Commons:Village pump/Archive/2026/01

Surnames

We have a longstanding and slightly stale Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/07/Category:Surnames, mostly about the fact that we currently supposedly have two flat-list categories for surnames. It impacts probably 10,000+ categories in terms of their parent categories, and hasn't gotten a lot of attention, so I'd like to see more voices there before considering the matter resolved.

Please, unless you find my wording here non-neutral (which you should certainly address here), let's keep the discussion on the CfD, not here. - Jmabel ! talk 19:10, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Can anyone work out the name of the photographer, and if they have a Wikidata entry

See: File:Pamela Colman Smith, "In Private life" (1904).jpg RAN (talk) 11:48, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

R.D. Macpherson? (Robert Macpherson) Nakonana (talk) 11:59, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

The "D." is written like the Greek letter Delta or Cyrillic cursive "d". Nakonana (talk) 12:00, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Or maybe not "Robert" but some other name because this Robert died before 1904. Nakonana (talk) 12:03, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it's not a "D" after all but a "J" instead? R.J. Macpherson [1]? According to Google search there may also be something about R.J. Macpherson at [2] but the page doesn't load for me to confirm. Going by Flickr, R.J. was active around 1895, so the time would fit. Nakonana (talk) 17:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

And it looks like he was based in Jamaica. The woman in the photo is half Jamaican and lived in Jamaica for some time, right? Nakonana (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

• Excellent detective work, "Macpherson", now I see it. I will see if I can find more images from him. --RAN (talk) 14:13, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

en:Duncan Macpherson (photographer)? Nevermind, he was likely too young in 1904. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 14:43, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:2026 protests against the capture of Nicolás Maduro in New York City

I noticed this is a subcategory of Category:Demonstrations and protests in support of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. Is it fair for Commons to call the demonstration a pro-Maduro demonstration? Trade (talk) 02:42, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I understand what you are getting at, but from a navigation point it may be for the best. We might want a separate parent category at the same level as Category:Demonstrations and protests in support of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro, but if we do that the two should be linked with a {{Cat see also}}. - Jmabel ! talk 08:29, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Adding a specific category for the art style in File:Fem_myror_är_fler_än_fyra_elefanter_papperskalender_02.jpg

I came across File:Fem_myror_är_fler_än_fyra_elefanter_papperskalender_02.jpg and I noticed that its art style looks intriguing. I'd put that file in the same category with others (that contain the same art style) but I don't know what category would be appropriate.

Edit: by "art style", I specifically meant different colored patterns, each containing colors almost always of high saturation, put together in the same art piece. Toarin (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:Undeleted in 2026

Hi, Nearly all files have been undeleted from Category:Undelete in 2026. So at least 800 files from 454 deletion requests. If you find more files to be undeleted, please ask on COM:UDR. Thanks, Yann (talk) 18:02, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

What to do with audio file with wrong pronunciation?

Hi,

File:zh-zhī.ogg contains audio that's actually a pronunciation of "zhǐ", not "zhī" as the file name suggests (this is already confusing people: see wikt:Talk:之#Mandarin_audio). The file was nominated for deletion before, but was kept (Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Zh-zhī.ogg). There's already a perfectly valid file File:zh-zhǐ.ogg containing a correct pronunciation of "zhǐ". What do we do now?

• If we can't delete File:zh-zhī.ogg, can we upload a new version of it? I recorded a pronunciation of "zhī" and tried to upload it as a new version, but got hit with Commons:Overwriting existing files.
• If we can't upload a new version, can we at least rename File:zh-zhī.ogg (so that we can upload a correct file)? The problem is that File:zh-zhǐ.ogg is already taken (and it's a good file). Do we rename it to File:zh-zhǐ2.ogg?
• I *could* upload my recording as File:zh-zhī2.ogg and edit all the pages that use File:zh-zhī.ogg to use my version... But that seems like a waste of everyone's time (as it's so much more work than just fixing the wrong file), *and* File:zh-zhī.ogg would still remain erroneous and confusing.

Can an admin step in here? Wyverald (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Stepping in, partly as admin. Unless someone else objects in the next 24 hours, here's what I propose.

• I will temporarily mark File:zh-zhī.ogg with {{Allow overwriting}} so you can overwrite it.
• When you overwrite it, please edit the file page to accurately reflect your replacement file.
• @Wyverald: may I presume that once I allow overwriting, you will get to it promptly and report back here so an admin can quickly lock it back down? Is there a time of day that works well for you (in UTC, please) to start this?

- Jmabel ! talk 06:14, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I can do it any time this weekend (from now until 8am Sunday UTC, or 8pm Sunday to 8am Monday). Wyverald (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

@Wyverald: have at it! Let us know here when you are done, so I can remove that tag. - Jmabel ! talk 23:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Done. I took the liberty to remove the tag myself when editing metadata -- hopefully that's not illegal :) Thanks for the help! Wyverald (talk) 02:15, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

i think @Jmabel's solution is wrong. in case of error, the description should almost always be edited to describe the file, not the other way around.

changing the file and the description to fit the title causes way more confusion, as i just got confused by the discrepancies between the different versions. RoyZuo (talk) 14:28, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I strong disagree that we should just edit the description here. That means File:zh-zhī.ogg will continue to have the wrong content forever; the correct file can at best be named File:zh-zhī2.ogg; it's a lot more immediate work to fix all the articles; and any future article wanting to link to a pronunciation of "zhī" will probably start out linking to the wrong one.

You said "changing the file and the description to fit the title causes way more confusion". Why is that? I can only see people getting confused if they look at the revision history of File:zh-zhī.ogg, which I can only assume to be very rare. Then again, I might be missing something here as I'm not a frequent user of Commons. Wyverald (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

@RoyZuo for many files I would agree with you, but this is one where its name is part of a pattern of harmonized names. One would expect it to contain a recording of a particular phoneme; apparently, it did not. - Jmabel ! talk 22:13, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

now yall are leaving the histories of two completely different files by different creators at the same page. that is very confusing.

the version contributed by Shtooka Project could be deleted as a duplicate of File:Zh-zhǐ.ogg as they record the same thing by the same speaker. that's better than leaving a mess behind like this. RoyZuo (talk) 22:45, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

My account reset

My account has reset. My edit history has disappeared, and it now says I registered in November 2025, though I registered over a decade ago. What the fuck? TransOceanic (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

This is not Wikipedia, look: en:Special:Contributions/TransOceanic. --Achim55 (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't even know how I wound up here. TransOceanic (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

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Image wrongly deleted

I have just noticed that File:Robert Gillmor 2010-03-23.jpg (which is very widely used, both on and off Wikimedia projects) was deleted; and wrongly.

As I noted in The deletion discussion, the non-free painting that was depicted in part of the image was deliberately blurred, and thus de minimis. Others disagreed, as is their right, that the blurring was sufficiently hazy. Rather than deleting the image, the blurring of that part should have been increased (and by the minium necessary to satisfy the doubters). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:02, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Should be done now. If you want to do a less blurred version, that's up to you. (I'm in an airport right now, working with less at hand than usual.) If you no longer have the original to work from, I or another admin can get that to you. - Jmabel ! talk 20:15, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you; as I said, it should use "the minium necessary to satisfy the doubters". I have previously declined to do so, since my view of what is acceptable (i.e. the image as uploaded) is clearly at odds with what those involved in the discussion believe. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:26, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

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Need for specific categories for 3D model files

Hi everyone and happy new year. I noticed only now that a direct link to the 3D model category was added directly on the home page of Commons and, looking it up quickly because I was a little bit curious and excited, I noticed that there are indeed some real 3D model files (.stl files mainly)... together with a mass of ordinary and static png/jpg images of 3D models.

Shoundn't we create some category for those specific files, like we did for the image files theirselves (example: )? It's a little bit odd to see for example a real 3D model file like this (File:Aston Martin F1 AMR23 2023.stl) with only a generic "3D models" cat and nothing more.

I think that real 3D model files should be distinguished from others and should be easily discoverable.

Seeing how the Category:Media by file format is organized, I think we should add a super-category there named like "3D models by file format" (or should we add them to the Category:Images by file format? I don't know exactly) and then a "STL files" as a sub-cat one (and other cats. for other type of 3D model files of course, I'm not an expert still of which types are most used or permitted here on Commons) at first, and maybe even some other appropriate relative cat for those objects.

What's your opinion on this? :) --LucaLindholm (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah ok, I noticed that under the Video file formats there already is the Category:STL files... but is it a video file? It is confusing and quite no one expects it to be there, tbh.

I was only unlucky to have encountered only some file that wasn't tagged with that cat. XD LucaLindholm (talk) 20:37, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

There is nothing to stop you from adding other appropriate parent categories to Category:STL files. - Jmabel ! talk 02:08, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

An IP user had placed the STL files into Category:Videos by file format; I moved it into Category:Media by file format. MKFI (talk) 08:02, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

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Removing metadata?

