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January 02
History maps of Europe
Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments4 people in discussion
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.
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)Reply
@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 ! talk18:49, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
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)Reply
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.
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)Reply
February 22
Maps from Our World in Data
Latest comment: 1 day ago30 comments7 people in discussion
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.
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)Reply
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.
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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.
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)Reply
[[: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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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.
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)Reply
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.
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.
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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 means manually editing 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)**//
take the file name as the variable topicname and strip File: and , Asia, YYYY.svg (or ,Asia,YYYY.svg) from that variable
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 **//
remove all occurences of "{{Map showing old data|year=YYYY}}", ""[[Category:YYYY maps of Asia]]" and "[[Category:Our World in Data maps of Asia]]"
(else leave the file alone)
repeat the same with "Africa", "Europe", ["North America" or "NorthAmerica" would need to be mapped onto "North America"], "Oceania", and so on.
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)Reply
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 ! talk20:53, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
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)Reply
Educational use rationales for controversial content (a note from WMF Legal)
Latest comment: 3 days ago24 comments14 people in discussion
Dear Commons friends,
–
Summary: Wikimedians have become very good at dealing with copyright issues. But today, there are other important legal risks to navigate: the main ones here are privacy law (the “right to be forgotten”), and online safety rules. More than ever, we want to encourage Commons to be very diligent at defining and applying COM:EDUSE. When hosting controversial content, it’s legally vital to be clear about its educational value - especially when it comes to content that depicts real people, or content that risks triggering user protection (e.g. age gating) laws. Commons could take inspiration from the Wikimedia projects’ already robust approach to copyright (including “fair use justifications” under legally risky media).
–
Hi all - my name is Phil, and I work in the Legal Department at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Wikimedia Commons is a thriving and rich community, providing great societal value, and it has learnt to deal well with a key legal restriction on sharing content online: copyright law. So well, in fact, that when worried EU legislators controversially imposed additional copyright filtering and takedown obligations for platforms, they exempted Commons.[1]
The aim of this post is to draw the community’s attention to heightened legal sensitivity in two newer but equally important sources of legal risk: privacy laws (also called “data protection” laws), and online safety laws. Both of these relate to how the Commons community defines and applies COM:SCOPE - and in particular, COM:EDUSE.
We want to thank and congratulate all of you that take a careful approach to assessing whether content should be kept or removed from Commons. That’s super important - now, more than ever. We want to encourage everyone to be doing exactly like you. We also wanted to inspire you to consider further improvements in Commons’ policies and practices. Here’s why.
a. Privacy laws
Over the past decade, privacy disputes have become the #1 source of litigation affecting the Wikimedia projects.
Privacy laws around the world[2] often give individuals the right to demand the deletion of content about them. Some call this the “right to be forgotten” (RTBF). Thankfully, it is not an absolute right: just like copyright, there are exceptions that protect freedom of speech, and education.
The way these laws usually work is that if someone demands erasure of content that identifies them, there needs to be a balancing exercise of public versus private interest. Each case might be different, but the general rule is that if content is more intrusive (for example, if a photo was taken at a private meeting, and/or it tells you about someone’s political or sexual orientation), it probably needs a stronger “free speech” justification. In any case where the justification isn’t strong enough, the photo/video/etc should either be removed, or made less intrusive (e.g. by cropping or blurring).
As you can see in our Transparency Reports,[3] it’s exceptionally rare that WMF actually has to remove content due to RTBF demands. There are two big reasons for this. Firstly, WMF devotes a vast amount of time and expertise to fighting removal requests; we even have a pending case at the European Court of Human Rights about one.[4]
A second and probably more important reason is that the Wikimedia community often deals with this issue very well. We want to encourage this.
On Commons specifically, the legally-critical balancing exercise means fairly and carefully deciding what’s more important: the educational value of the content, or the possibly harmful impact it might have on an individual. You can see why COM:SCOPE (and in particular, COM:EDUSE) plays an essential role here: it guarantees that content on Commons will be realistically useful for an educational purpose. That's where you assess whether media has a sufficiently strong public interest to override the potential privacy concerns.
b. Online safety laws
Secondly, online safety laws are rolling out almost everywhere. Some are specifically imposing restrictions on porn sites, but others are much broader in scope. In response, some services are having to block visitors from particular regions, shut down completely, or impose other strict restrictions on their users. WMF and many others are working tirelessly on this issue, by talking to legislators,[5] challenging bad laws,[6] removing CSAM,[7] and more - to make sure these sorts of laws preserve access to knowledge, and don’t unfairly restrict what the Wikimedia projects have been lawfully doing for decades. But that work is just the background, compared to the even more important things you do. Once again, the key factor, here, is COM:EDUSE.
