Commons:Village pump
Latest comment: 35 minutes ago by Fæ in topic 80,000 high resolution antique and old maps and related pages
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January 02
History maps of Europe
Hi, I would like to discuss the description in all categories of the scheme "Maps of <country> in the <x>th century" (see for example Italy, Belgium, Spain, Poland). There are three different points about the current system I would like to invite comments on:
- the wording of the definition in the first paragraph of the hatnote
- whether or not to include "you may also be looking for similar maps" (second and third paragraph) of the description
- whether or not to re-include a distinction between history maps (in this category group) vs. old maps (not in this category group)
- For the first point, there are two proposals, the first is the current "
Maps showing all or most of the territory (geographic area) of modern-day <country> - as the lands were in the 8th century (701-800 CE)
" which I would prefer to replace with a simple "This category is about maps of the history of <country> in the 8th century (701-800 CE)
", given that "modern-day territories" are not always the same as they were in the respective century. Another critism of mine is that "all or most" excludes history maps that only cover smaller parts of the country in question. - For the second point, my argument is that these paragraphs are not necessary, since the links to the Atlas project should be included in the respective parent category (i.e. "Maps of the history of <country>"), which is also linked via template.
- For the third point, I find it essential to point out that Commons has always distinguished "current", "history" and "old" maps, formulated in Template:TFOMC: "history" maps include this map of Poland in the 16th century (created recently, depicting the past) but "old" maps include this 16th-century map of Poland (created to depict the present, back then). There are certain grey areas where these categories DO overlap, especially "old history maps", but in quite many cases they don't. The respective category names are quite similar and can be confused, so I would suggest to mention this right in the category description.
- For the first point, there are two proposals, the first is the current "
I've put my own opinion in italics to explain why I think this requires debate, but I would like for people to check out the scheme examples for themselves, and judge on their own. Peace, --Enyavar (talk) 08:11, 2 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Enyavar: I'm trying to understand the first point. A couple of questions that may help me understand:
- Would there be no such thing as "maps of Germany" for any date before 1866? Or would we take "Germany" before that date to mean the German-speaking world (and, if so, would that include areas where the rulers spoke German, but most of their subject did not)? or what? (Similarly for Italy.)
- Similarly: would there be no such thing as maps of Poland or Lithuania between 1795 and 1918? If so, what would we call maps of that area in that period?
- I could easily provide a dozen similar examples, but answers to those two will at least give me a clue where this proposes to head. - Jmabel ! talk 18:49, 2 January 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for that question, our categories about "history of" do not really care for nation states existing. Germany's history begins quite some time before it became a nation in the 19th century, and Polish history did not stop during the times of division: Poland in the 19th century is unquestionably a valid category. Our history categories generally imply that people know the limits of a subject without exact definitions.
- Your question is getting to the reason why I am uncomfortable with the current hatnote/definition of these categories. I have not checked for all countries in Europe, but I'm quite confident: We do not define the subject of "Maps of the history of Poland" with a hatnote. We do not define "Poland in the 16th century" either. So why would we define the combination subcategory of the two so narrowly and rigidly, that only 6 out of 26 files currently in the category even match that (unreasonable) definition? (And of course, Poland/16th is just a stand-in here, I would argue the same for Spain/12th and Italy/8th and all others)
- I would even be okay with no definition at all, besides a template notice (my third point) that "maps of <country> in Xth century" is about history maps, and old maps have to be found in "Xth-century maps of <country>". --Enyavar (talk) 04:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)
- Categories denoted as old, or historic, are not terribly useful. Much better to put dates on them. Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
- Please read the original post, that is not a comment on the actual questions of this topic. Old maps are not the topic here, this is about history maps (i.e. Maps showing history of specific countries/centuries) regardless of when they were produced.
- The term "historic maps" that can denote both, has rightfully fallen (mostly) into disuse. --Enyavar (talk) 16:23, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
- Categories denoted as old, or historic, are not terribly useful. Much better to put dates on them. Rathfelder (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for that question, our categories about "history of" do not really care for nation states existing. Germany's history begins quite some time before it became a nation in the 19th century, and Polish history did not stop during the times of division: Poland in the 19th century is unquestionably a valid category. Our history categories generally imply that people know the limits of a subject without exact definitions.
- @Enyavar: I'm trying to understand the first point. A couple of questions that may help me understand:
In our Commons:WikiProject Postcards we have the similar problem. Is this a "old postcard of the German Empire" or a "Postcard of Germany". There we are mostly agree, that today people often search for postcards be the locations of today. So many former German towns are now Polnish towns and so we are categorized this postcards under the polnish name of the town. See also Commons:WikiProject_Postcards#Categories. Best regards --sk (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
- @Stefan Kühn: , I have not responded before since I am not sure how this constitutes a similar problem, or what action you expect other users to take on behalf of your project. My own case is less about the exact nationality of specific locations; and more about hatnote definitions of these categories in general.
- As nobody has yet voiced any opinion on the subject matter, I'm resolved to wait a bit longer. --Enyavar (talk) 11:29, 2 June 2026 (UTC)
February 22
Maps from Our World in Data
A suggestion in regards with the maps from Our World in Data: remove from each map the category <year> maps of the world.
These maps weren't published in the years referenced. In addition, it could make the categories of <year> maps of the world more easy to browse.
Thanks in advance. --Universalis (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- As with other files in these categories, that's the year of the data. This categorization has large usefulness to find and update outdated images used on Wikipedia. And the category title does not imply that's the year the map was made. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- +1 to Prototyperspective. - Jmabel ! talk 20:39, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- I have been meaning to say something about these maps, and this is a good occasion. User:Universalis is right that these maps were not created in that year,
and it IS practice on Commons to understand "<year/decade/century> maps" being the maps created in that timeframe, not the maps showing that timeframe - the latter would be better placed under "maps showing <year/decade/century>". - User:Doc James, who is creating the majority of recent OWiD maps that concern what might be called history, is producing them by the thousand each day, at least as far as I can observe. For 2026-02-24 I just checked and saw 5000 edits, most if not all of them creating and categorizing OWiD statistics/maps usually looking like this (1947), this (1664) and this (1800). That is an enormous output and just for example 1764 maps of North America is currently dominantly OWiD maps and I suspect that this is true for basically all year-maps-of-world/continent right now. Case in point: the categories for 1444 maps of Africa, 1445 maps of Europe or 1446 maps of Asia don't even exist right now, but they are already filled with OWiD maps.
- With at least 300'000 OWiD maps already existing and no end in sight, I would really like to delegate all of these maps into specific OWiD-categories for each continent and year. My suggestion for File:Annual co2 cement, North America, 1764.svg would be Our World in Data maps showing North America in 1764 or Our World in Data maps of North America in 1764. These year-categories would themselves be categorized under Our World in Data maps showing 1764 and Our World in Data maps of North America in the 18th century.