Hi, I discovered that my personal name appears in the metadata of some files I've uploaded. Is there any way of removing it? Why would it appear in the first place? Many thanks. Yakikaki (talk) 10:16, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@Yakikaki Because something (your camera or your software editing program) added it before uploading. Commons just shows what is already there before the upload. You can upload a new version without the name and then ask an admin to delete the old revisions. This is called EXIF data and there is lots of software that can edit and change it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:08, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

If you have a Windows PC, then once you download to your machine you can edit EXIF data via the file properties, then reupload. - Jmabel ! talk 01:45, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

The normal way to delete an old revision is described at COM:REVDEL; in this case you may want to mail or ping an admin. There are various free software to remove exif data; after you did that you need to upload the new file as a new version to each of the files ("Upload a new version of this file" underneath "File history" on the file description page). Prototyperspective (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

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Mass rename request

Hi. Some time ago I uploaded these files via Lingua Libre, which included my then-current username in the names:

• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-preventive.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-bivalve.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-bipartite.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-biogenesis.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-octant.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-metallurgist.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-fishbone.wav
• File:LL-Q7979-AlexGallon-spank.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-billy goat.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-concentration camp.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-sleepwalker.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-bouncy.wav
• File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-AlexGallon-numerically.wav

Please could someone replace "AlexGallon" with "Pink Bee" in these? I would prefer it if my old username was not immediately visible on my list of uploads. (I am aware and don't mind that it can be found easily elsewhere.)

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask. I couldn't find any information on the correct way to request mass renaming. Thanks. Pink Bee (talk) 00:06, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Trying to do this (and related changes) but the files that are in Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation by AlexGallon seem to be there via some sort of implicit trick in a template, and while I hav been able to rename them, I cannot move them from that category to Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation by Pink Bee. - Jmabel ! talk 02:34, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I will sort the cat issue separately. Pink Bee (talk) 02:57, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

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Global misidentification of File:Ouida_from_Cabinet_Card.jpg

Hi, File:Ouida_from_Cabinet_Card.jpg is globally misattributed. The person depicted is not Ouida, but Pauline Lucca (1841–1918), the Austrian opera singer.[1] Because the file is used on multiple Wikipedia language editions as Ouida’s portrait, the misidentification is being widely propagated. Could an administrator please assist with correcting the file’s subject attribution and updating its global usage accordingly? TheFairyTaleLover (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

This looks very plausible if you compare her face to the other portraits of Pauline Lucca on Commons. I am not an admin anywhere, but I just corrected the German Wikipedia page and the German Wikisource page of Ouida as well as the Ouida Wikidata item. I also made a rename request for the photo. Generally, there is no reason why you need an admin for the global corrections. So I do not fully understand your request. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 15:02, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry, I'm relatively new to Wikimedia Commons, and in any case, I was mainly referring to the photo's renaming. I'll do my best to replace the photo on all other Wikipedia pages as well. Have a good evening. TheFairyTaleLover (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

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Category:Periodicals about anarchism

This includes both newspapers and magazines, and many were categorised as both. Should we amalgamate them, and perhaps call them all periodicals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rathfelder (talk • contribs)

I don't understand the problem: both magazines and newspapers are a subset of periodicals (alongside academic journals, etc.). If there are sufficient number of one subtype to break that out into a subcategory and categorize that along some kind of existing scheme, then I think it's a good idea to do that. If not, then not. For files that are categorized as being both a "magazine" and a "newspaper", I don't think that really makes any sense. Typically, a magazine that is about current affairs, politics, and general news is called a "newsmagazine" or "news weekly" and is generally considered a magazine and a newspaper is generally something else. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that most of these political publications claim to be newspapers, but they are really much more like magazines. They dont have actual news Rathfelder (talk) 19:12, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

If something here is still unsolved, please start a CfD (Commons:Categories for discussion). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:20, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

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Help with photographer

See: Category:Photographs by Haruo Katoh. I am not sure if I have the right name. RAN (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Why Kato with h at the end? It looks more like Kato. H., or H. Kato. Nakonana (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

And is it even a photographer in the classical sense? Because in one of the clippings it looks like they are also the author of the text. Nakonana (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm curious about where "Haruo" has come from. I couldn't spot anything in the files to suggest "Haruo" or any other name beyond "H." Did you find some other clues or is it a wild guess? From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

• From here: George Eastman Museum https://collections.eastman.org/objects/list;jsessionid=659BC629061614F963B87D46C18C6E3E?filter=department%3APhotography%3Bpeople%3AHaruo%20Katoh, but maybe wrong, that is why I asked for help. --RAN (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Запитання до користувача: "Didym"

Вітаю пане користувач Didym, скажіть будь-ласка для чого ви видаляєте мої файли з Вікіпедії!? Чи можна це розглядати як вандалізм, ваші дії? Адже ніяких порушень в моїх фотографіях не було? Для чого ви видалили мої фотографії з вікіпедії? Адже я можу розглядати ваші дії як вандалізм. Дайте мені відповідь для чого ви видаляєте мої фотографії з вікіпедії? Ви є адміністратор? Severus777 (talk) 20:35, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

@Severus777 Пожалуйста ознакомьтесь с

• Вікісховище:Ліцензування
• Вікісховище:Сфера проекту
• Вікісховище:Правила копірайту за темами
• Commons:Норми авторського права за територією/Україна

Nakonana (talk) 23:46, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Отвечу на русском. Скорее всего ваши файлы нарушают авторское право, ведь вы не предоставили свободных лицензий на эти фотография как минимум. Лучше ознакомьтесь с правилами которые предоставил коллега Nakonana. Всего наилучшего Incall ^talk 07:36, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

If something here is still unclear, please make a new thread on the user's talk page or COM:Village pump/Copyright. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

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Third Geneva Convention, Article 13 and Wikimedia Commons

Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.

Should files that show prisoners of war in an insulting manner or for public curiosity be hosted on Commons? Some people on Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima (cropped).jpg think they shouldn't Trade (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps the pictures should or should not have been released under the Third Geneva Convention, but they were; Commons is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and is not censored. - The Bushranger (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Commons is hosted in the united states and generally has to comply with United States law. The United States is a signatory to the third Geneva convention. So i think the question is, is commons violating United States law by hosting these images. Bawolff (talk) 03:27, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention requires that prisoners of war be treated humanely and protected "against insults and public curiosity". This obligation applies to the Detaining Power, meaning the state holding POWs, with the aim of preventing humiliation, propaganda use, or exposure for public spectacle. It does not create a blanket prohibition on all images; context matters, and images used for encyclopedic, historical, or educational purposes without intent to degrade are generally not considered a violation.

Regarding Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation, GCIII binds states but not private organizations. As a US-based non-profit, WMF is not the Detaining Power, so hosting images does not create direct legal liability. (Section 230 further shields WMF from liability for user-uploaded content.) While the United States is a signatory to GCIII and has criminalized "grave breaches" under Article 130. such as killing or torture, exposing POWs to public curiosity is not itself a grave breach under US law. Any potential violation would lie with the original publisher or state actor, not a third-party host like us. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Requesting deletion of previous revisions of file

Is there a way to request deletion of previous versions of a file for copyvio reasons? I uploaded File:Judge James E. Horton and Dr R. R. Bridges during Scottsboro Boys trial.jpg, but I realized that the portions not in the cited newspaper may not be PD and cropped accordingly. Based5290 (talk) 06:35, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Based5290: You can do that by filing a regular deletion request, and then explaining in the request that it's not for the whole file, but for a previous version. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:29, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Commons:Revision deletion may also be interesting --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:02, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not just possibly interesting, this is the solution here – please do not start a regular deletion request but follow the guidance on COM:REVDEL to get the prior revision(s) deleted. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:55, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

• @Based5290: If you still have the text image, let me know the paper. I can check if they renewed their copyright. Having the image of the news article means we can post the text at Wikisource, if public domain. --RAN (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

  See File:The Birmingham News 1933 04 06 First Three Pages.pdf Didn't find any relevant renewals. Based5290 (talk) 18:58, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

  The 1st issue of this newspaper I see with a copyright notice is September 24, 1967 (September 23, 1967 issue with no notice)  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   20:03, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

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First published in the United States before 1930

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T271968

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T413619

The upload wizard is still offering "First published in the United States before 1930" as a reason why a work might not be covered by copyright; that should now be "First published in the United States before 1931".

