the WMF changes things on here somehow to shield themselves from potential legal issues. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Overcompressed OGG

We have {{Overcompressed JPEG}} do we have something for videos? See: File:Belgian campaigns in Africa (1914-1918).ogg --RAN (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

As it seems, no (see Category:Audio cleanup templates) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Which apps are using Wikimedia Commons?

If you know of any, please list them here.

With apps, I'm referring to mobile apps, desktop applications, and Web-apps.
Of course, the many Wikimedia projects use Commons (+ by extension various apps that use Wikipedia or Wikidata) as does the Commons app but what else is there? For example, maybe there is some OpenStreetMap app that enables you to see images geolocated via file coordinates or categories to the specific region one is viewing?

Commons doesn't need to be used by any other project/software to be useful but it's still interesting in the context of why Wikimedia Commons is useful. Maybe a list of such apps could be created similar to d:Wikidata:Tools/Visualize data & d:Wikidata:Wikidata front ends.

One app that I hope will add support for Commons is the free software mobile app NewPipe. It's a very popular app so many people already have it installed and it already allows watching videos and listening to audios on decentralized FramaTube and the ChaosComputerClub media server for example. (More info about that at m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Add support for Wikimedia Commons in the open source NewPipe media player app.) One could conveniently switch the site to Commons in the app with a tap and listen to e.g. spoken Wikipedia audios in the familiar app. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:47, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Prototyperspective, OsmAnd displays photos from Wikimedia Commons from wikidata=* and wikimedia_commons=*, MapComplete does the same, OrganicMaps and CoMaps provide links for the linked image/category. WikiShootMe allows users to upload photos on Wikimedia Commons or seeing existing photos about a Wikidata item. Wiki Loves Monuments app is doing quite the same. Una tantum (talk) 07:14, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

OsmAnd is interesting. I had it installed a while ago but it seemed like it can't show maps dynamically and one always needs to first download the map offline. I wonder whether that will be changed at some point since there's probably many people who don't want to always have to download large maps first. MapComplete looks really interesting, it doesn't seem to be available as a native mobile app and the Wikipedia link is a redlink. Organic Maps (typo in the wikilink) and CoMaps also look very interesting but just linking to the files or page instead of allowing users to see them in the app is at the edge of what using Commons means. Maybe this could be better enabled for apps by some lightweight module(s) for browsing Commons files across subcategories that apps like these could use. Also relevant to all the map apps: Also include files geolocated to countries/places via subcategories but not coordinates.

WikiShootMe I think at least so far is only a tool used by Wikidata&Commons users to contribute to Commons so I wouldn't say it's an app using Commons. Same goes for the WLM app. (I would distinguish between Commons tools and apps using Commons.) Prototyperspective (talk) 18:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't know all these things by myself; this is a collective answer from the OpenStreetMapItalia Telegram group. :D --Una tantum (talk) 07:30, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

All web maps based on OSM-Wikidata Map Framework (ex. Open Etymology Map) show images from Commons linked by Wikidata or OpenStreetMap.

DecomissionedAircraftMap shows images from Commons linked by OSM. Danysan1 (talk) 10:21, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Any non-Wikimedia Mediawiki (Fandom etc.) that uses mw:InstantCommons can use Commons. MKFI (talk) 08:03, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Here a list. Una tantum (talk) 18:59, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

September 27

The same picture for two scientists

La même image est proposée pour représenter

• Pierre Laurent Wantzel
• Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

Le première vient de Mac Tutor mais elle n'est plus utilisée[7]

La seconde vient d'un périodique[[8] et nous en connaissons l'auteur.

Je pense que Coriolis est plus illustre que Wantzel et que l'illustration est plus probablement celle de Coriolis. Je vous laisse gérer la chose au mieux. HB (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

(In bad English)

The same picture is proposed to illustrate

• Pierre Laurent Wantzel
• Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

The first one comes from Mac Tutor but it's no more used[9]

The second one comes from a periodical and we know its author.

I think Coriolis was more famous than Wantzel. The picture is more probably Coriolis' one.

I let you fix it for the best.