- The titles I suggest above are up for debate. Is it more practical to use "Our World in Data maps" or can it be shortened to "OWiD maps" ? Also, should it be "showing" (as per our category branch "maps showing <year>") or should it just be "of" ? --Enyavar (talk) 03:58, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
- Sure we can adjust the categories however folks wish. We have additionally build a tool to help with more fined toned mass categorization. See Help:Gadget-CategoryBatchManager.
- With respect to numbers, yes have uploaded about 600K so far and it looks like I am maybe a third done, so maybe 1.2 million more to go. Will likely not finish until this fall. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:03, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
and it IS practice on Commons to understand "<year/decade/century> maps" being the maps created in that timeframe, not the maps showing that timeframe
this is an inaccurate statement. Look into any of these categories of years of the recent few decades and you'll notice how what you said is false. What you said applies to old maps and there usually the data shown is not known better than year of map made or the same. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:47, 25 February 2026 (UTC)- So what do folks want us to do? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:00, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- In 2014, it has been decided that "<year> maps" should essentially be empty disambiguations, and we should use "maps created in <year>" and "maps showing <year>" instead. Practically, this rule has never been enforced, and has lead to many simmering debates ever since. I'm striking my quarrelsome nitpicks from my previous comment, in order to focus on the suggestion at hand: Creating special categories for OWiD maps. Okay? --Enyavar (talk) 11:04, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- If you'd like to these could be subcategorized in the maps by year cats...I tried to keep them as flat as possible to enable viewing all the relevant files on one page, have easier to understand standardized cat names, and not start deep nesting that can cause queries and scans to break. Many hundreds of files would be moved. If there is agreement and no objections, should they be named Category:Our World in Data maps of the world showing 2014 data or Category:OWID maps of the world showing 2014 data or Category:Maps of the world showing 2017 (OWID) or Category:Our World in Data maps of the world showing 2014 or Category:2014 Our World in Data maps of the world or Category:2014 maps of the world (OWID) or sth else? (It's mostly maps of the world that I'd move.) Prototyperspective (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- Doc James has stated above that we are going to have about ~1'800'000 maps once the current run of creating these files is finished. And I don't even think that will be the end of it. So I agree, we need to have a good standardized cat structure, and I am willing to hear if Doc James also has input on good names, or input on which names are less good. With that lead:
- As far as I can see, we do have the following seven regions over which these maps are distributed: "the world", "Africa", "Asia", "Europe", "North America", "Oceania", "South America". These are the seven most common frames I noticed so far, please correct me if there are more. "World" is probably going to be a bit larger, but I don't think we should neglect the other regions, which are all going to be equally densely filled.
- Now, thinking about the best name structure. I would prefer to pre-fix the data source, similarly to how we do it with other major map providers like "OpenStreetMap maps of...", "USGS maps of...", "ShakeMaps of earthquakes in...": The most important qualifier gets frontloaded. For easy manual input, I would prefer the name "OWiD maps of...". However, the categories are unlikely to get assigned manually, and it is much easier to understand what the acronym means when it is written out. So right now, I would tend to go with the general
Our World in Data maps of...
as the prefix, then followed with the seven (?) regions identified above. - Afterwards comes the suffix. Prototypeperspektive suggested
... showing <year> data
, my own ideas leaned towards... in <year>
or... showing <year>
. These suggestions all look equally good to me. Prototype's suffix has the advantage of pointing out that these maps are data-driven and not cartography-driven. So I think that would be best. - Following that idea, we could go with
Our World in Data maps of <region> showing <year> data
. Taking an existing map like File:States involved in state based conflicts, Oceania, 1947.svg, one would assign Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1947 data instead of the current three categories Our World in Data maps of Oceania, Maps showing 1947 and 1947 maps of Oceania. That new category would itself be categorized directly under the existing three categories it replaces. - If the above suggestion seems agreeable... how difficult is it for Doc James to change the automated exports and the templates that are currently in use? And would you be able to do an automated re-categorization of all the already existing files? Would you need help? --Enyavar (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Yah I think doing this in an automated fashion should be fairly easy. This would be subcategories of what main category? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:01, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- [[:category:Our World in Data maps of <region> showing <year> data]] would be subcategory of [[:category:Our World in Data maps of <region>]], [[:category:Maps showing <year>]] and [[:category:<year> maps of <region>]]. At a later point, I would like to reshape the last of the three parent categories to bring the OWiD maps under the 20th-century/1940s branches of <region>. With the example above, there is currently no sufficient subdivision of Maps of the history of Oceania, but the idea is creating Maps of Oceania in the 20th century and Maps of Oceania in the 1940s, and that would again be a subcategory of Oceania in the 1940s... But I think that work would not affect the OWiD-maps and their templates itself. --Enyavar (talk) 19:13, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Plan was to categorize once the initial uploads are completed, which will not be until this fall. And work on the 1.8 million or so files at that point. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:18, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- You are currently categorizing them upon upload by two mechanisms, one is the template:Map showing old data, the other is assigning regular categories. Right now, neither of these mechanisms is a bespoke template designed for OWiD content.
- I can imagine a template that works like
{{OWiD maps showing|Africa|1758}}that would create the categories we contemplated above, including links to skip forward/backward and also links to skip to the other continents/world extent. If we used such a template to create the category framework discussed above, couldn't you adapt your exporting automatism once that exists? I can only image it would take less work later. - Before I attempt working on such a template myself, I'm asking a few users who I suspect have more routine in templating, @Clusternote, AnRo0002, and Reinhard Müller: My question is how you would go about it: templates for the file descriptions; templates for creating these categories; or both? Are there pitfalls I am not aware of? We are talking here about ca. 2 million standardized files ranging from very few around the year 1021 to an abundance of such files for 2021, with hundreds of files per year per continent in 1834 already. The maps are optimized to be used in slider-frames elsewhere; for Commons I'm more concerned with handling the categorization. Thanks in advance! --Enyavar (talk) 21:51, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
- Here is my suggestion: Maps of Oceania in the 1940s anro (talk) 22:18, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
- I can happily come up with a suggestion for a template based on the Navigation by system. But first let me make sure I understand correctly:
- The template would be used for categories like Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1947 data, right?
- Would we also have Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1940s data (decade) and Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 19th-century data (century) as parent and grandparent of the year category?
- Thanks --Reinhard Müller (talk) 09:07, 4 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks Reinhard, regarding #1 yes that is idea.
{{OWiD maps showing|Africa|175|8}} -->Our World in Data maps of Africa showing 1748 data{{OWiD maps showing|Oceania|194|7}} -->Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1947 data- As for #2 I would have suggested "... showing the 1940s" and "...showing the 20th-century" as parent categories. But you're right, I talked above about "<year> data" so "<decade>s data" and "...<century> data" would be the logical consequence. Now I'm less sure about the format. I am not married to the idea of requiring the "data" suffix, but as long as the template could be made, I see no real problem. @Prototyperspective: , what do you think about "Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 20th century data being the respective category on the century level? Enyavar (talk) 19:11, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks Reinhard, regarding #1 yes that is idea.