Is there a reason why the annual update cannot be automated? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Possibly better asked at Commons:Upload Wizard feedback. - Jmabel ! talk 21:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Someone needs to keep doing this every december. RoyZuo (talk) 14:15, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

T271968 has been open for five years /sigh/ Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:46, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

This sounds like an "aw, poor baby" thing. Someone can't be bothered to make such a simple change once per year? RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 15:44, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

As I understand it, only a WMF employee or contractor can touch the Upload Wizard code, and there is sometimes no such a person assigned to maintain the Upload Wizard. - Jmabel ! talk 02:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Casts of shows

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:10, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss cast: not an area I work in a lot, but I was under the impression it is not normal to put a bunch of categories for individuals in a parent category for a TV show (in this case a web series) on which they happen to have performed. I thought the only media under a category like that should be ones relating to the show, and that if there is a person who appeared on the show and we have content related to that person on that show we create a category for the intersection of the person and show. Do I have this wrong? Pinging @Oornery. - Jmabel ! talk 06:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

You're quite correct, and multiple CfDs have reached that conclusion. Performing in a specific show is not a defining characteristic, and categorizing in this way would result in many actors being put in dozens of tangentially-related parent categories. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Agree; it will also cause lots of offtopic files underneath some category (which can be browsed using the deepcategory search operator). Probably a note about this casts thing and possibly similar cases should be added to some guideline/help/policy page. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd strongly support some added text to this effect in Commons:Categories - ideally in a more general form along the lines of "don't use categories as a database". Omphalographer (talk) 23:34, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I had started the original CfD and was a proponent for having these categories deleted, but this is the first time a "cast members" category actually contains valid media. Category:Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss cast is still in need of cleaning up (the general actor categories should be removed, as should File:Norman Reedus by Gage Skidmore 4.jpg this image of Norman Reedus at a Walking Dead panel) but the other photos show cast members at panels and photo-ops that are specifically about Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss. See also my comment on Categories for Discussion. ReneeWrites (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year 2026 to everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think there is some confusion above:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

School class pictures

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

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

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

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

Google Image Search leads to [3]

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

Uniform matches the latter: [4]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Malformed dates

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Photographs of Israel" before 15 May 1948

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

License review YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

Category:FoP-United States

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

International payment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No infobox visible in Category

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

if this is not resolved (infoboxes getting fixed over time), then please move this or create a new thread at Commons:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

'Deepcategory' seems not to function

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

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

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

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

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

technical issues are for Commons:Village pump/Technical and there's a thread already Prototyperspective (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Suburban stations in Helsinki in 2003

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

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

I think the first three are indeed Puistola. The last one might be Jokela railway station, though it is not in that interval. The red building left of the locomotive might be visible in the left edge of this photo. Antti T. Leppänen (talk) 12:47, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree, it would match the three elektrified tracks.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:01, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

 DoneSmiley.toerist (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Station in Finland

Where is this? It was made travelling from Joensuu to Vaasa. There is an museum? Museo.Smiley.toerist (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:Pieksämäki railway station. MKFI (talk) 08:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:03, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Public Domain Mark 1.0

https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-the-university-in-europe-volume-1-universities-in-the-middle-ages

Check the usage section. Does this mean this file is released under the CC-Zero license? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsacrificer (talk • contribs) 20:40, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

No. The Internet Archive metadata is incorrect; page 4 of the book states clearly that the authors reserve their rights:

© Cambridge University Press 1992

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the
written permission of Cambridge University Press.

Omphalographer (talk) 20:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank You for Last Year – Join Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026

Dear Wikimedia communities,

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

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

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

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

📷 Photo campaign on Wikimedia Commons

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

• Meta-Wiki
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Early registration for updates is now open via the Event page

Stay connected and receive updates:

• Telegram channel
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We look forward to collaborating with you and your community.

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

Group travel category

i'm looking for a category for the kind of tourist activity where a group of individual people book and join a multi day trip organised by an agency guided by a tour guide.

it could correspond to en:Package_tour en:Escorted_tour de:Gruppenreise, which exist as 3 different wikidata items now. i'm confused about which of these fits the popular kind of activity i describe, and whether some of these wd items should/could merge. RoyZuo (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I would to only use a group category if there is a clear group interaction in the picture. If you fotograph a group of travellers, these can be connected or not. For example travellers with a Flixbus. These could be individual travellers. I would the principle: wat you see in the picture, you can categorise.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Seconding this. Media from a tourist activity, such as photos or videos, is probably best categorized based on the specific activity occurring or places depicted in the media. The fact that the photographer was there on a package tour probably isn't all that important. Omphalographer (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

"Package tour" seems to be a separate subject. Group tours can be part of a package tour but not all packages are for groups. Escorted tour and "Gruppenreise" (Group travel) seem to be synonymous. I also think Smiley.toerist has the right idea that you should only categorize what you see in the image, to keep things simple. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Seconding that package tour appears to be different. It's more about organizing/selling a bundle consisting of accommodation and transport, and doesn't seem to be linked to groups or guided tours.

We have Category:Groups of tourists, but that is not particularly for fixed groups that travel together. However, it could be a parent category for group travel. Nakonana (talk) 00:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

i decided to go with cat:escorted tours. i'm surprised that such a category has not been created and not many files exist yet. RoyZuo (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:45, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

AI images

I came across File:Carlos Lacerda 80 anos com IA.jpg, showing him at the age of 80. Actually he died when he was 63. Should we have images like this? Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Carlos Lacerda 80 anos com IA.jpg. --Túrelio (talk) 17:27, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

(obviously not and already deleted) Prototyperspective (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

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Unidentified train stations in Sweden

I have added a new file to Category:Unidentified train stations in Sweden (116 items). This is on a travel from Umeå centralstation to Stockholm.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Unclear what the question is Prototyperspective (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Wich station? The question is now solved.Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Murder suicides

Do we have a category for Murder suicides? I see the individual categories but no intersecting one. RAN (talk) 23:23, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Category:Murder–suicides --ReneeWrites (talk) 09:21, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Ha! The dreaded m-dash/n-dash foils me again. I will make a few redirects to make it easier to find. Thanks! --RAN (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

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Historical photographer's studio marks

For File:Anchors and displays of model ships, A-Y-P, 1909.jpg, I see {{Watermark}}, presumably because of the photographer's mark at lower right. Is this really desired? While there would be no legal ramifications in overwriting such an image and removing the photographer's mark, is that really desirable? It seem to me more like removing an artist's signature from an oil painting.

Pinging @HerrAdams who added the template here. - Jmabel ! talk 00:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Agreed; I don't think this is helpful. For that matter: how often is it actually useful to apply {{Watermark}} to an image? In most situations, it's probably more effective to contact the uploader directly, through their talk page or email, and request that they not watermark their images. Sticking a template on the file page seems much less likely to yield results. Omphalographer (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

• I think the {{Watermark}} warning should be reserved for destructive watermarks, I would remove it. --RAN (talk) 16:01, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:50, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

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Researchgate.net

Can someone please help me out? I try to read their copyright page and as far as I can find they use CC-BY. Before making a mistake, please confirm this if possible. Thanks! Harold Foppele (talk) 22:39, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

There is no single license for all content on ResearchGate. Freely licensed publications will usually display the license on the main page for the publication, e.g. "License · CC BY-NC 4.0" on https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399867697 (chosen at random). Omphalographer (talk) 23:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

@Omphalographer Thank you! Harold Foppele (talk) 06:56, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

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Question about copyright status of a 1905 family photograph

I have a question about the copyright status of this 1905 family photograph in this newspaper article.

• Maurice, Maggie (1977-07-21). "She Loves the Town She Hasn't Seen in 50 Years". The Burlington Free Press. No. 202. pp. 1C. Retrieved 2025-12-26 – via Newspapers.com.

So, this has an unnamed photographer, is a US photo from 1905 & over 120 years old, & was published in a news paper article in 1977 with no mention of source. This also happens to be a photograph of Frank Albert Waugh, Frederick V. Waugh, Albert Waugh, Dorothy Waugh (artist), & Sidney Waugh. I am trying to determine if this would be in an acceptable PD status for Commons. This is above my pay grade knowledge level of copyright. Peaceray (talk) 00:56, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

This newspaper has No copyright notice on it and it is public domain ({{PD-US-no notice}}), even up to 1989 there was some newspapers and magazines with no copyright notice like The Baltimore Sun, that photo is also {{PD-old-assumed}}  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   02:05, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

OK, thanks! Peaceray (talk) 14:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

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"Photographs"

Are edits like [5] and [6] in accord with policy or against it? I'll say it straight out: I'm against this. "Photographs" is the default and we do not need to introduce an extra layer of categories all over the place. But we certainly should go one way or the other on this, and do it consistently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Category:John Smith

Do disambiguation categories belong in the surname categories? Should Category:John Smith be in Category:Smith (surname)? They do not appear to be in them currently. RAN (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Disambiguation categories are navigational tools, and often group different kinds of subjects that merely share a name (people, places, fictional characters, etc.), which makes them unsuitable to be categorized like this. The John Smith disambiguation page for instance not only includes people, but also a publishing company and a film with this name. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:32, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

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

Hello everyone and happy new year 2026,

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

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

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

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

Hello User:Xaosflux,

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Steward note: this has been extended for 3 months. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:07, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Invitation to Host Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 in Your Country

Please help translate to your language

Hello everyone,

We are delighted to invite Wikimedia affiliates, user groups, and community organizations worldwide to participate in Wiki Loves Folklore 2026, an international initiative dedicated to documenting and celebrating folk culture across the globe.

About Wiki Loves Folklore

Wiki Loves Folklore is an annual international photography competition hosted on Wikimedia Commons. The campaign runs from 1 February to 31 March 2026 and encourages photographers, cultural enthusiasts, and community members to contribute photographs that highlight:

• Folk traditions and rituals
• Cultural festivals and celebrations
• Traditional attire and crafts
• Performing arts, music, and dance
• Everyday practices rooted in folk heritage

Through this campaign, we aim to preserve and promote diverse folk cultures and make them freely accessible to the world.

Project page on Wikimedia Commons

Host a Local Edition

As we celebrate the eight edition of Wiki Loves Folklore, we warmly invite communities to organize a local edition in their country or region. Hosting a local campaign is a great opportunity to:

• Increase visibility of your region’s folk culture
• Engage new contributors in your community
• Enrich Wikimedia Commons with high-quality cultural content

Sign up to organize:

If your team prefers to organize the competition in either February or March only, please feel free to let us know.