HB (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I put a deletion request on the image claiming to show Wantzel, the demonstration of it being likely erroneously identified got me convinced. / J'ai placé une demande de suppression d'image sur le fichier "Wantzel", la démonstration pourquoi l'identification est probablement erronée m'a convaincu. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 06:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the file from all its uses, and also sent an email to the St Andrews University website from which this pic came (they too had the same pic for Coriolis as well!). Checked online and there don't appear to be any pictures of Wantzel anywhere; one French Maths History website with pics of nearly everyone they list, has a blank for Wantzel. - MPF (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Bad grammar in file renaming tag

When moving a file to a new name, the tag says "What should be the new filename?". While perfectly comprehensible, it is poor grammar and doesn't look good for the project. Can it be changed to "What should the new filename be?", please? - MPF (talk) 10:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

•  Support Geoffroi 23:52, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
• The second is probably more colloquial, so no objection to the move, but both are perfectly good grammar. Think of the first as a construct analogous to "What would be your choice?" - Jmabel ! talk 02:07, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I wonder which one would be easier to understand for non-native speakers (if that's relevant). The current version has the verbs grouped together in one place, while the suggested version splits the verbs ("should ... be"). Verb splitting isn't a thing in some languages, as far as I know, so it might be a bit harder to understand maybe? Nakonana (talk) 11:26, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Election map rename requests

We have about 600 of these in Category:Media requiring renaming. They're all under Criterion #4 (harmonizing file names). This may involve a thousand or even several thousand images when the person requesting them is finished. I can help with them if the requests are thought to be valid. Can we get some review of these by administrators, filemovers, and anyone else who has experience with file moves? Thanks. Geoffroi 23:24, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

A large number of those look dubious to me: moves from a perfectly comprehensible name to a longer but slight better one, e.g. File:1989 Virginia gubernatorial election by Congressional District.svg => File:1989 Virginia gubernatorial election by Congressional District.svg, requested on the basis of harmonization. I haven't worked in the area enough to know whether harmonization here is important, but I can say that currently Category:Virginia gubernatorial election maps by congressional district (set) has 6 files and 4 different naming patterns, which does not sound to me like there is a strong consensus for a naming pattern. I certainly wouldn't fulfill requests on this basis myself. - Jmabel ! talk 02:16, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems like abuse of criterion #4 to rename all the files in a category. As you say above, there's no consensus that I can see, and consensus is definitely important when 1000+ files are involved. I've declined all of these requests (about 500). Geoffroi 20:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

September 28

Are these from the 1970s or contemporary made to look like the 1970s?

The images here, some have been loaded to Commons. They look like 1970s hairstyles, if so they are now in the public domain in Iran and therefore also the USA. We have no reciprocal copyright relationship with Iran and they are not signatories of the URAA. RAN (talk) 16:56, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we can safely assume that these photos were taken in Iran, nor that they were published before 1995. The designer has lived in Paris since 1978. Omphalographer (talk) 20:35, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

September 29

Batch uploading

There are a lot of requests outstanding at Commons:Batch uploading. I see some, but not much, recent activity. Are there others who could help? Could we highlight this anywhere? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:21, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

This is a very good aspect. I think the main issue is that we would need more sophisticated users who are fluent in batch uploading through different tasks. I have many ideas, too, to upload, but I think some of the expert users are already having much to do :/ --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:33, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

And the next thing is that we need whitelisting of URLs before batch uploading, which can take some time... --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:40, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

The ban on civilian unmanned flights will last until Friday (Denmark)

Due to the recent suspects of drones the last days and weeks, there may be more drone bans in the future, which may affect some users here... (see The Guardian for example) --13:35, 29 September 2025 (UTC) PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

October 01

Error 403 and lots of display errors with photos that no longer load

Hello, I'm currently having issues viewing images on Commons as of tonight, but not on my phone. The error message:

Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical issue

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.

Request served via cp6005 cp6005, Varnish XID 81203505 Upstream caches: cp6005 int Error: 403, Too many requests. (22714d4) at Wed, 01 Oct 2025 18:35:05 GMT

Do you know where this could come from? And am I the only one? Did I make too many server requests? It's still strange, isn't it? Thank you in advance Sebring12Hrs (talk) 18:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

The issue is solved. Sebring12Hrs (talk) 19:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

It was a larger issue. Even the upload and publishing were impossible at that moment .--PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Tvpuppy (talk) 14:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Commons Gazette 2025-10

In September 2025, 1 sysop was appointed; 4 sysops were removed. Currently, there are 175 sysops.

Appointment:

• User:VWalters-WMF was appointed sysop on a temporary basis on 10 September.

Removal:

• User:A.Savin was removed on 10 September by User:EPIC. He had served as sysop from 25 October 2007.
• User:BrightRaven was removed on 13 September due to inactivity. They had served as sysop from 9 September 2014.
• User:Holly Cheng was removed on 13 September due to inactivity. She had served as sysop from 1 June 2006.
• User:Billinghurst was removed on 16 September due to inactivity. They had served as sysop from 26 January 2010.