Your creation, refinement and application of COM:EDUSE allows our allies and advocates to prove to judges, lawmakers and everybody else, that whilst there might be controversial content on the site, it should be legally protected: Commons is not a porn site, it is not a “gore” site, it is not a general filehost, and it is not a social media "Wild West"; it is an educational project.
Evolution of best practice:
These issues are not new to the projects,[8][9] but the legal risks are high. Continuing to robustly define and apply COM:EDUSE is currently the number one protection against those risks.
We really appreciate when you have thoughtful, well-justified deletion discussions. It is good that you’re deciding to remove content when there isn't a good enough justification for it; and that when you do decide to keep content, you’re clearly explaining why. When we can show that to judges, they can quickly understand why Commons should win the legal battle.
We expect that some of you will have really great ideas about how to continue evolving project policy and practice. One evolution that we’ve come to appreciate in the past, when it came to managing legal risk around copyright (on projects that decide to allow fair use images), was the adoption of robust fair use evaluation criteria,[10] and clear documentation of how those criteria applied to potentially disputed content.[11]
We’re sure that many people in the Commons community will have their own ideas around how to stay strong and effective against these newer legal threats, maximizing the educational value of Commons, and making sure that existing processes are working as they should. If we can help with this, we hope you’ll let us know.
To all of you, we offer our deepest thanks for everything that you do.
On behalf of the whole Legal Department at WMF,
Phil
↑Article 2(6) of the EU Digital Single Market Directive on Copyright
Thanks for posting this. It's a good reminder that the processes we've developed (and enforce on a daily basis) are important beyond Commons. I do read this as somehow straddling "keep up the good work" and "there's room to improve", but without concrete guidance on what needs to be improved. Perhaps that's by design, either for legal or community relations reasons. I'd be curious to get your unofficial thoughts on this sometime. One of the obvious liabilities regarding Commons and EDUSE is that we automatically consider something to be educationally useful if absolutely any Wikimedia project has it in use (including those with few active participants, with poorly developed media use policies, with no recent changes patrollers, etc.), and the prospect of going to that project to resolve the issue for them is typically frowned upon. In other words, even if we determine it would not otherwise be educationally useful, even someone using their own image in an article on a very small project invalidates our determination. — Rhododendritestalk | 16:12, 24 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
if we determine it would not otherwise be educationally useful 1. where is the need to delete it unless it has some copyvio, dignity or similar issue – one could add for example a warning template to the page and/or rename the file 2. those places where files are used are editable and there's users there one could ping as well as discussion places. People too often depict the policy as being flawed. It isn't and it's super important to uphold; the conduct around it has maybe been flawed. We should not editorialize other projects without even notifying and including them.
As far as I can see Commons currently deletes files that are realistically educationally useful (for educational websites, educational videos, maybe not Wikipedias, where specific realistic use-cases are described) while keeping things that are not realistically useful because a few people vote against deletion in DRs without being able to describe a specific educational use-case. Your creation, refinement and application of COM:EDUSE allows our allies and advocates to prove to judges, lawmakers and everybody else, that whilst there might be controversial content on the site, it should be legally protected: Commons is not a porn site, it is not a “gore” site, it is not a general filehost, and it is not a social media "Wild West"; it is an educational project. Been saying this all along; maybe it gets better understood now. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:19, 25 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Most discussions we had around these topics came to the conclusion that the VRT would need handle possible new procedures as they require confidential information (one example). The VRT volunteers refused to be responsible for this. If we need better processes to prevent privacy and personality right violations, we need paid staff to do this, as we do not have enough volunteers. We could have more volunteer capacity to go into such a complex topic, if we would not wast so much time because of problems with the software and our tools. GPSLeo (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Sadly, deletion discussions on Commons are barely functional due to a lack of participation, and as Rhododendrites correctly notes above INUSE means that a lot of images that are extremely questionable as "educational" are left up. Many Commons users seem to have an extremely broad view of "educational images", seeming to view Commons as a place they can dump any sort of photographs that are in the public domain, such as old family photos found on Flickr and the like (which are uploaded under the premise that their copyright was never renewed/claimed to begin with). Due to its nature, Commons inevitably contains content that is educational but pornographic (such as old stag films) as well as gory (photos of people killed in conflicts) that regardless of educational value may lead to legal issues. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:23, 24 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi all, just checking in to let you know we're actively following this discussion (and really appreciative of the reception it's receiving). It's already raising some interesting points and questions, and we always want to give as much breathing room as possible for communities to think things through and discuss what makes sense to you (rather than to some distant lawyer), so we might stay slightly peripheral/watchful for a little while. Just to take stock of what I think has been raised so far, in terms of "guidance" and ideas:
My original post emphasized the importance of careful assessment of deletion requests (or other admissibility debates) around privacy-sensitive or controversial content (at this point I don't really want to be drawn into debates over what constitutes controversial/NSFW content, but if you would like an idea of what some of the legal systems I have to deal with are thinking about, I can provide some examples). The more sensitive you think some content might be, the more emphasis there should be on having a robust and clearly-expressed educational use rationale for it (and if nobody is coming up with a particularly convincing educational use rationale, this might be a sign that the media in question belongs elsewhere on the Web, but not on Commons). Remember that it's not just your own peers in the community that need to be convinced of the overriding value of an item/category - my colleagues and I might also need to convince a very sceptical judge, jury, lawmaker, etc.
Drawing on our own practice in Legal when a complaint comes in (of going and looking at what debates the community has had about the content), we really appreciate the practice, on en-WP, of having a nicely drafted-up Fair Use Rationale for an image, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Use_rationale_examples . For controversial media or media depicting individuals perhaps against their will, having something similar (robustly explaining the educational use rationale) - either on the image itself/its Talk Page, or at least per-category (being mindful of workload) - could be something to think about.
On the topic of robust EDUSE rationales and what @Rhododendrites and @Hemiauchenia had to say about INUSE: is INUSE (in its current form) being used to undermine/bypass the Commons community's own discretion and experience in determining educational value? From my side, I will cautiously admit (noting that this is a public setting) that it's not always ideal having to defend Commons content, e.g. in court or administrative proceedings, solely on the basis that someone created (e.g.) a Wikidata item about something, and happened to pop an image in there. Maybe VRT agents and Village Pump/Help Desk responders feel similarly, when dealing with complaints from the public.
@Hemiauchenia also raised something we've sometimes observed when interacting with Commons: that sometimes, copyright considerations become dominant over others: if it's freely licensed, then that is "all that matters" to some members of the community (I exaggerate). Legally of course, that is often not true: copyright is there to protect the interests of the person behind the camera (or whoever else owns any IP rights in the work); but other laws, e.g. privacy law, are there to protect the person in front of the camera. The protection of IP rightsholders certainly matters, but I think it's absolutely correct that folks in the Commons community are equally concerned about the personal rights of the person shown in the photo/video/etc (especially in the era of LLMs usage etc). And that's where the balancing-of-interests test I mentioned in my first post, comes into play (if you'd like a quick example of how that test plays out in court, this is an interesting case).
@Hemiauchenia and @GPSLeo touched on workload problems. This is something we're acutely sensitive to - participating in Commons should be enjoyable; and a heavy backlog of DRs is in nobody's interest - almost by definition (since some DRs are valid), a backlog means there are files lingering on Commons that create risk (legal, reputational, etc), as well as work (community curation, persistent/recurring complaints, legal defense, etc). The significant ongoing growth of content on Commons[1] is, in principle, a good thing - the enrichment of the digital commons - but it's important that the systems to support that (including/especially the human systems!) can keep up. Even though I work closely with folks in WMF Product & Tech, I'm from WMF Legal, so this perhaps isn't the right place to discuss tech work that could support this (though I encourage you all to keep engaging with P&T in all the appropriate spaces). Also, since well functioning systems help reduce legal risk, it would be remiss of me to not mention the admiration we have for everything the community does to find solutions to issues itself, e.g. @Ladsgroup's pretty nifty-looking idea for an alternative dashboard for DRs.[2] We love pointing judges, lawmakers and reporters to just how unique that kind of empowerment is, and how well it works. That alternative dashboard is proof that this is a space that's ripe for further innovation. On the "human systems" side, it's nice to learn from @GPSLeo and @RoyZuo that there's active work going into assessing (and where necessary, improving) how folks in your community organize yourselves. We'll look into those discussions (in slower time) to see if there's any value WMF can add to those discussions.