If you are unable to organize, we encourage you to share this opportunity with other interested groups or organizations in your region.

Get in Touch

If you have any questions, need support, or would like to explore collaboration opportunities, please feel free to contact us via:

• The project Talk pages
• Email: support@wikilovesfolklore.org

We are also happy to connect via an online meeting if your team would like to discuss planning or coordination in more detail.

Warm regards,

The Wiki Loves Folklore International Team

✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 13:34, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Freedom of Panorama (FOP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Legal clarification of Article 52 which deals with the use of works permanently located in public places. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Free Use: Works that are permanently located in public places such as squares, parks, or streets can be freely used and accessed by the public.
2. Restrictions on Three-Dimensional Reproductions:
- No Three-Dimensional Reproductions: While these works can be freely viewed, they cannot be reproduced in three-dimensional form.
- No Economic Advantage from Reproductions: Any reproduction of these works in three-dimensional form must not be used for economic gain.
3. Attribution: If the work includes information about its source and authorship, that information must be provided when the work is used.

The legal clarification regarding Article 52 of the copyright law in Bosnia and Herzegovina is accurate, and therefore, freedom of panorama (FOP) exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, albeit with certain limitations.

Explanation
The provided text accurately describes the specific nuances of FOP in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Article 52 of its copyright law.

- Free Use of Public Works: The public is generally allowed to use and access works that are permanently located in public places such as parks, squares, or streets.
- Restrictions: The key limitation, which is common in jurisdictions with limited FOP, is the prohibition of three-dimensional reproductions for commercial gain. This means taking a photograph (a two-dimensional reproduction) of a public sculpture is generally fine, but creating and selling a physical replica (a three-dimensional reproduction) of that sculpture is prohibited without permission from the copyright holder.
- Attribution: Proper attribution is required if information about the source and authorship is present on the work.

These conditions confirm that while a form of FOP exists, it is a limited form that does not allow for all types of use, particularly commercial 3D reproduction.
You are also free to carefully examine the documents outlined on this page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:My-wiki-photos
Due to time constraints on my part, I will not make any comments on this topic.

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Pyb (talk) 23:26, 24 January 2026 (UTC) (see Commons_talk:Freedom_of_panorama#Bosnia_and_Herzegovina)

Copy cat names to wikidata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or d:Wikidata:Project chat as this concerns edits on Wikidata. Samoasambia ✎ 01:49, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Mass notifications

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello @Basile Morin,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Makes sense. Probably it would be good to request the development of a bot for this or the addition of a task to an existing bot at Commons:Bots/Work requests if you haven't done so.

Another thing I forgot to mention below is that one could also hide all structured data edits, this seems to be what m:Community Wishlist/W5 is about. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:00, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

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

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

Getting logged out every ten minutes (or so)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

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

Did this happen only recently? I was wondering why sometimes I get logged out. It seems to be a technical issue (and maybe it would be good to move this to Commons:Village pump/Technical). However, for me it's very far from every ten minutes or so. Did this never happen before and now very often? Prototyperspective (talk) 23:17, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Now it's gone. It was while renaming, mostly. No problems anymore, so it was only recently, 10 days ago. - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk)

Navigation within a category

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

@Maculosae tegmine lyncis: As Jmabel pointed out, it sounds like a gallery is more likely to get you the result you're looking for (sorting by inventory number, not having pagination). The National Gallery of London has a gallery page such as that, which can be found here: Paintings in the National Gallery, London. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

As said, a gallery would probably be the right approach but you could also have the unique ID at the beginning of the subcat names and/or the file names so that one can navigate by that (there's TOC templates for cats). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:47, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

1 year per century miscategorized

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your responses :). Yes, a new structure would be more complicated :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:25, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

we could just ditch all these intersections of time and place. instead have simplest cats like 2000-11-11 and paris. when people want to search a time period, the search automatically helps them to find files from a well defined range, e.g. 2000-01-01 to 2009-12-31 for 2000s, 2001-01-01 to 2100-12-31 for 21st century...

or people should just learn to count from 0 and use a Holocene calendar that starts from year 00000. then 0th century for year 00000 to 00099, 1st century for 00100 to 00199... 120th century for 12000 to 12099... then decades 12000s to 12090s are all well contained in the 120th century. RoyZuo (talk) 15:15, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better if eg the 21st century started at 1st January 2000. I think many people and probably most think it does start at that point. Moreover, en:Category:21st century also includes 2000-related categories. Valid point and good it's raised but currently this can't really be dealt with anyway. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:10, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree. As we don't have a year zero, the first year of the 1st century is 1, and it goes on in the next centuries, so that every century has the same length (if we ignore phenomena like leap years/leap seconds etc. ) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 12:44, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Not sure what you agree with but regardless of what you mean: it would probably be good or needed to add an info about this to some categories like Category:Centuries and all top-level subcats, probably via editing template(s) including Template:centurybox. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Reply function failure

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something's wrong with Commons:File requests/header such that it makes the reply function fail on pages transcluding it, but i cant figure out why. could someone more skilled take a look please? this problem has been bugging Commons:File requests for years. RoyZuo (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't know what the cause is but it's one of the things I requested to be fixed at m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Fix the issues breaking the Reply tool (voting open!) where I will add your example.

Either way, please do not post more threads about technical issues/subjects to general VP but to the board about technical issues, Commons:Village pump/Technical. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:14, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Why is it so hard to upload images?.

Isee people go through gymnastics to upload files. Could the instructions be improved? Krok6kola (talk) 01:20, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Could you please give more details about how you try to upload photos and what specifically you find difficult? Thanks. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 01:36, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Probably sth for Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements but lacking explanation. The upload buttons are well-visible. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

The primary reason it is difficult, is because we need to know a lot about a file before we can host it. This is very uncommon to most people and not really an experience people are used to or questions that people have ever had to think about before doing it here. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:34, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

still unclear which instructions should be improved how and why (if it's instructions on separate pages, I suggest asking on their talk page(s)) Prototyperspective (talk) 18:10, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

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Category:Deaths from AIDS

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Not dissimilar to the suicide-related category question above. Wondering what other folks think about the phrasing on this category. Wikidata and English Wikipedia style does not attribute deaths to AIDS directly, in line with the medical consensus; people with AIDS who died as a result of their condition almost always die from a related infection or illness, so the terminology is usually "from/due to AIDS-related illness" or "from/due to AIDS-related complications". I'm not sure if this was just truncated for space reasons ("Deaths from AIDS-related illness" is longer than "Deaths from AIDS", but not that long), or if it was an oversight/unintentional. Thoughts? 19h00s (talk) 13:26, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I think this would be better to discuss the normal way via a CfD (category for discussion) where the cat could be renamed to e.g. Category:Deaths associated with AIDS. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:03, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, done! Anyone interested please feel free to chime in, I'm not personally sure which alternative makes the most sense/is the most appropriate. 19h00s (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I want to rename a very large number of files

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I want to rename a large number of files. About 1000 files. I don’t want to file manual requests is there a way to do this that doesn’t cause issues for the filemovers? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 21:48, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

A month ago I renamed 1200 files in 16 hours, so 1000 files is a lot of work, hours and hours, but it is possible. I don't like bot moves for renaming, but that's my personal opinion, as you can see. - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I see you're not a file mover (yet). Then I leave it to somebody else, to answer this. The 1200 was nice to do, but not a second time, lol. - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

@Inertia6084 Oh okay. I am not sure how the filemover permission works either. But if it just involves clicking approve or whatever that would be easy Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:03, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

@Inertia6084 so you recommend just putting the template on them? It also might not be the best reason. But for ones like File:Sitelen-seli-kiwen-Nutan.svg I want to move them to File:Sitelen seli kiwen - Nutan.svg since I decided that the current way they are named does not explain clearly what the glyph name is vs the font name. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 21:59, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

No I don't recommend that, because I thought you became file mover, but I see the request is still there. A thousand is a lot, and I'm not going to do that amount of renames anymore. Maybe someone reads this, as I said above, who knows the right answer. - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 22:05, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

See Commons:File renaming#Mass rename. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:18, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Now you can do it, you're a filemover now. In one day is too much, it are not requests, but you have to rename it manually every time. Partly it's semi. 100 a day, and in ten days you're ready, or 200 a day (a lot) and five days. :-) lol. - Inertia6084 (talk) (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

What about the tool that @Prototyperspective mentioned? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 17:46, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

I got it working. Did a lot of moves today Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 05:13, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Rule for scale

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

How do we categorise images like the above, that use a rule for scale? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:17, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

There's a Category:Rulers indicating scale. Belbury (talk) 15:20, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I tried a host of terms, in various combinations, but that one didn't occur to me. I've now set up a bunch of redirects. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:41, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Annual review of the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines

I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 9 February 2026. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk)

21:01, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

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

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Consigned (talk) 23:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Cav. V. Simone photographer

Help needed at File:Acerenza Panorama BNPZ.tif to work out the full name and birth and death dates for "Cav. V. Simone". RAN (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe Cavaliere (=a title, "knight") Vincenzo Simone, see [7]. Nakonana (talk) 20:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

These[8][9] websites seem to confirm it. Born 1892, died 1968. Nakonana (talk) 20:08, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

• Amazing detective work, the "Cav." had me stumped! Do we have a Wikidata entry for them? --RAN (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

  Doesn't look like it. Nakonana (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

  I have created a Wikidata item for him and have added the Wikidata template to his Commons category. Nakonana (talk) 07:11, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:16, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Usurped URLs

Do we have a page like en:Wikipedia:Link rot/URL change requests for reporting usurped URLs that are linked from multiple Commons pages? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:58, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

I've recently created {{Corrected metadata}} with the intent to better document factual problems in the original metadata, and document why we corrected it. I think we should be clearer about what we change from the sourced metadata than we do now, and provide links to our reasoning for doing so. Hadn't completely finished it yet, but it's out there. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:38, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Simon Burchell (talk) 10:02, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

The file still has two {{Information}} when there should be only one. As far as I understood it, the solution is pointed out here in the first comment: changing the SD (this does not seem to be about the exif metadata). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

South Korea FOP

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright § South Korea FOP

Moved by Prototyperspective on 11:46, 24 January 2026 (UTC) –Consigned (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Detecting meaningless captions such as "DSCF1234" or "qwerthjkl" right before uploading, using local-only embedded LLM

Hi all,

I often see titles such as "DSCF1234" or "qwerthjkl" on Commons.