- Plan was to categorize once the initial uploads are completed, which will not be until this fall. And work on the 1.8 million or so files at that point. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:18, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- [[:category:Our World in Data maps of <region> showing <year> data]] would be subcategory of [[:category:Our World in Data maps of <region>]], [[:category:Maps showing <year>]] and [[:category:<year> maps of <region>]]. At a later point, I would like to reshape the last of the three parent categories to bring the OWiD maps under the 20th-century/1940s branches of <region>. With the example above, there is currently no sufficient subdivision of Maps of the history of Oceania, but the idea is creating Maps of Oceania in the 20th century and Maps of Oceania in the 1940s, and that would again be a subcategory of Oceania in the 1940s... But I think that work would not affect the OWiD-maps and their templates itself. --Enyavar (talk) 19:13, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Yah I think doing this in an automated fashion should be fairly easy. This would be subcategories of what main category? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:01, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Doc James has stated above that we are going to have about ~1'800'000 maps once the current run of creating these files is finished. And I don't even think that will be the end of it. So I agree, we need to have a good standardized cat structure, and I am willing to hear if Doc James also has input on good names, or input on which names are less good. With that lead:
- If you'd like to these could be subcategorized in the maps by year cats...I tried to keep them as flat as possible to enable viewing all the relevant files on one page, have easier to understand standardized cat names, and not start deep nesting that can cause queries and scans to break. Many hundreds of files would be moved. If there is agreement and no objections, should they be named Category:Our World in Data maps of the world showing 2014 data or Category:OWID maps of the world showing 2014 data or Category:Maps of the world showing 2017 (OWID) or Category:Our World in Data maps of the world showing 2014 or Category:2014 Our World in Data maps of the world or Category:2014 maps of the world (OWID) or sth else? (It's mostly maps of the world that I'd move.) Prototyperspective (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- In 2014, it has been decided that "<year> maps" should essentially be empty disambiguations, and we should use "maps created in <year>" and "maps showing <year>" instead. Practically, this rule has never been enforced, and has lead to many simmering debates ever since. I'm striking my quarrelsome nitpicks from my previous comment, in order to focus on the suggestion at hand: Creating special categories for OWiD maps. Okay? --Enyavar (talk) 11:04, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
- So what do folks want us to do? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:00, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
I have now created:
- Templates
- {{Category description/Our World in Data maps by continent and century}}
- {{Category description/Our World in Data maps by continent and decade}}
- {{Category description/Our World in Data maps by continent and year}}
- Example use
- Category:Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 20th-century data
- Category:Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1940s data
- Category:Our World in Data maps of Oceania showing 1947 data
- Category:Our World in Data maps of the world showing 1947 data
The usage of the templates is super easy, no need for any parameters specifying the continent or the year, they take everything they need to know from the name of the category they are used in.
The names of the continents are automatically translated using Wikidata labels. The first part of the title and the text above and below the navigation blocks are just examples. These can be used as an explanation for the category which is centrally maintained and must only be changed once if something should be changed, and if the texts are final, we can also make them translatable.
Please let me know what you think. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 09:52, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- P.S. Looking at the currently existing category tree about maps, I really think that the OWiD categories shouldn't be in Category:1947 maps of Oceania or Category:1940s maps of Oceania. For centuries, we already have Category:Maps of Oceania in the 20th century, and I think it might be a good opportunity to introduce these categories also on a decade and year level. If you want, I can also create the templates for "Maps by continent and century/decade/year shown". And/or whatever you consider useful for building the correct parent structure for the OWiD categories. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- @Reinhard Müller: Thanks a lot! This is even easier to apply than I thought. I populated three continents for the 1940s (Africa, Asia, Oceania) and also the world.
- The decade-template for the world in the 1940s did not work (lua template cannot find "the world"), I hope this can be fixed. Aside from that it looks pretty great. Sorry, two more nitpicks, some links only appear once some other part of the structure has been fully built up. The year-ribbon only shows up once the decade-category is in place; and it seems as if the decade template only shows up once the century-category is in place? Also, I think that the subcategories could be sorted with a space (" ") instead of the "@".
- I agree with your proposal that instead of "1947 maps of Oceania" we should have "Maps of Oceania in 1947" which would be the "maps showing"-version. "Maps of Oceania in 1947" would be a subcategory of "Maps showing 1947", "Oceania in 1947", "Maps of Oceania in the 1940s" respectively. This category would then hold the OWiD maps and all maps that show Oceania in 1947 through the historian's lens, similar to how we already have Maps of Poland in the 16th century (see also one thread above...) and Maps of the world in the 1940s.
- @Universalis, Prototyperspective, Jmabel, and Doc James: when you check the bolded links... does this new structure look okay? --Enyavar (talk) 15:22, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- Very nice. Are you using a bot to apply this? Or have you tried Help:Gadget-CategoryBatchManager? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for the feedback!
- I fixed "the world" (ooh, it feels good to write this ;-))
- It is generally true that the template works best when the categories are created top down (i.e. first the centuries, then the decades, then the years). Still the navigation ribbons should appear even if the parent category does not exist (yet), I will have to investigate why they don't. But for the addition of the correct parent categories for new categories, it is important anyway that the parents pre-exist.
- FWIW, this is now also fixed. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 19:51, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- I have (years ago) thought a lot about the question of logical sort keys, currently they are used very inconsistently across commons. I've even made a page summarizing my thoughts which you may or may not agree with. About this specific case, I think the space is widely used for meta categories (Blah blah by xyz) and should be reserved for that, and that the @ has the advantage of being sorted after all the other special characters, so if for example the category key "*" is before the alphanumeric subcategories, it is also before the numeric subcategories if the numeric are sorted as @. In the end I don't think in our case it makes much of a difference as long as all the subcategories use the same key so they are sorted correctly - which is taken care of by the template.
- About the "Maps of Oceania in 1947", would you want to also create them right now? Should I create a {{Category description/Maps by continent and year}} (and decade and century), and adapt the OWiD templates to the new parents?
- I don't use a bot, and I think that the CategoryBatchManager can add parent categories, but not a template. But since you don't have to change a single letter when copying the template from one category to a similar one, it can be done very fast. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 18:02, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- About the "Maps of Oceania in 1947" - yes, you could create a template for that, as well. We already have parts of that, but right now they were created in a manual fashion: North America/1770s and Asia/18th and Europe/11th. I'm not yet fully eager and ready to apply this structure as long as the other treat about #History maps of Europe is still unresolved. But having the templates prepared now might help later. Once those maps-per-continent-shown-by-year exist, the OWiD template would be switched from "1940s maps of Asia"+"Maps showing the 1940s" --> "Maps of Asia in the 1940s" and so on. --Enyavar (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- I have created:
- I have not (yet) changed the parent categories for the OWiD categories. Please just let me know when I should do that.
- Also please don't forget that the texts above and below the navigation ribbons are just placeholders (in the OWiD templates and the new templates), and they should be finalized before the templates are widely used. --Reinhard Müller (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- About the "Maps of Oceania in 1947" - yes, you could create a template for that, as well. We already have parts of that, but right now they were created in a manual fashion: North America/1770s and Asia/18th and Europe/11th. I'm not yet fully eager and ready to apply this structure as long as the other treat about #History maps of Europe is still unresolved. But having the templates prepared now might help later. Once those maps-per-continent-shown-by-year exist, the OWiD template would be switched from "1940s maps of Asia"+"Maps showing the 1940s" --> "Maps of Asia in the 1940s" and so on. --Enyavar (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for the feedback!