Hi @Pine - yes, it was a deliberate removal for now - I think we'd be very interested in coming to a conversation, but I'm going to check with colleagues (working on related issues) what their own preferences are (re. timings, format, etc) so that I can come back to you with something more concrete. PBradley-WMF (talk) 20:22, 28 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Is there somewhere in particular we can start a discussion on best practices in this respect? I have things to say, but I don't want to see this particular thread turn into an open-ended discussion that might get into real or even hypothetical cases. - Jmabel ! talk` 02:47, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Jmabel If it's a discussion with me/my colleagues that you have in mind, then for anything confidential there's legal [~@~] wikimedia.org ; and for anything that can be discussed openly, I think we're happy to be pointed to wherever makes sense for your community - be that a Village Pump, the Talk Page for COM:SCOPE/EDUSE, etc. As I said, if it's tech, then there are perhaps other places (Phab, Meta, this VP, etc) that make sense for that, too. PBradley-WMF (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
@PBradley-WMF: Please, I'm simply trying not to derail your thread with lengthy discussions of past controversies and of hypotheticals, proposals on best practices, etc. Don't derail your own thread! - Jmabel ! talk19:21, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Is this only about depiction of people or other things, too? I'm wondering about privacy concerns regarding photographs of buildings: we've got regular DRs for photos of architectural heritage monuments, which currently are still in use as houses of private people. Those people discover photos of their homes here and then ask for deletion. What should be done in such a situation? Nakonana (talk) 10:35, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Nakonana - if in doubt, applying that balancing test (strength of EDUSE vs. degree of privacy intrusion/harm) is probably a good move. In my career, I have seen complaints (e.g.) about non-consensual photographs taken inside a vulnerable person's apartment (showing religious iconography, bedroom contents, etc) - so you can perhaps imagine that not all pictures of "property", including buildings, play into such an assessment in quite the same way. PBradley-WMF (talk) 17:15, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I want to add my quick 2c to this thread. As a user with VRT access, I’ve seen removal and deletion requests citing privacy reasons increase dramatically over the past few years. Whether each one is truly driven by privacy concerns or sometimes serves as an easier route to removal is something I won't speculate on here.
One of the fundamentals of our policies is that if a file is actively in use on any other Wikimedia project, it is by definition being used for educational purposes — whether that use is perfectly executed or not. In my view, this is the gold-standard "educational rationale". We can talk all day about potential educational value, but actual, real-world use on a sister project (even a small one with limited editors and oversight) is concrete evidence that the file serves an educational function.
One could argue that a particular use isn't automatically a "strong" or ideal educational application, but in my book practice beats theory every day of the week. This approach has served us well when balancing educational value against other legal interests, and I believe it remains one of our strongest protections. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 17:24, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Since wikicordo has been mentioned here, any ideas or ways to improve it (specially if it's missing a common keyword for tagging), please let me know. I hope it's useful for people. Amir (talk) 14:36, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
@PBradley-WMF: You raise multiple complex issues which the Wikimedia community has discussed seriously multiple times over the past 20 years. Before I respond to your questions, I have a response to the way that you are asking. Instead of asking here in this forum, I request that the Wikimedia Foundation somehow make a resource investment in thoughtfully collecting Wikimedia community feedback on these social and ethical issues, and then further invest in summarizing and documenting what the community says. The Wikimedia volunteer community deliberation process has lots of successes in its history, but some conversations are too complex to discuss with posts on discussion boards. Without some kind of convening and organization, virtual or otherwise, and without dedicated labor to make sense of more points and text than volunteers can casually process, it is challenging to advance conversations.
To the content of your questions, here are some possible discussion directions -
I have a collection of edge cases in permissions for photos on Commons at Commons:Model license/Case studies. I framed this as a discussion about "model licenses" on Commons, which may not be best, but in any case, these are discussions where Wikimedia community members said that Commons should not be hosting photos of people without permission of the subjects of the photos. Some recurring cases here are medical photos intended for physician education; photos of naked people of all kinds for many reasons; photos of people protesting, demonstrating, or marching in public spaces to advocate for a cause; people-on-the-street photos capturing scenery; promotional photos from governments depicting people without consent; and photos where the uploader claimed to have consent of the depicted but for which Commons had no satisfying process to confirm this.