I also happen to develop an upload tool for Commons.

What do you think about the opt-in experiment below?

• Detect such titles using a local-only (thus privacy-friendly) small LLM.
• If it is such a title, show a tooltip such as "Make sure to write descriptive names, see Commons:File_naming".
• This would be a separate version of the app, that only people who really want to try this experiment would download.
• If the experiment goes well, I would consult the community again and possibly let more people use it.

I know the community feels strongly about AI, which is why I am consulting here. To be clear, the LLM resides on the local device, and never uses the Internet, nor reports query content to anywhere.

Any feedback welcome, thanks! :-) Syced (talk) 08:36, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

I like the idea, but wouldn't a local LLM (or a SLM/small language model) use up significant amount of RAM/CPU? Leaderboard (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it does take RAM! CPU, not so much: less than a second for this detection, possibly doable while the user does something else like picking depictions. This project is focused on the long-term horizon, and in the future an embedded LLM will probably sit in memory of the OS, ready to use by any program, so using it will not take more RAM. :-) Syced (talk) 08:27, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

i think people who care enough to use such apps dont write gibberish captions in the first place? RoyZuo (talk) 13:13, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

The app in question actually does get some gibberish (sigh). I try to monitor all uploads and warn such users, but I believe that explaining in realtime (before the upload) is more efficient. Also, realtime explanation increases chances of turning a "silly" newcomer into a long-term contributor. Banning them or admonishing them after the upload(s) decreases chances of them becoming a long-term contributor. Syced (talk) 10:37, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

no i dont mean the app you are already using, but "separate version of the app, that only people who really want to try this experiment would download". those who would enter the experiment dont write gibberish in the first place.

i agree with you about being nice and helpful to new users. i have also made several proposals in this direction over the years. RoyZuo (talk) 15:56, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah yes, true. This is a kind of proof-of-concept. Syced (talk) 13:34, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

The Upload Wizard is actually already catching some of those generic filenames, especially the "DSC_" or similarly styled ones, and warns about their use. That may only be a reminder, not a prohibition, which could explain that some uploads still sport such names. The other, more probable, reason is found in imports from Flickr et al., where the names aren't really filtered. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 13:56, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I think reminder is the best way to go, because some common names from my region may look like gibberish to an English speaker haha. By the way, an LLM would probably be able to tell the difference (further testing will be needed to confirm this). Syced (talk) 10:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Sounds like sth for Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements. I don't know if your proposal is about file titles or captions or both (the latter would probably make most sense). Prototyperspective (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

file titles or captions: both :-) Syced (talk) 10:38, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

American football players who died by suicide

Do we track this with a category? It is an intersection of two categories, but one that is being actively tracked by other organizations because of the connection between concussive brain damage and suicides. RAN (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think so. I agree that it's a potentially interesting intersection from an encyclopedic perspective, but it's not relevant to the media we host of these people. Omphalographer (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

We have images of news articles on American football players who died by suicide, I think that is what people may be looking for. We also have images of people where too little is known about them to create a Wikipedia article, it would just be a few sentences, and be a perma-stub. --RAN (talk) 20:05, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Technically it's not relevant for the media we host to categorize people by when or how they died in general, unless the category contains media related to that death (very few of them ever do). But seeing as the parent category exists and is used in this manner, I wouldn't be opposed to an intersecting category about this being made. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to this category (I've definitely found examples of this while doing my uploads of 1920s photographs). Abzeronow (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

If we do this, we need to define what level of playing football qualifies someone to belong in the category. I wouldn't want to see this include, for example, someone who played high school football for a year and then killed themself in their 70s. - Jmabel ! talk 01:40, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Could be wrong but I think the American football players already is just for professional-level American football players. At most, at the top-level there could be some photos of amateur players too but these wouldn't be moved to any subcat (unless there is eg a cat for this type of photos) or at least not this one. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:18, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Such categories should not exist. They only create edit wars on cases where the cause of death is unclear. This is a job for Wikidata and Wikipedia, not for Commons where we are not able to add references to categories. GPSLeo (talk) 12:05, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

• We already have Category:People who died by suicide, so not controversial. --RAN (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

  You can search categories with e.g "cat:football players suicide" so I don't know why you asked this here: if you can't find a category, then it's not being tracked. If one such exists I very much doubt there would be any controversy or edit wars relating to it but instead it could be fairly incomplete and probably not very useful as in not worth the time populating. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

About Template:De minimis

Would someone be able to add translation functions for Chinese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, German, French, Korean, Russian, etc., at the bottom of the "Template:De minimis", similar to the "Template:FoP-China" template?--Huangdan2060 (talk) 05:10, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to change default display of galleries on category pages

I think this has been proposed in the past (including sort of one time by me a decade ago), I wanted to try and bring it up again. Part of the reason to bring it up now is that WMF is working on a lot of image stuff right now, so its a good time to ask for a change if we want it. (I have no idea if WMF would allow this change as in the past there was concerns about changing the size of so many images at once. However with changes going on with how images are rendered, i suspect that may be less of an issue now. In any case, can't hurt to ask). I also think expectations on the internet have changed and people expect larger images now a days then they did a decade ago.

Currently category pages display images quite small. I am of the opinion they are displayed too small, especially when taking into account how much whitespace there is between images. I think it would be better to make them larger so that people can see the images better.

I made a comparison of options at User:Bawolff/different_gallery. I think if we are sticking to the traditional gallery, then a size of 180px would make more sense then the current 120px

Alternatively, I think the "packed" gallery mode actually looks nicer, so my actual proposal would be to change the mode type and keep the current size. You can see what that looks like here. This would also look somewhat more similar to the output of Special:MediaSearch. The main downside to this is that for very narrow images, the caption containing the file name might get cut-off due to lack of room.

As a note, currently MediaWiki only has an option to change the default gallery settings everywhere. This would affect everything: categories, Special:NewFiles, the <gallery> tag (if other options aren't specified), etc. If there is consensus to change it just for categories and not other places, that would require additional changes to MediaWiki, but I suspect would not be difficult to get added.

Thoughts? Bawolff (talk) 08:05, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see (and vote on if you agree) Wish413: Larger thumbnails in category views.

Even worse is the current display of categories on mobile Web; I intend to make a separate wish about that soon. Agree with what you said; you may want to add some of that to the talk page of the wish. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:49, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

It would be helpful to have consensus here (assuming people agree with the idea) as that would allow me to push this through non-wishlust processes. Bawolff (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

The 180px packed gallery mode looks very nice. Long captions should be collapsed. All of them should be optional. Less frequently used options will be removed. We don't need to think too much about them. What do you think? --Henrydat (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe then it would be better to post/move this to Commons:Village pump/Proposals and making the questions and their options more clear than they already are.

I like the display of the 220px or 320px but with the packed mode and for all of these options I don't like how the file-titles are displayed: they take up too much height so maybe it would be good to trim the title and display the full only at hover or some solution like that (but still enabling ctrl+f searching the parts of titles that are not shown).

Basically, I like how the search results in the MediaViewer are displaying except that there the file-titles are missing and I like how the categories are shown in the Commons app except that the app still only shows captions when both title and caption(s) exist instead of both or just the title.

In any case, I think it should be made possible for the user to easily adjust the size which kind of negates the need to agree on any size and which can cover more use-cases. For example, I may generally prefer smaller thumbnails but enlarge them when categorizing lots of files in a category based on the language of the labels on the map images. Such a size adjustment option is proposed in the wish linked above. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:18, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

My main gripe with the standard gallery isn't the default thumbnail size, as it can manually be adjusted, but the lack of mobile-friendly (or even mobile-compatible) options. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:43, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, I am talking about the galleries that are automatically added at the bottom of categories. It is not possible for a user to manually adjust the thumbnail size of those galleries. Bawolff (talk) 16:01, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd love to see packed height:160px —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

About Template:FoP-China

Could the technical staff add "|author1=|author2=" to the "Template:FoP-China", similar to the "|deathyear=" in "Template:PD-Art" ?--Huangdan2060 (talk) 08:38, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Note: better fit for Commons:Template requests than this global general Commons board. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:14, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Huangdan2060 (talk) 15:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Moving 560 categories

I previously suggested moving files from 560+ categories into 560+ new categories and leaving the previous categories 'permanently empty' of files. The motivation for the change is well-grounded and I think has reasonable consensus.