- Looks great; thanks very much. I just don't know how complete these cats currently are and will be. They could be made complete via deepcategory category intersections and moving files with cat-a-lot. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
- Very nice. Are you using a bot to apply this? Or have you tried Help:Gadget-CategoryBatchManager? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- But first, we need to categorize the OWiD maps. I populated the 1940s structure with a few hours of Cat-a-lot, but there is a catch: all these maps currently have the template
{{Map showing old data|year=1942}}. For the 1940s alone, removing that template meansmanuallyediting 17'500 files. We must use a bot to do these edits, I think. The algorithm, for all ~75'000 maps of Asia would be roughly as follows:- for all files in
[[Category:Our World in Data maps of Asia]]- if "
{{Map showing old data|year=YYYY}}" occurs in the file:- take the YYYY as a variable to insert "
[[Category:Our World in Data maps of Asia showing YYYY data]]" //** a single category for the location and year of the map **//- if that inserted category does not yet exist: create it with "
{{Category description/Our World in Data maps by continent and year}}" //** (as helpfully provided by Reinhard)**//
- if that inserted category does not yet exist: create it with "
- take the file name as the variable
topicnameand stripFile:and, Asia, YYYY.svg(or,Asia,YYYY.svg) from that variable - insert "
[[Category:Our World in Data maps showing ||topicname]]" //** for example Category:Our World in Data maps showing Absolute change co2, neatly collecting ~1800 files like this one or ~200 files like this one: a single category for the topic of the map, to have them all easily assembled **//- if that inserted category does not yet exist: create it with "
[[Category:Our World in Data maps by topic]]" //** in many cases, better names might be found, but that cleanup can be handled afterwards manually where needed **//
- if that inserted category does not yet exist: create it with "
- remove all occurences of "
{{Map showing old data|year=YYYY}}", ""[[Category:YYYY maps of Asia]]" and "[[Category:Our World in Data maps of Asia]]"
- take the YYYY as a variable to insert "
- (else leave the file alone)
- if "
- repeat the same with "Africa", "Europe", ["North America" or "NorthAmerica" would need to be mapped onto "North America"], "Oceania", and so on.
- for all files in
- I do not know how exactly to program a bot, but I think this would do the trick, not only to create and populate the categories for continent-by-year, but also to have distinct categories for each topic. Right now, I don't think the latter exist yet. --Enyavar (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
For the 1940s alone, removing that template means manually editing 17'500 files
: I haven't been following all of this, but why manually? - Jmabel ! talk 20:53, 8 March 2026 (UTC)- True, the bot run would also touch those files. I just wanted to emphasize that so many files cannot be realistically processed manually, and then formulated how I think this could be automated. I struck the word in my earlier response. --Enyavar (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- I added the above request to Commons:Bots. --Enyavar (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
June 26
Hi, This is an essential policy of Commons, and I am very surprised that it is not yet translated. Please help. Yann (talk) 07:12, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
- + Commons:No personal attacks, Commons:Civility. Yann (talk) 13:39, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
- Those are long pages. Can we have summaries (like "nutshells" found in other policy pages), and translate them first?
- Also, revisions should ideally be made first, in order not to waste translators' time. I believe they became official with the understanding that necessary revisions will be made. For instance, I think Commons:No personal attacks needs some refinements from the fact that we don't have exactly the same kind of content disputes to Wikipedia's, especially "article" disputes. [1] More generally, these pages were imported from English Wikipedia with little changes, and the way they are written seems a bit out of place to me, even if Commons and Wikipedia share the same core ideas about behavioral issues. I'm sure English Wikipedia has its own justification and history for those documents to have evolved in their current forms, but Commons doesn't have the same history, and can use more succinctness (although I accept that such rewriting would not be easy). whym (talk) 03:13, 1 July 2026 (UTC)
- Reviewing/revising the text before translation is a good idea.
- There are also grammar error(s), such as this:
- It is important not to post comments that others may reasonably be interpreted as a legal threat.
- In my understanding, it's either "that by others may (...) be interpreted (...)", or "that others may (...) interpret as a legal threat."
- As to translation volume, we're talking about some 8000 total words for the three policies:
- Harassment (3000 words) – No personal attacks (1500 words) – Civility (3500 words )
- In traditional-style, manual translation, that's some 3 days of work for an experienced translator. With automated or AI pre-translation, it can be done faster but will still require careful review/reworking.
- Personally, I find the 3500 words of "Civility" quite OK, as that page is written in tips-and-tricks style. – Regarding "Harassment" on the other hand, with its semi-legal style, I wonder if that page might be condensed to some 2000 words (i.e. to a size more like that of "No personal attacks")? -- Martinus KE (talk) 12:45, 1 July 2026 (UTC)
June 29
80,000 high resolution antique and old maps and related pages
A long term puzzle for Commons has been the small resolution images of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection which are hosted on the internet archive. Being bold, all of the images of maps published before 1875 have been uploaded in the last week and there is a second longer term process of overwriting these with high resolution versions of the same image. Some more recent but still public domain maps have been uploaded as an exception, for example the UK Ordnance Survey maps for which the UK Gov licensing means any published before 1976 are public domain.
It would be great for volunteers to start looking at the use of the high resolution maps using a search like this one, or taking a look in Category:Images dezoomed by Fæ. Adding categories would be great, however for several weeks, avoid moving files that have not been 'upgraded' out of the parent category, as they'll probably be missed. If any need renaming please keep the IA number in the filename.
- Selected examples
-
.jpg/250px-Sheet_100._Llanelly._(IA_dr_sheet-100-llanelly-7805102).jpg)
1920s Llanelly in Carmarthenshire -
_Afrika._Gez._E.G._Revenstein_in/250px-thumbnail.jpg)
1872 Afrika -
1700 the terraqueous globe
--Fæ (talk) 12:58, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for all these.
- It would be useful, I'm sure, if we could agree some sort of strategy for dealing with these consistently. What sort of categorization should they end up with? How do we manage the workflow? Is there interim categorization, such that we can see the workflow queues easily with a simple query on Petscan. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:11, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- A project page for the DRHM would be sensible as there are several issues to resolve as well as a categorization strategy, like best way to organize crops, clipped artwork, improved dating, mass SDC additions and ensuring that necessary deletions due to copyright errors are implemented across the whole collection without lots of extra volunteer time. For the moment Commons:IA books#DRHM might be sufficient if discussion is materially on the VP or my talk page. More information about batch changes can be added there. Though these are jpgs, they are all pages from atlases.