We thank them for their service.

---

Edited by RoyZuo (talk).

---

Commons Gazette is a monthly newsletter of the latest important news about Wikimedia Commons, edited by volunteers. You can also help with editing!

--RoyZuo (talk) 20:22, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Should we split by-camera categories by subject matter of photos

I am posting here to call attention to Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/10/Category:People taken with Nikon D5200. The question here is basically whether it is desirable or not to split large categories of images taken with a particular model camera along lines of the subject matter of the images. - Jmabel ! talk 20:36, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

By-camera categories should be deleted and replaced with structured data. Otherwise we will just reproduce the entire Commons category tree but suffixed with "taken with Nikon Q100" and "taken with Canon XYZ". That way madness lies. Nosferattus (talk) 03:57, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Diagrams by language

Here's an idea of how Commons categories could be useful for a translation campaign (to internationalize open knowledge in the Wikimedia system and make data/knowledge in Wikipedia more accessible):

• A scan with the Glamorous could show which diagrams in English are used in a specific-language Wikipedia like Spanish Wikipedia
• Users of that Wikipedia (or who speak that language well) could hold a campaign or media-edit-a-thon (or just act individually) to translate all those files
• This would mean that people reading Spanish Wikipedia can then (better) understand what those images say even if they aren't good in English or can't understand it at all (note: one could also scan for any language other than the language of the given Wikipedia but realistically that's going to be >99.0% English ones for most WPs)
• The same could also be done for data graphics like charts, like those in Category:Our World in Data (around 99.9% of these are in English but they're used heavily across many Wikipedias)

There are multiple challenges here (these aren't only about this specific problem):

• Here is the glamorous scan. Issues: One can't select which language Wikipedia to scan – one could modify the output of the tool or just jump around it via ctrl+f and a search phrase like es.wikipedia but that's not a good option. Moreover, the height per diagram is too large, making it very cumbersome to go through it and move from one diagram to the next.
• Here is the glamorous v2 scan. Issues: one also can't select which language Wikipedia to scan – I've created an issue here but the issue is not even showing in the Issues tab of that hard-to-find repo let alone being worked on and there doesn't seem to be any interest in getting volunteer devs to find and help out with the project.
• Many or most diagrams aren't yet in their language category – This is a Commons search scan one could use to categorize these starting with SVG diagrams. There are many thousands of files so many users would need to help out with this or a bot could do this, for example based on other categories of the file or via OCR. (If I just create a request at Commons:Categorization requests only very few may see it.)
• There are many files in that category that aren't diagrams. That's often because of miscategorizations that need fixing. Often, a tool to see the categorization path from the file to the diagrams category is needed or would be useful for that.
• Lastly, SVG files in specific have often been translated already to more languages than the language in the thumbnail and original first version so shouldn't just have one language category. This is generally done using the SVG Translate tool. However, that tool doesn't add any category or alike when a new language is added despite that this could be done. I've proposed this (no reaction yet) at Adding translations should automatically add the respective lang cat & other version on its talk page. Note that this is specific to SVG files and doesn't apply to PNGs; I just used the SVG diagrams search as example because it shows more files that are actually diagrams in case that some users don't know what diagrams are and/or are confused why there's so few diagrams in the results.

The challenges may seem like it would be supper difficult to do but I think it may partly sound more difficult than it is – for example one could throw very many files at once into Category:Diagrams in unspecified languages and then go on from there. Moreover, these issues would be valuable to solve in general; this is just a problem that helps illustrate these problems and why solving them can be useful.

Help with this would be appreciated. tl;dr The short and simple summary is: please help moving diagrams not yet categorized by language into Category:Diagrams in unspecified languages or from there or the search into their language category. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

October 02

The problem with Golden hour

Hello everyone, I wanted to hear what you have to say on this topic. Currently, the category Golden Hour is categorized under both sunrise and sunset. I'm wondering if that's correct, or whether the golden hour shouldn't be considered its own "time of day." Or does one follow the definition, which is also clarified by the brackets in the category name "photography," that it's more of an aesthetic state than a time of day like day, twilight, or night? In that case, I would again remove this category. I don't think it's appropriate to categorize it both as a time of day and as part of sunrise and sunset, not to mention that it contradicts our overcategorization policy. But that's just a side note. Regards Lukas Beck (talk) 12:38, 2 October 2025 (UTC)