However I've noticed other people, including the original creator of these categories, have been moving the categories themselves (rather than the files) to newly created categories, with the old name providing a redirection link (basically renaming them). There are as many as 24 such categories.

This alternative seems much simpler than my earlier suggestion, and given that it's already begun I think my earlier suggestion would only complicate everything further. The only benefit to my solution was to preserve the index from that particular book to the matching commons category. We can preserve that use case by linking to the original category from this pre-existing gallery page, which I've now done.

As such I'll follow what others have been doing, and I'll link to this discussion in the changelog when moving the categories.

BeakheadIntrados (talk) 16:21, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Visual disambiguation

Should disambiguation categories also contain images of the people listed? When looking for the correct person, sometimes it is easier to visually identify the correct person, rather than just looking at occupations and birth and death dates. Disambiguation categories currently read: "This category page should not hold any files." I think they should contain a single image of each person being disambiguated, preferably a close crop of the face. RAN (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Neutral, but if we do this it should be a <gallery> element after the text. Absolutely opposed to categorizing images in a disambiguation category, almost guaranteed to be a maintenance nightmare. - Jmabel ! talk 19:54, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Do we already have a bot that removes all images from the disambiguation categories? If so, your solution would be perfect. I find uncategorized images of people, where the name of the person in the title or description, and have been trying to assign them to the correct person. Visually this is a lot easier. Think of how many John Smiths we have. As we grow, the number of uncategorized people with similar names grows. Anyone that does category maintenance on people, knowns the problem of people assigned to the wrong category, because they have a similar/same name. --RAN (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

There isn't a bot that removes images from disambiguation categories as it's uncertain which category they belong to, but disambig categories with media do get put in a maintenance category for manual (human) review (Category:Non-empty disambiguation categories). There are bots that move content from redirects, though. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:21, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

To categorize people, I first search Wikipedia for their name. If the description is in Spanish, I search the Spanish Wikipedia page. Based on the estimated age of the person in the image, I can select the most likely candidates and view the corresponding pages. If there's an image, it's easy. Otherwise, the sources can provide a clue. Wouter (talk) 20:39, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Galleries for visual identification for subcategories aren't uncommon - see Category:Categories with a gallery for a better choice of sub-categories. I don't see any reason why we couldn't extend it to disambig pages, though I'm not sure how useful it would be. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

There are no pages or files in this category is superfluous. Can the mediawiki software recognize Template:Disambig? --Henrydat (talk) 18:22, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Should people be even indentified, if the identity is irrelevant in the image? For example: the toddler in File:Baby Andrea met grootouders op strand 1933.jpg is my mother with her grandparents. The picture itself tells a story of grandparents (born 1878, 1882) being outside their comfort zone on the beach.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I think that's a different case than the one that is being asked about here. The case here is about individuals who share the same name. One could create a disambiguation category with the text "Alexander Popov" is the name of the following individuals:, then follows a list of individuals: Category:Alexander Popov (ice hockey), Category:Alexander Popov (Moskovskiy), Category:Alexander Popov (musician), Category:Alexander Popov (painter). RAN is asking whether the disambiguation category should not just list the names of the individuals but also contain an image of each individual by the name "Alexander Popov", so that someone, who is trying to find the correct category for an uncategorized image "Alexander Popov.jpg" but does not know any of the listed individuals, could easily identify whether the depicted "Alexander Popov" is the ice hockey player, musician, or painter, etc. Nakonana (talk) 16:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

See: Category:Unidentified photographers from Italy

I am not sure what the category was intended for. It has a few photos of people where the photographer has not been identified. There are also categories with people in them, they look like they are identified, I am confused. Are the people pictured photographers that we are looking for more info on them, or are they more images where we do not know the name of the photographer? I can see having images where we have the photographer's name and need more info, like the case above with "Cav. V. Simone". --RAN (talk) 02:41, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

It seems to originally be about photos of unidentified photographers. Either way: could you start a category for discussion thread (CfD)? Prototyperspective (talk) 09:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

After creating the category, the user did edits like these: [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], on photos of identified photographers. It doesn't seem to make much sense. Unless the user was challenging the gender identification of the photographers. -- Asclepias (talk) 12:13, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

The diffs support that this was intended as a category for photos showing photographers. The photographer of the first diff is not identified: whether or not the person is identified refers to the categories set on the file, not e.g. the file title. An issue with the gender identification could have been a motivation for the user; in the first diff I think the cat should only have been added in addition instead of replacing Category:Male photographers from Italy. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

What? A person who is clearly identified in the description (and/or the title) is not unidentified. Commons has a lot of portraits of identified persons who do not have a specific category to the name of the person. Does that justify categorizing them as unidentified persons? I could understand if, by removing the gender category, the user wanted to make a sort of statement against categorization by gender, but even then they should leave the files in the parent category, not categorize the persons as "unidentified" when actually they are identified. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I think it's about the categories but this may need broader discussion and may vary per case/type. For example, the language of files in Category:Unidentified language is often clear from the file description and at least via the file contents but it's not identified via a category. Category:Drone videos from unidentified countries contains the files that are not yet in any country category of Category:Drone videos by country even when the country name is in the file description. One topic here is whether to have such Unidentified categories when it's not wanted and/or not feasible to categorize the subjects. We generally like to have things categorized by the city depicted or the country located in so it makes sense there to set such a category but here we probably don't want categories for photographers or do we? (And it's not unlikely we usually would like to have categories about photographers as these can be used to sort/find their photos with; that's probably just different for photographers with essentially no photos on Commons which makes this not so simple.)

if, by removing the[…] I don't disagree with you. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Was the gender thing part of the crusade a few years ago to remove all gender identification? I remember there was a small group arguing for the removal of gender in categories. --RAN (talk) 04:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Categories for people born on a particular day

For example these. Is this a thing? I don't like it. Pinging @Mr-ahk since he is the one person I've seen on my watchlist using one of these, perhaps he'll have a clue what is going on here. - Jmabel ! talk 06:10, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Category:Births by year (btw this category has contradictory categorization) is I think narrow enough with making it more specific isn't useful and just adds extra work and overly incomplete categories etc so I would suggest nominating these for discussion/deletion. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:53, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not that much different from categories like Category:Photographs taken on 2026-01-29 and Category:Videos taken on 2026-01-29 isn't it? After all persons are born on a certain day (their birthday). There are lots of people who want to know which celebrity they share their birthday with or whatever famous person died on that same day. Categories like Category:1942 births are not that useful then because who's going to take the effort to read all these thousands of entries? Let alone the bunch of politicians or whatever they are with only one picture and no Wikidata entry shown on (some of) these <random year>_births pages. Probably it can also be a solution to repair apparently abandoned projects like the red links on for example: January 10. Mr-ahk (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

People who are not notable for a Wikidata item should also not have a category about them. Such information should not be stored on Commons and especially not through categories as categories can not have references. GPSLeo (talk) 23:09, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree with that last. The threshold for a Wikidata item is the lower of the two. - Jmabel ! talk 23:55, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not how we currently categorize births (or deaths), but I see no issue with changing that, especially for categories that contain thousands of entries (and thus would have reasonably populated subcategories, as well). Diffusing crowded categories to more specific subcategories is in line with Commons policy. But the births-by-year (and deaths-by-year) categories are usually added via the infobox, so a change would have to be made to how that works. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:10, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Central banner request for Wiki Loves Punjab 2026 contest

The first edition of the Wiki Loves Punjab photography contest will take place on Wikimedia Commons from February 1 to March 15, 2026, aiming to enrich content related to Villages of Punjab. A central notice request has been submitted to reach both registered and non-registered WikiCommons users from Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan. Thanks. -- Kuldeep (Punjabi Wikimedians) (talk) 04:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Unidentified French port in 1948