- The parent category has a lot of sub categories based on the atlas names or types. As a precedent that seems reasonable though with the volume uploaded there might need an extra categorization, say by author or publisher. Fæ (talk) 13:21, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- I would suggest by attribute. In which year/decade it was produced? What area is shown? What projection is used? What language (if others than English) are used? Maybe this :3 --16:17, 29 June 2026 (UTC) PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- Very cool, thank you for that! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:16, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- I did upload several thousands of these 3 years ago. It would be wise to check what is already on Commons. However I copied the files from the original source, not from IA. Yann (talk) 20:50, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
- It would be sensible to automatically navigate these to decide what to do about possible duplicates, and whether they are duplicates. If they can be identified before upgrading the resolution, then skipping the higher resolution and removing the small resolution image makes sense, unfortunately there seems to be no obvious easy way to find a unique ID for each (jpg) image if it has not been based on the IA release. Taking File:Cartes générales des Royaumes de l'Europe et des particuliers de France (14353021).jpg the source links with the file are not unique to the image, so searching Commons throws up multiple matches. Based on the related IA upload (found by looking through the visual matches), a unique ID from the source site would be "RUMSEY~8~1~339088~90107224", but this has not been used in the alternate. In terms of literal checksum duplicates, in 11,000 'upgraded' cases this has not come up so far; it would be useful if they were digitally identical as then the API will handle rejecting the upload gracefully.
- Using
filetype:jpg "David Rumsey" -intitle:IA filewidth:>2000shows 2,218 pre-existing files of higher resolution that were not part of the IA uploads.
- Using
- Worth noting that the uploads from IA appear to have significantly more detailed information, which is more 'comfortable' to copy to Commons because the first release of those texts was to IA rather than here. These make the images more self contained to explain copyright etc. and much easier to defend against possible take down requests. Fæ (talk) 03:21, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Created a script to back search from the parent pub number and display back to me thumbnails of matching images in a quick grid. Unfortunately the API is heavily throttling me thanks to the hostile way of constraining volunteer access, so frustratingly even one image search (36 thumbs) is costing waits of up to
35 minutes. If someone knows a way to stop my IP getting throttled it would be nice to know. I have tried forcing a login as Faebot, but as these are just reading thumbnails the throttling policy is bizarrely unhelpful and using a bot account seems to make no difference. Dropping the research for the moment. Trying contacting bot-traffic@wikimedia.org but no idea if that actually helps as opposed to pointing me to read the policy which amounts to either do everything on toolforge or already be a sysop. Fæ (talk) 10:26, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Created a script to back search from the parent pub number and display back to me thumbnails of matching images in a quick grid. Unfortunately the API is heavily throttling me thanks to the hostile way of constraining volunteer access, so frustratingly even one image search (36 thumbs) is costing waits of up to
- Good news, firstly that duplicates seem rare, probably less than 1% of the final high resolution uploads (400 to 800 files?). This is based on a random walk using a sample of 200 'seed' files from the high resolution uploads based on IA. A test script filtered out the publication number and used that to find a candidate list of files that were not uploaded from IA. There were 4 matches of that type, with 1 or 2 matched files, but only 1 was a visible duplicate:
- There are an interesting comparison because they are both the same pixel size resolution but the upload from 2017 is 17mb and the most recent is 20mb. In theory the png tiles from the source should be identical, so the non-lossless process of assembling a jpg must be the difference. Presumably making the latest a jpg of slightly higher quality. Looking at these, the decision to delete either is not obvious, it might even be fine to keep both. The test analysis at least shows that detecting any duplicates can be done and could be fully automated based on the basic code already working, just needing an image matching routine. It makes sense for a later deletion discussion to decide if it's easiest to delete all the more recent duplicates or if there are other differences than file size.
- The same basic code can be used to generate cross-linking galleries as a field for the new uploads, if that would be helpful, or possibly to add them to an uncreated temporary publication category for each atlas if there are several related files. Fæ (talk) 14:19, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Proposal: How would folks feel about mass creation of unmade (red) categories like Category:Rename me to the atlas title - DR 252214343.000 which would be populated by all matches to a search for pub_list_no 252214343.000? This would be fairly easy to do in parallel with upgrading the resolution of map images. Fæ (talk) 17:59, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Worth noting that the uploads from IA appear to have significantly more detailed information, which is more 'comfortable' to copy to Commons because the first release of those texts was to IA rather than here. These make the images more self contained to explain copyright etc. and much easier to defend against possible take down requests. Fæ (talk) 03:21, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
About 8 speedy deletions raised this morning for globes, i.e. spherical format maps on stands. The photographs have a non-commercial claim which is valid as these are not faithful images of 2D works. Photographs where the edges of the atlas/book are seen are normally judged as within the 'faithful reproduction' limit as they are not the focus of the photograph, nor have any creative element to being incidental to the image. Fæ (talk) 08:54, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot from my side as well! There is a lot of interesting, even fascinating stuff in this treasure trove of maps! What an overwhelming amount of files ...
- However, a first look into the files of a few subcategories showed me that there seem to be quite many spelling errors in file names and file descriptions, at least for German and French. Missing letters, hyphens, accents, wrong translations (such as EN "by" = DE "bei" where DE "von" is meant and even printed in the original document), ...
- Can these errors be addressed somehow? When the digitized text is harder to read than the 19th-century calligraphy in the image files, it's not exactly reader-friendly anymore ... -- Martinus KE (talk) 14:26, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- The text imported from IA was itself exported from the Rumsey database. If there was any automated OCR it was probably done years ago. If there's a group of fixes, like the atlas title has a typo in it for multiple files, then VFC is probably the best solution. This is still a manual fix but it does mean a faster one than individual file page edits. Fæ (talk) 14:47, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
- Once again, thanks a lot, Fæ! – Even if VisualFileChange just helps reducing the number of manual tasks by a factor of 10 or 100, this will have a significant impact.
- So far, I'm not familiar with the tool. But I took a note, and I'm quite confident that I'll give it a try, rather sooner than later. -- Martinus KE (talk) 12:38, 1 July 2026 (UTC)
- The text imported from IA was itself exported from the Rumsey database. If there was any automated OCR it was probably done years ago. If there's a group of fixes, like the atlas title has a typo in it for multiple files, then VFC is probably the best solution. This is still a manual fix but it does mean a faster one than individual file page edits. Fæ (talk) 14:47, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
Whoops. Managed to get to 14,535 upgraded files, but the davidrumsey site has blocked my IP. I'm unsure if their system will let me back in at some point, or if there's a possible throttle level that would stop getting blocked again. --Fæ (talk) 13:32, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
- Uploading is ticking away after a few days of being blocked. It's unclear if anything changed. Fæ (talk) 13:08, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
July 02
How to categorize All media needing categories as of 2022?
The Category:All media needing categories as of 2022 still contains a bit more than 15,000 files. A small team started to reduce this number from 80,000 to zero in February 2025, but now we got stuck at letter E. Do you want to help categorizing the remainder manually, by reviewing the files one by one, or do you have a recommendation, how this could be done more effectively, based on the hints shown in the Commons:WikiProject Minimum One Category? --NearEMPTiness (talk) 06:37, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
- Files that are already being used in an article can be found using Glamtools. This simpliefies the categorisation for new volunteers. NearEMPTiness (talk) 02:13, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- 14,000 files to be categorized, please. We need more volunteers now, because it is getting increasingly difficult, since the low hanging fruit have been harvested. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 18:57, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
July 03
"Upload a new version of this file": Now with a large button!