I want to share an opinion and remark which comes up frequently in Wikimedia projects. I edit with Wikimedia LGBT+. People take photos of Gay Pride Marches. These are very popular events, familiar to people in large cities around the world, and which have happened for decades. It routinely happens that people marching in those events, who are comfortable demonstrating publicly on the streets for gay rights, and perhaps holding signs and doing other attention-seeking behavior, also have an expectation of privacy around what they are doing and an expectation that they should have control over the photos which people take of them, if someone posts their pictures online. The conflict here is that Wikimedians and others feel a right to take photos of people on streets demonstrating, while the subjects of those photos complain of a right to have those photos removed from Commons.
Going beyond gay pride, for every sort of protest imaginable, the general case is that people doing protests around the world in any protest for any matter, often complain of Wikimedia projects retaining their photos. Wikimedia Commons does not have a mechanism for counting such requests. Because Wikimedia LGBT+ is an organization, its members have organizational memory of encountering the requests specifically on LGBT+ demonstrations.
On the taboo topic of child exploitation, I support the Wikimedia Foundation in taking measures to stop it. At the same time, I am aware of child safety being a dishonest and fake accusation which governments around the world have directed at tech platforms to pressure them to reduce civil rights to communication, reduce privacy, and to deter participation. I know that this is a sensitive area. I am aware of the Wikimedia Foundation's annual transparency reports and the count of how many child safety alerts we received. In that context, it is my belief based on the evidence that Wikimedia projects have better protection for child safety than any of the other platforms with which we could be compared, but also, Wikimedia projects get accused much more frequently and more harshly than we deserve. When Wikimedia projects are accused of lacking child safety, I think that often the reason for that is because we are an independent media source publishing neutral information which may conflict with the views of powerful and wealthy institutions. I personally have never heard of anyone anywhere in Wikimedia projects who has encountered or spread a rumor that Wikimedia projects have been used for child exploitation. In comparison, I think it is common knowledge among people in Internet culture that the major platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Google products, and all other major tech platforms are routinely channels for transmitting such content, but I feel like there is a tendency for governments to forgive major commercial platforms for known offenses but to accuse smaller community efforts of being theoretical offenders. I do not want the Wikipedia platform to harshly restrict access to people's right to read and edit Wikipedia based on unfounded fears and problems which are routine in commercial platforms.
Thanks. Please support efforts for third-party university or other expert researchers to examine Wikimedia projects, and for Wikimedia users to talk with each other, and for Wikimedia Foundation staff to better understand Wikimedia community values and ethics. Incidentally, I do not feel that the Wikimedia community ever had a productive direct conversation about en:reporting of child pornography images on Wikimedia Commons. So far as I know based on everyone I have ever met, the consensus from that event is that there were zero offending images ever found in that accusation. Whatever the case with that, I wish that the Wikimedia Movement could collectively admit any offenses, and teach the community to understand how we prevent such problems. That event in 2010 was a chaotic disruption including for Wikimedia coverage of sexual health and LGBT+ topics. The outcomes of that event were not public, so I have limited understanding of what happened in that event or what the full list of deleted media was, but so far as I know, the deleted images were of the sort which which are routinely posted as art or education in platforms like Instagram. I recognize the wish to put the past behind but also I question whether Wikipedia can ever move on from this issue and our past with it, and feel like we have strength in community awareness and collective decision making on how to protect our ethics and values. Bluerasberry (talk)19:03, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hello @Bluerasberry. There's quite a lot to unpack there, and to keep things streamlined I won't touch on every point. But:
1. "Instead of asking here in this forum, I request that the Wikimedia Foundation somehow make a resource investment in thoughtfully collecting Wikimedia community feedback (...) " I don't think these are mutually exclusive. Here, I've strived to bring a direct message to the broad community, about our appreciation for diligent application of COM:EDUSE, particularly when it comes to balancing public interest versus risk of harm. This has very high legal importance, in today's environment. Further discussion about what you've called "edge cases" can also be productive, but I wouldn't want the simple, vital message being drowned out (or only heard by people with time to commit to a much bigger process).