This is from a family album with no description of the picture. I suspect Marseille.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:32, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Please do not post to this board just to identify categories of an arbitrary unimportant file out of tens of thousand of files that lack categories / location-identification. There are other places for this such as Category:Ports and harbours (unidentified). This board isn't really for lots of extremely narrow-topic requests like this. The linked cat contains over 130 files and nothing is even special about the one you asked about. Thanks, Prototyperspective (talk) 12:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I have also had good results, on Reddit, at r/wherewasthistaken. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it is probably the Old Port of Marseille. @Smiley.toerist: You may get a better answer on Commons:Bistro. @Prototyperspective: Please do not be so antagonistic. Thanks, Yann (talk) 12:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree and found the church tower. I have asked for a rename.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I care about Commons even when it sounds unfriendly (sorry if it does, it's not meant to be unfriendly). The user has been cluttering this board with many of these threads already. There are hundreds of these files and nothing is special about this one that warrants creating a thread about it but not any of the hundreds of the other files. I have hundreds of files, categories, and topics that would be more important but I don't spam them here because I have more respect for people's attention, time, and productivity. If this kind of posting is accepted here, users may just as well post about each and every image in Category:Drone videos from unidentified countries, Category:Unidentified caves and whatnot. Somebody has to say it imo. Please do not create these kinds of threads here. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:42, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I should have used the French Bistro. There is enough local knowledge there.Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree there need to be a balance, between endless threads about search puzzles and only business and efficiency. People can always skip them and not spend any time on them. But other people are curious and find a satisfaction solving puzzles and often learning new things doing it. Just dont tel people how to spend their time. By the way: In the background I also categorise, sort, correct, update and do many other usefull things, beside uploading files (more than 28000 uploads from 2008, without mass Glam uploads).Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Further above there is a thread about 34,000 media files needing categories as of 2020. You want a thread here about every 10th of these files? Please reflect on your practices. This is not okay, and I won't post threads here about dozens of files and categories I consider important either. I could and I'm sure many other users have lots of files and categories they'd like to talk about but they use the established ways for this such as adding the file to the respective Unidentified category. Please have some respect for people's time and attention and the value of the community being able to focus on genuine large-scale subjects such as "34,000 media needing categories as of 2020" which is a scope far above individual files. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:30, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Also it's unfair; e.g. to the contributors who populate the Category:Unidentified subjects categories without repeatedly asking about specific individual files thereof here. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

i concur with yann. there's nothing wrong asking any question here, the general discussion page for any topic. RoyZuo (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Then don't complain when I come here asking about random 434 individual files that are missing categories. In separate threads that clutter the page. What's the place to discuss topics concerning the Commons project? There's > 500,000 files missing categories, I'll just be making individual threads about one random file of these that I think looks nice /s Also 6,215 categories for discussion, I'll just make a new thread about one arbitrary individual case once a day.

If the community doesn't want to have a place where there's focused attention on unsolved tasks of which there are hundreds of highly-important ones that affect whole branches of categories and things of that scale that aren't even posted here then so be it. The value of not wasting community attention and focus and having such a place is pretty clear. Just saying "there's nothing wrong" without addressing anything that has been said and without any reason other than that this place is in your view for any topic isn't convincing and I don't see how it can be convincing. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

If there is certain pattern to the individual files, you can certainly use some examples to demonstrate and see if some general solution can be applied or tips found. I am afraid that in practice it is individualy resolved and the easy ones are resolved first, so it will get progressively harder. I am working on the files without categories, where I use my knowledge to resolve. I know a lot of trains/trams etc and using the geografic location some files have, one can give the rigth local categories (countries, region etc). However I dont think that some magical wand or procedure will come up from the discussions. It is just hard work. I just dont see why individual discussions over files, interfere with project discussions. Why not have both and let people contribute as they see fit and feel is the best use of their time. I have no problem with contributing to both types of discussions. Maybe I will spend more time in total to the Commons. Volonteers need to have satisfaction and pleasure in there work. Some fun elements contribute to that. This is not a compagny workplace where everything needs to work exclusively for the compagny defined targets. We dont get paid for that.Smiley.toerist (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

To be fair, they are not asking about all the files in the Universe, or about all the files someone uploaded on Commons and did not know about the existence of the categories.They are asking about their own recent uploads. Nobody arguing here that this approach is scalable, and this noticeboard is certainly not for asking to categorize every single file. But I guess if people sometimes ask about their own uploads - well, this also will not scale well, but I think we are still in a situation where this is so far manageable. If you want to bring your own uploads, after making an effort to figure out what was the object 30 years ago when you took the picture - why not? I personally do not mind doing some OSINT once in a while, as soon as it is not overburdening and it is not compulsory for me to deliver. Ymblanter (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Basically, all I was saying is that the user is by now doing this too often, almost routinely.

Pointing out the issues with this – such as using up community attention of the many users watching this place that's needed much more for other issues – and trying to inhibit it at least somewhat wasn't really done before so I brought it up after the user made like 20 posts here of that kind and I think it would be great if users are generally expected to ask such things at other dedicated places if adding an Unidentified category isn't enough such as at least just the Help desk. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:51, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• If the topic doesn't interest you just skip over it. I generally find that when asking questions on niche message boards of the WikiUniverse, they tend to go unanswered, too few eyes there. Note that the question was answered quickly, and the clutter is in debate about whether asking questions here is wrong. --RAN (talk) 19:44, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  Many of these threads aren't answered quickly and even if they were this doesn't address other issues such as this being unfair to those who add such files to Unidentified categories instead of cherrypicking a random file out of these and posting about it here. What's the particular need for the location of the photo to be identified with lots of eyes here? It wasn't even used anywhere and isn't used anywhere nor is it in any way special or unique (same for the other photos of the 20+ threads the user is routinely posting about here as more or less the only user who keeps on shamelessly posting such trivialities here). Prototyperspective (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• @Smiley.toerist: I hope they ask more questions, or even start a mystery of the day/week/month image for the landing page. The more people involved the better. The Library of Congress does the same thing. --RAN (talk) 03:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

  I remember someone started a page a few months ago exactly for these kinds of identification requests, but I have already forgotten how to get there. Perhaps it could benefit from clearer/easier ways to arrive on said page (e.g. link from main page/VP?). --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:58, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

  triaging might sound good for management, but as you correctly identified, firstly it sends questions to places hard to find in the first place, secondly those places are often unwatched ghost towns. we already have these problems with many of the separate Template:Lang-HD that were created but never watched so occasionally newbies post questions there that end up unanswered for years. RoyZuo (talk) 12:04, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, the more people involved the better – that's why it would be perfectly fine and great if people posted about the subject of image identification. But posting about one individual case doesn't achieve that and is a far too narrow scope. One could also create a category of unidentified files of the week/… and then post about it here so these prioritized files get identified or embed a few files where identification is of particular importance (e.g. due to it being heavily used or due to this being required to save them from deletion or because they could be used somewhere). However, posting about one or so individual random files helps nobody and is a burden. Let's have threads about the subject files missing categories / in Unidentified xy categories, that would be great but a thread like this would only drown these out and makes it seem like we got no such problems/tasks except for rare cases of individual files.

  .

  Also and in part of relating to what I meant with "fair" – imagine what would happen if more people feel comfortable with and entitled to post here about arbitrary individual files they'd like to have categorized.

  This board would become wholly unusable.

  By now it's just 1–3 users doing this every now and then (mainly Smiley.toerist) and it's not that much of a problem because so few users are doing it but they are establishing a practice as acceptable and doing something others including those adding files to Unidentified categories or starting categories for discussion etc other users so far refrain posting about via similar threads about such super-niche super-specific things. I don't mean to sound unfriendly but it would be good if sooner or later somebody said something about this. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

• The Commons gets to many new files (a lot of mass uploads) with very limited/missing data. Whatever the community does later to categorize and add the missing data, its to much to keep up. One cannot limit the number of incoming files. The best solution is that the uploaders are encouraged to do the maximum on research so that the files are as complete as posible. It is much more effort to do the work later with people who are not familiar with the subject (and only interested in getting the numbers down / a job). If ones declines to help uploaders, the risk is that the uploaders will just dump the files. So there is a balance to be kept. The first tactic is to refer to more appropiate local platforms with many eyes and local knowledge. Its easy if the country speaks a non-English langauge. My next query I put in the Bistro: [16] Dedicated/specialized boards have an chicken and egg problem. They dont work until there are enough willing eyes. The other strategy is to ignore the question treads. If they are no reactions, they disappear fairly quicly and discourage the further questions. And if they are interesting threads they get reactions. This board is largely selfregulating. An one can always also react on the talk page of the user. As Prototyperspective says it is no problem, only a potential problem later. Wait and see. One can always start a new discussion then and have more support when more users experience this as a problem.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

  "downloads" => "uploads" I presume; otherwise this makes no sense. - Jmabel ! talk 19:41, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

  • My mistake. I corrected the text.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:38, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

  This is great reasoning why we should have threads about the subject of Unidentified xyz files and/or categories of files thereof. It's not a reason to post about a random individual one file of such. I won't repeat the things I already explained in my prior comments but one thing I'd like to repeat is that such threads additionally "makes it seem like we got no such problems/tasks except for rare cases of individual files" so is not just taking up space that could be used to discuss any of the 10.000+ more important topics (really that many) but actively defeats the stated purpose.