Hello everyone. I noticed yesterday that the "Upload a new version of this file" function is now displayed as a large button at the bottom to every file. Apologies if there is already a discussion about this somewhere; I couldn't find anything at a quick glance. But I have to ask: which genius implemented this? I think it's terrible; it only leads to more users who aren't familiar with the rules overwriting files, see COM:OW. Best regards, זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 14:15, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- for reference https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/core/+/1304636 . I do agree that it seems a little too prominent now. If we keep the button maybe it should be styled as a codex "quiet" button instead. Bawolff (talk) 14:29, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- @Bawolff: Thanks for the link. No, that is simply bad design, just because one user had trouble finding it. Right now, it actually looks like an invitation to overwrite files. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 14:37, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I made that change. I don't think it's okay to call people "genius" sarcastically for doing changes you disagree with but I understand you don't like it. There are many reasons to make this change: You don't have trouble finding it but not everyone has the eyesight you have and accessibility is vital. Here are many resources that explain when to pick a button (action) and when to pick a link (navigation): https://tailkits.com/blog/link-vs-button-accessibility/ and https://accessibilitymadeeasy.substack.com/p/buttons-vs-links-making-them-accessible.
- On that it will cause vandalism. With the same logic, we should hide edit button too. I understand vandalism is a problem (as a long-timer) but it should be protected against with other means: Rights (unregistered users can't override), abuse filters, monitoring, protection of widely used images, etc. Hiding the link to re-upload is basically security through obscurity which never works in long-term. Amir (talk) 15:03, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hello @Ladsgroup.
- Thanks for your detailed reply, and I apologize for the sarcasm. You’re probably a genius, actually—it’s just that the execution in this case here was poor. The old layout was perfectly adequate; I currently don't see the point of turning it into a button. Best regards, זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:13, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- The only button that should be prominently displayed is actually just "Mark this file version as patrolled," because that one is genuinely helpful and useful. But perhaps I am completely alone in my opinion regarding your change, and I would like to hear other views on the matter. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:26, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Addendum: Just as a side note, I wear strong glasses too myself; so much for visual acuity. And this is one of the reasons why I have the global CAPTCHA exception. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:33, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for the kind words. I actually made that a button too (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/core/+/1059444) mostly because I really can't spot small things on the screen.
- As a way forward, I propose this: I will monitor the rate of re-upload and how many of them end up being reverted (and how many users have re-uploaded, etc.). If there is a negative effect on these numbers, we can for example make it a quiet button. Would that sound good to you? Amir (talk) 15:41, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Please take a look at the files I’ve uploaded here. As an admin, I spend a lot of time deleting duplicates. Much of this actually stemmed from files being overwritten incorrectly. I’m concerned that the new visible button will lead to even more of this happening. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:47, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I totally understand yours concerns and I'm thinking of ways that it could be tackled. One idea. Currently MediaWiki:Uploadtext shows this on re-upload: "Please mind our guidelines on overwriting existing files. You agree to publish your upload under the same license as stated on the file description page."
- IMHO, this should be completely revamped. For example, it needs a warning box since the one above it is a gigantic box, this looks like a small text below it and is barely visible. Also, barely anyone is going to click on the link of the guidelines. If there are certain types of mistakes that happen all the time and we can list them there in a bullet point like "Do not re-upload for newer picture of someone, upload a new file instead" (with link to upload wizard or something).
- What do you think? I think it could be quite impactful. If you can provide me with some text. I'm going to mock up something for it! Amir (talk) 16:01, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- But.. is t it so that most people cant even overwrite files any longer because of the abusefilter that Commons has put in place ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:53, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Please take a look at the files I’ve uploaded here. As an admin, I spend a lot of time deleting duplicates. Much of this actually stemmed from files being overwritten incorrectly. I’m concerned that the new visible button will lead to even more of this happening. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:47, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- The only button that should be prominently displayed is actually just "Mark this file version as patrolled," because that one is genuinely helpful and useful. But perhaps I am completely alone in my opinion regarding your change, and I would like to hear other views on the matter. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 15:26, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I noticed it too and thought the same thing. @Ladsgroup: even "edit" is a link, not a button. "Upload file" is also a link (to Special:UploadWizard), so why should "Upload a new version of this file" (which links to Special:Upload with some pre-filled in fields) be a button? It always stood out to me though, maybe this link should be in the "tools" menu or part of the Read / Edit / View history tabs? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:01, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Also that massive blue block on Special:Upload should be hidden/collapsed/compacted for reuploads, with relevant advice for reuploads given instead. I actually hate that blue block, my screen is too small so I need to scroll past it to access the form *every single time*, I never read it. (it can probably be hidden with CSS.. will do that now) - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:08, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- One reason why the link is where it is might be that somewhere near the list of old versions and their thumbnails seems like a natural place for users to expect an action to another version of the file. whym (talk) 03:02, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
.svg/20px-Pictogram_voting_comment_(orange).svg.png)
Comment I agree with Ziv. Completely useless change. Yann (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I am sorry, but I stand by my previous opinion. It was a change that was not strictly necessary and should be reverted to the old version as soon as possible. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 16:14, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Another detailed answer: @Ladsgroup.
- You need to bear in mind that your new version practically invites edit wars over files such as File:Flag of Syria (2025-).svg and this is just one. Other users or admins will then have to deal with the resulting problem and may have to protect such files. I personally like the idea from @Alexis Jazz, of hiding this option, for example, in the "More" section. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 16:52, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I am sorry, but I stand by my previous opinion. It was a change that was not strictly necessary and should be reverted to the old version as soon as possible. זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 16:14, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I also agree with Ziv. This button is for users who already have certain plans for overwriting a certain file. It should not be prominent. Prominent button would be an invitation for incompetent users to overwrite for the sake of overwriting. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- I see a lot of piling on here, but do remember that for several years now, to overwrite a file that you did not upload yourself, you need at least autopatrol permission. If someone has that level of permission, they presumably have a fair understanding of how things work here. If they are doing stuff they shouldn't it is unlikely to be out of ignorance. - Jmabel ! talk 22:30, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- It seems like the reupload workflow has been an afterthought for a long time, should be better re-designed. It's a bigger issue than changing or changing back the styling of the reupload link/button, though. The styling itself is not a problem in my opinion - it's just a normal MediaWiki button like any others. Accidental overwriting is a problem that should be prevented, and making it harder to find the option is not the only way. How about adding a prompt saying something along the line of "do you really want to do it? you might want to upload it under a new name" in an opt-out manner (that can be disabled in preferences)? The current reupload page does say "Please mind our guidelines on overwriting existing files(...)" but that seems too obscure and too late. I think it's more important to make sure it's read by people trying to reupload, especially people who have never done that.