  The best solution is that the downloaders[uploaders you probably mean] are encouraged to do the maximum on research so that the files are as complete as posible Things like this could be discussed in such a thread of broader scope; there's ideas for what could be done. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:44, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

  I agree to continue this discussion in a new thread. I wil start a new one shortly. @Prototyperspective: From the perpective of contributors who mainly work on reducing the backlogs this may be great reasoning, however not from the perpective of uploaders of old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation. The timescale is different. Uploaders want to finish the uploads in limited time and combine the information from the community discussions with whatever background information and/or documentation they have. This usefull combination is no longer posible once the file is uploaded and disappears into unidentified and very broad categories. Backlog catch ups are often much more work, than the work by the uploader. That is why facilitating the work of uploaders limits the risk that uploaders find extensive research to much trouble and just upload the files with limited research. And often when one research is resolved and lot more files can be uploaded with the results. For example: If with one picture the location/name of a church is found, all the interior and detail pictures can also be placed in the correct categories. Any information can often help to reconstruct a trip of many years ago. 1948 was 78 years ago and no one in the family pictures is living.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:27, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

  however not from the perpective of uploaders of old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation this is not the case – you could start a thread about the problem of old material with little documentation and/or create a backlog category and/or meta page about such. Basically, I recommend when looking at individual cases out of thousands to abstract / think about what the broader topic or issue is. Here you identified that as old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation so you could start a thread about that. This usefull combination is no longer posible then start a thread about that issue. I don't currently see how this then would not be possible anymore which further highlights how a thread about that would be needed. and disappears into unidentified and very broad categories there's thousands of files in these – why is this particular file so special or you so privileged to unfairly ask about one particular unused file thereof? Should all the other users adding files to these cats ask about their individual files (or even small sets of files) they added there too? So far we can just hope that nobody else or at least not more than 3 user do the same behavior or else this forum would be a cluttered mess that people would stop browsing & watching/monitoring and where threads about important subjects get even fewer than the already few replies. Moreover, you identified a problem of files disappearing into unidentified and very broad categories and then nothing being done – so why not start a thread about that problem. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

360° panoramic viewer

Has there been some sort of change to the 360° panoramic viewer? When I uploaded File:Bucharest - Biserica Schitul Darvari pano 360.jpg, it worked fine. Now it seems to assume that, despite the aspect ratio, this file somehow represents a full sphere. - Jmabel ! talk 23:33, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Unsure why it wasn't displaying correctly with the Commons tool, but I managed to make it display correctly directly with Pannellum (the viewer used by the Commons tool), see this link [17]. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:34, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy: Thanks. May I assume it also shows wrong for you in the Commons tool, not just some glitch on my end? - Jmabel ! talk 01:39, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

The Toolforge-based pano viewer has been broken in that manner for a while now. Unfortunately the maintainer is no longer active. Maybe it would be possible to convert {{Pano360}} to direct Pannellum links? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

To create the direct link to Pannellum, it would have to obtain the thumbnail URL for the pano viewer, and also the image's height and width to calculate the vertical angle of view. Perhaps it is possible doing this in the template, but I'm not sure how. Maybe someone else more knowledgeable can figure this out? Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I should clarify the part I'm not sure how to do is obtaining the image's height and width. The calculation for vertical angle of view (vaov parameter in Pannellum) should be simple, which is just 360*(height/width). Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Hmm, true. Width and height would be doable for images with those parameters added to structured data, but that's not true for all images. The thumbnail URL is apparently determined by an MD5 hash of the filename (see [18]) which wouldn't be easy for use to implement in a template, though Special:Filepath may work. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:26, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I think the URL can be obtained with {{filepath:{{PAGENAME}}}} Antti T. Leppänen (talk) 17:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Fyi, you can now access the GPano metadata via lua (along with any other exif/xmp data), if that is useful. Bawolff (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Definitely a good idea. I think the height and width is not needed if the file has Google Photo Sphere XMP metadata.

Also, I think then it does not actually matter (despite the name of the template) whether the image is less than 360° degrees also in the horizontal direction.

And does the viewer work for the File:Bucharest - Biserica Schitul Darvari pano 360.jpg exactly correctly, because it is in the cylindrical projection? I understood from Pannellum documentation that the viewer only works for images in the equirectangular projection (for single images). Antti T. Leppänen (talk) 17:31, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel Yes, your assumption is correct. The image you linked (and other similar images that doesn't show the full vertical view) wasn't displaying correctly for me as well. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I had always assumed that the 360 panorama tool requires images to be seamless in their entirety, including at the top and bottom. The images in (for example) Category:360° panoramics in Japan all look (for a lack of a better word) distorted to create this effect, and the panorama viewer works on these images normally. While the "ring" Tvpuppy links to is not one I've seen before on Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites: as recently as when I uploaded that pano, the viewer was working correctly in this respect. We have a lot more 360° panoramas than we have photospheres. The downward part of a photosphere is particularly difficult to create by stitching a series of imags take in any sane way with a conventional, handheld camera, and getting the entire sky right for an outdoor panorama is also very difficult. I have about an 80-90% success rate shooting panos handheld with no special tools; I cannot imagine having even a third of that success rate shooting photospheres. - Jmabel ! talk 20:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I had only seen the photospheres, I thought that's what was being discussed when people talked about panos. I haven't been able to make a photosphere myself and I'm unsure how to even do that, or how to test photospheres locally before uploading them to Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Most used videos without subtitles

Does anyone know how to make such a list? Trade (talk) 21:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

"Most used" in what sense - view/play count, number of links, something else? Omphalographer (talk) 03:43, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Most likely it refers to the number of uses in Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia.

If there is a way for that then probably in quarry. Afaik, one can only separately scan for most-used videos using glamorous/GLAMorgan and for videos without subtitles, e.g. like so deepcategory:"Videos in Spanish" -deepcategory:"Videos with subtitles"

However, it would probably be more useful to scan for e.g. 'videos that are in another language than English that are used in English Wikipedia but don't have subtitles' and things of that sort. A large use-case I'd imagine for these categories is to enable people seeing which files not in the language of a Wikipedia are used in a language Wikipedia so that they can e.g. redub the video or add subtitles or translate the subtitles or translate the diagram labels etc etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:59, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/101756 - would be a list of videos without subtitles in any language ordered by number of usages in Wikimedia. It would also be possible to make the list be for subtitles in a specific language. Doing it based on number of views instead of page usages would be much harder (but probably not impossible, just be more work) Bawolff (talk) 00:09, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

File:BackFromPasture.jpg

At File:BackFromPasture.jpg the translation of the text in the image was deleted as an "hallucination". Can someone check the translation using other than Google AI, to see if it was accurate. If accurate could the translation be restored. The illustration may be a copy of an earlier work. RAN (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I cropped out the text and ran it through a couple of computer-vision models on lmarena (I got "gpt-5.2" and "gpt-5.2-high"). They gave me translations that differed wildly from both your translation and each other; contextual information suggests that all three are badly wrong. Carnildo (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

When you nominate an image for deletion should you also !vote

When you nominate an image for deletion should you also !vote? Should you add a  Delete as well as nominate, or is that double !voting? I have noticed at some closures that the decision was made by counting the  Delete and the  Keep and the simple majority was enforced. RAN (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think so unless one has converted a speedy deletion request to a regular deletion request because otherwise it's generally implied that one is voting delete (with exceptions where the user makes clear they're unsure whether the deletion rationale applies). I don't think enforcing the simple majority is usually a good way to close controversial DRs without clear consensus but there the nominator is usually (?) counted as 1 person voting for deletion if they didn't clarify that they changed their mind or that they're unsure about whether deletion rationale applies (the latter is most commonly the case for copyright-deletion cases). Prototyperspective (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

The simple majority might be a legit base for decision making if the DR is questioning whether a file is in project scope, but otherwise the decision is usually more a matter of arguments presented. It is uncommon for the nominating party to vote one way or the other except in cases like the ones listed by Prototyperspective. Nakonana (talk) 17:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

It's generally implied that, if you create a deletion request for a file, it's because you think there's a reason it should be deleted. Re. closure decisions, keep in mind that deletion discussions are not a vote - decisions are made on the balance of arguments, not by counting the keep/delete templates. Omphalographer (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes the nominator reconsiders his nomination, but its not his decision to terminate the nomination. An example of this in Commons:Deletion requests/File:De Haan, Belgium (Unsplash).jpg. Smiley.toerist (talk) 14:22, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Smiley.toerist, I think you can withdraw if nobody has responded yet. However, closing DRs properly is a bit of a pain to do manually, and the script to do it doesn't load for non-admins. (unless you're a bastard.) - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 23:54, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton, that's generally not required as a "delete" vote is typically implied, but in some cases it's useful to vote. For example, when converting a speedy deletion tag to a DR, one might even wish to vote  Keep.
When I vote on a DR I started I'll usually use {{Vk}} or {{Vd}} in the nomination itself. There is no automagic counter, most admins likely identify vk/vd templates visually. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 23:41, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

(There are counters on e.g. wikicordo, but that's more a tool to find DRs than to decide them) --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:51, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Alternative file extensions

what's the current situation with extensions like jpg, jpeg, JPG... all for the same type of files?

one thing i know, is that old uploads like File:Nature.jpg File:Nature.JPG still exist.

1. do the different extensions matter for new uploads?
2. is there a single preferred form? jpg for all jpeg? if there is, is it still possible to create files with names in other forms?
3. if nothing has been done about this problem yet, any progress, timeline or roadmap this will be tackled? phab task?

RoyZuo (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

This has recently been discussed here but there wasn't much participation: Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2025/10#Equivalent file extensions. So far, there isn't any preferred form per Commons:File types. It's not necessarily a problem or at least you didn't elaborate why it would be. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

1. Both are allowed and distinct

2. No, although Commons' Move file user script that is enabled for all users has a mapping that DOES prefer one form. It is defined in MediaWiki:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js

3. It seems that not many people have a particular care about this and it doesn't cause too many problems either. Yet changing things is disruptive no matter what and carries risk. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:25, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

thx thedj, i also remember the file move gadget.

i think sticking to a single version for a single thing is better as it avoids uncertainty and chaos.

i'll go with jpg for jpegs.

i'll mention this consideration in Commons:File types based on the gadget we already widely use. RoyZuo (talk) 15:37, 4 February 2026 (UTC)