- That said, as a temporary solution, I think we could overwrite the styling just for Commons. @Ladsgroup: Can you suggest a CSS rule for MediaWiki:Common.css to do that (e.g. make it grey or some other dim color)? whym (talk) 02:59, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks for the change! Despite contributing for decades, I still would have to scroll up and down looking for it. I wanted to ask for making it more obvious for several years. --RAN (talk) 03:37, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Seconding this. The button was too obscure. It looks better now. Nakonana (talk) 06:57, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Just echoing that I also appreciate this change. I help onboard new Commons contributors, and the option to overwrite files is a frequent question and point of awkwardness. It was absolutely not perfectly adequate. I think the core issue is actually that the action is in an odd place. Most actions are either at the top (editing) or in the dropdown/sidebar (moving, purging, etc.). The new-version link being in the file history section never really made sense to me, but at least having the overwrite action now be a button helps it stand out in its otherwise awkward location. If people prefer a less prominent button, or can figure out a new location for the link altogether, that is fine by me. I understand the concern that the button may invite unconstructive overwriting, but I'm not a fan of letting potential bad actors hinder improvements to our archaic UI. As Amir mentioned, that feels like security through obscurity. If bad overwrites are a frequent problem, then we should revisit the overwrite flow itself. I like some of the options Amir proposed, like better surfacing guidelines and advice. ~Kevin Payravi (talk) 16:13, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Seconding this. The button was too obscure. It looks better now. Nakonana (talk) 06:57, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- I would suggest to have the overwrite button on the same menu as the rename button as both actions are similar important and similar often used. GPSLeo (talk) 09:03, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- @GPSLeo I agree with this actually. And the file history doesnt belong there either, nor does “what uses this file”. These are all historical accidents that people now feel attached to, but make no logical sense if you were to design from scratch. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:56, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
Deletion request has continued for over a week with no response
Hello!
I've opened a deletion request at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sherlock App.png regarding an image that almost certainly contains undisclosed AI-generated content (see nomination for more info), but more than a week later, I have not received any response.
Would an administrator please see what they can do about this? (I'm from the English Wikipedia, so I'm not very familiar with the procedures at Commons.)
Thanks for your time. GrinningIodize (talk) 14:15, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- We still have open deletion requests from last year. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a deletion discussion to remain open for an extended period. Best regards, זיו「Ziv」 • For love letters and other notes 14:21, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- @GrinningIodize: Hi, and welcome. Please be patient. Per COM:DR#Latest requests to be closed, "There are 11098 open deletion requests, the oldest being 239 days old." — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:45, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Oh my! I didn't realize that your backlog was that bad! Is there anything that I can do to help out? GrinningIodize (talk) 15:41, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- GrinningIodize, try leaving comments on other deletion requests, someone might return the favor. Comments generally make it easier for admins to close requests. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:46, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Got it! Will see what I can do, thanks! GrinningIodize (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
July 04
Lilypond question
Hi! Is there a chance to put music notation objects (like ABC and Lilypond) on Commons? Will the Lilypond-source then be rendered? --Bebbe (talk) 09:22, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- @Bebbe: Are these formats unencumbered by patents and copyrights? - Jmabel ! talk 04:05, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Yes! This is traditional music, which is very old. We even don't have to pay GEMA, if music groups play these songs in public. Bebbe (talk) 05:17, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Lilypond notation is already used in Wikidata. The format is part of Lilypond, a GNU licensed software, and the documentation specifically comes under GNU FDL.
- ABC notation is documented on abcnotation.com with CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 on the documentation content. Michalporeba (talk) 08:24, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
Hi, FYI, I am uploading scans of this UK magazine. Issues from before 1906 to Commons, and issues after that to English Wikisource: s:Category:The Sketch. For the later issues, they may not be in the public domain in UK, depending on the content and the authors of each magazine, but big parts of them are (anything which was published without an author). These pages could be copied to Commons, as they are not freely accessible at the source.
BTW, it would be nice if someone who has access to (or even a copy of) missing volumes (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 17, 20, 22, 25, 26, 50, 58, 60, 103) could upload them. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:59, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- @Yann: is this any use? https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/the-sketch - Jmabel ! talk 04:08, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- @Jmabel: Thanks for your answer. This requires a login. Yann (talk) 07:52, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Sadly the British Library, founded to be a national archive for the people, grubbily sold off all the newspaper archive digitization to https://www.dcthomson.co.uk/. This is why the public domain archives are not "free" despite legally being "free".
- Even without a BL card, access to UK libraries normally includes full access to the newspapers and/or access to ProQuest British Periodicals when using the library computers. This might mean tediously manually downloading to a USB stick then uploading. If these remain missing, I may be able to try this over the next month or two without getting my library access blocked. --Fæ (talk) 11:40, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- Poking at this online, it is clear that the 'British Online Archives' have an exclusive "copyright". Consequently Gale/ProQuest do not have The Sketch even though they have other publications by the same publisher. This gets worse every time it is examined more closely. Fæ (talk) 12:28, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- Even without a BL card, access to UK libraries normally includes full access to the newspapers and/or access to ProQuest British Periodicals when using the library computers. This might mean tediously manually downloading to a USB stick then uploading. If these remain missing, I may be able to try this over the next month or two without getting my library access blocked. --Fæ (talk) 11:40, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
Wiki Loves Yoruba Heritage Photography Contest
Dear colleagues, the Wiki Loves Yoruba Heritage photography contest will start on August 1, 2026. We invite everyone to help document and celebrate the rich heritage of the Yoruba people by contributing photographs of our culture, traditions, historical sites, festivals, architecture, arts, and other aspects of Yoruba heritage. To reach more people outside the Wikimedia community, we have proposed a CentralNotice banner to promote the contest and encourage wider participation. Thank you. Agbalagba (talk) 11:08, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
Help needed! Is this really CC BY 4.0?
This page, from an official website of the Rio de Janeiro city government, features satellite photos of the city and its surroundings ranging from 1999 to 2025. The images are very good, with an amazing resolution (I can even identify the existence of people on the streets in some cases). According to the details, it is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license, which would be great for Commons.
However, on the 2025 map for instance, the bottom right corner reads "NASA/USGS | Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro Powered by Esri". On the 1999 one, it reads only "Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro Powered by Esri". I have not checked all the years, but I would like to know if, at least in the cases where "NASA" is written, the map can be screenshotted and uploaded here. And what about "Powered by Esri"? Thank you! Yacàwotçã (talk) 18:21, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- Seems to be a partnership between NASA and the Rio de Janeiro city government. I don't see any reason to not accept the CC BY 4.0 license. Darwin Ahoy! 18:29, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
AI-mediated editing?
I stumbled upon Category:Cagar Budaya Provinsi Banten earlier today, and noticed a bunch of categories duplicating already existing ones. So I just went ahead to merge and clean up where needed (taking a break currently at section "S"). At some point I wondered about the user that seems to be at the source of it all, Arif Permana Putra (talk · contribs). Their edits seem to be superhumanly rapid (I counted 500 similar edits between 2026-06-23 02:59:02 and 2026-06-23 02:41:19, or about one edit every 2 seconds), which is of course possible with gadgets, but as far as I know, these are tagged as such. Being untagged, they have to be regular edits, right? But to load a page > copy+paste a line of wikicode > switch to the summary field > copy+paste a summary > and save every 2 seconds for 500 consecutive edits? And that for a user who has been active for just over two months? My question to the audience here: what do you think is going on here? And if it is AI-assisted editing, would that be subject to COM:BOTS rules? --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:55, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- @HyperGaruda: Didn't you ask this user first? Also you should have notified them, which I did for you this time. Yann (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
- HyperGaruda, why AI? These look like repetitive edits. I've made many semi-automated untagged edits with user scripts I wrote myself. Look no further than my impressive 15K edit count on nvwiki. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 01:39, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry about that, I thought linking the user was sufficient as ping and notification. As to why AI rather than a script: I got triggered initially by their last couple of 2026-06-23 Wikidata edits, using "hallucinatory" in their edit summaries while fixing some very remarkable values for the "located in..." property. From here on, it's admittedly assumptions and suspicions, hence why my initial post is formulated as more of a question. Perhaps something that points more towards AI involvement, are the Commons category creations and file categorisations at the start of 2026-06-23, each with edit summaries that feel a bit too perfect and artificial:
- Creating parent category
- Creating subcategory and linking to parent
- Categorizing file into [insert link to specific category here]
- --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:06, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- HyperGaruda, I didn't really look into it, but are there significant problems with their edits? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 06:48, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Well, if that is the reason for the duplicated categories (e.g. Category:Masjid Caringin, Category:Masjid dan Menara Agung Banten Lama, Category:Mercusuar Cikoneng Anyer etc.), including the related duplications on wikidata, then I'd say yes. --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:04, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- HyperGaruda, I didn't really look into it, but are there significant problems with their edits? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 06:48, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry about that, I thought linking the user was sufficient as ping and notification. As to why AI rather than a script: I got triggered initially by their last couple of 2026-06-23 Wikidata edits, using "hallucinatory" in their edit summaries while fixing some very remarkable values for the "located in..." property. From here on, it's admittedly assumptions and suspicions, hence why my initial post is formulated as more of a question. Perhaps something that points more towards AI involvement, are the Commons category creations and file categorisations at the start of 2026-06-23, each with edit summaries that feel a bit too perfect and artificial:
Is this category even a thing? We only have two seasons: dry season (November to May) and rainy season (June to October). I'd assume even nonsensical categories like Category:Autumn in the Philippines also exist. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 23:35, 4 July 2026 (UTC)
July 05
Dance by location
For files in the subcategories of Category:Dance by location, which use "of" (e.g. Category:Dance of Estonia), are they meant to be categorized by the origin of the dance or by the location where the dance was filmed? So e.g. if I film a traditional Chinese dance being performed in France, should that go under Category:Dance of China or Category:Dance of France? Sdkb talk 17:48, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Category:Dance of China for sure; I'd consider Category:Dance of France (or something even more geographically specific) if the performers were French residents, but probably not if it were a visiting Chinese troupe. Also almost certainly Category:Chinese culture in France or some subcat of that (e.g. there are specific subcats for Dragon and Lion dances in France). - Jmabel ! talk 18:13, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- If we find that to be the consensus interpretation, I would strongly recommend adding something to the category description page(s) to document it and remove the current ambiguity. Sdkb talk 20:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Might it be helpful to create a separate hierarchy for "Dance by culture" and move a lot of the current by-location categories into it? This would also help split up messy categories like Category:Dance of the United States, which encompasses everything from square dance to hula. Omphalographer (talk) 00:03, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- Both of those are dance forms of the United States with folk origins, albeit from very different regions.
- For those dances, the origins are pretty clear (though Henry Ford's popularizing of square dance and the various more commercialized knock-offs of hula dancing make it a bit trickier). But in other cases, it's going to be hard to say whose culture originated a particular dance form. Consider the hora (national dance of both Romania and Israel), or classical ballet (starts in France, but some of what we now take for granted is definitely Russian), or for the complicated mix if African, African-American, and European dance forms in the history of social dance of the United States. - Jmabel ! talk 02:40, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- Might it be helpful to create a separate hierarchy for "Dance by culture" and move a lot of the current by-location categories into it? This would also help split up messy categories like Category:Dance of the United States, which encompasses everything from square dance to hula. Omphalographer (talk) 00:03, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- If we find that to be the consensus interpretation, I would strongly recommend adding something to the category description page(s) to document it and remove the current ambiguity. Sdkb talk 20:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
- Categories "(activity) of (place)" indicate cultural origin. Categories "(activity) in (place)" indicate location where it is happening. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 20:38, 6 July 2026 (UTC)
- While cultural origin is sometimes very clear, at other times it is very fraught (see examples in my 02:40, 6 July 2026 remark, to which I would add things like polka in Mexico, Mexican vs. Colombian cumbia, etc.). - Jmabel ! talk 03:43, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
- I definitely take the point that defining cultural origins of a dance can be fraught. At the same time, it's often a more defining element of a dance media file than where it was performed (e.g. I care more that it's a dance of Chinese origin than I do that it was performed in France). Sdkb talk 05:42, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
- While cultural origin is sometimes very clear, at other times it is very fraught (see examples in my 02:40, 6 July 2026 remark, to which I would add things like polka in Mexico, Mexican vs. Colombian cumbia, etc.). - Jmabel ! talk 03:43, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
Creating category redirects at scale
I recently encountered a situation that I'm guessing will be familiar to others. I was trying to tag a traffic circle in Italy, so I searched for a relevant "Traffic circles in Italy" category. It didn't appear to exist, but I was able to tag the image with a broader "Traffic circles" category. Clicking through to that, I discovered that the category is actually located at "Roundabouts", with a suitable "Roundabouts in Italy" subcategory. Wanting to pave the path, I went ahead and created a category redirect from Category:Traffic circles in Italy to help out the next editor. But this same issue probably still exists for the roundabout subcategories of most other countries. What I really want to do is create a category redirect from every instance of "Traffic circles in [Country]" to the corresponding "Roundabouts in [Country]", ideally by specifying something programmatically so that future "Roundabouts in [Country]" categories will also have the incoming category redirect created as soon as they are created. Do we have any mechanism for this? Sdkb talk 22:26, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
July 06
Final reminder: Wikimedia Commons Pre-Conference at the Wikimania 2026
This is a final reminder about our Wikimedia Commons Pre-Conference at the Wikimania in Paris on July 21. If you want to join the pre-conference, please sign up on this page until July 7. Participation at the pre-conference is also possible without a ticket for the Wikimania. If you sign up before the deadline on July 7, you will get free access to the pre-conference day. Unfortunately, online participation will not be possible.
If you have something you want to present or you want to talk about at the pre-conference, please add it here, also until July 7. See you in Paris! GPSLeo (talk) 15:58, 6 July 2026 (UTC)