2. "(...) the general case is that people doing protests around the world in any protest for any matter, often complain of Wikimedia projects retaining their photos." I'm not sure there's a hard and fast answer on this one (as I said, this tends to come down to case-specific balancing exercises; and sometimes there's a project-optimal "third way", e.g. cropping or blurring). Ultimately, I think the Board said it well in its Media About Living People Resolution: key Wikimedia principles here include:
- "Treating any person who has a complaint about how they are portrayed in our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encouraging others to do the same." and
- "Taking human dignity and respect for personal privacy into account when adding or removing information and/or media, especially in articles or images of ephemeral or marginal interest;"
3. "When Wikimedia projects are accused of lacking child safety, I think that often the reason for that is because we are an independent media source publishing neutral information which may conflict with the views of powerful and wealthy institutions. (...) I feel like there is a tendency for governments to forgive major commercial platforms for known offenses but to accuse smaller community efforts of being theoretical offenders." I think that would be an interesting area of study. For now, I don't know whether everyone would fully agree with that premise (especially about what motivates regulatory risks in this domain). But I do think you and I agree about the existence of that regulatory risk, and that taking a positive, thoughtful approach to the design and operation of the projects is essential.
Just one point to add here: modern day regulatory conceptions of "child [online] safety" go beyond "child exploitation" and CSAM - the two are not perfectly synonymous. It's important to recognise that present-day online safety regulation is also concerned with other issues, such as vulnerable persons' mental health (from exposure to harmful content, cyberbullying, digital addiction/psychosis, etc). Folks legislating and enforcing such laws sometimes talk about the "Four Cs risk framework" (contact, content, conduct, and contract risks): see https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10453252/PBradley-WMF (talk) 13:07, 10 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
This seems to be going increasingly deep into being a discussion of specifics, effectively derailing the discussion of a process by which we will address this policy area. - Jmabel ! talk19:38, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago14 comments3 people in discussion
on the main page right under the title there're 4 links to Images Videos Sounds 3D Models, which link to the root categories of each of those types.
however, i think the root cats are not very helpful, especially for occasional users of this website who may not understand how to navigate the site, because those pages have long lists of subcats and sometimes files that are waiting to be moved to subcats. they look too technical and dont present some high quality files.
Oppose your proposed links aren't better and secondly these links can be added to those linked category pages. There's some useful links on these pages already. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Interesting and I'd suggest to links from that page to the category pages but I wonder why one would want to browse through a totally random good-quality images – I think just a small fraction of visitors is sometimes interested in that.
Things that could be better include having such autogenerated galleries linked well-visibly at the top of categories (maybe even partly embedded via a new panel where one can click [see more] to go to the full gallery page) and/or having images for all the subcategories in the gallery where one can then browse to the subcategory by clicking on the file's description/link.
That's basically what the gadget Help:FastCCI is about which dynamically loads featured pictures, quality images, etc for whatever category one is in. However, most visitors probably have not noticed the button and never used it; and the bigger problem is that like 90% of the time it doesn't work because the tool is down and still nobody has fixed whatever is causing it to go down at the time (see its talk page). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:30, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think many people coming from the main page might be interested in looking at a random selection of reasonable quality files. I don't think people go to the main page if they are looking for something specific. Although perhaps such people would be better served by Commons:Featured Pictures.
The probable reason nobody has fixed fastCCI is a mix between nobody caring and nobody having access. One of the problems with toolforge tools is access is usually restricted to the author. That said, as cool as fastcci is, i don't think its suitable for people wanting to browse. Bawolff (talk) 17:07, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I didn't say most are looking for sth specific; I meant that most people aren't very interested in a totally random set of good-quality images from about every imaginable topic (albeit with strong bias for photos and nearly no statistics, videos, or diagrams) but instead are interested in more narrow sets of files. In my case that would be photos relating to say current events and science as well as up-to-date statistics of all kinds (again, not included in these featured pictures).
i don't think its suitable for people wanting to browse. I'd be interested in why you think that is – in specific because then maybe another tool / variant of it could be developed or FastCCI be improved accordingly. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:29, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why does this user think people all think the way they think and not in other ways?
"I didn't say most are looking for sth specific... most people... are interested in more narrow sets of files." Not specific but more narrow. What's all this exceedingly long rambling about? RoyZuo (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I was describing what I meant to say/said in my prior comment. I could have written 'Why does Bawolff think people all think the way they think and not in other ways?' but I prefer more constructive less offensive and more friendly language. Thanks Prototyperspective (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think some people just want to look at pretty pictures. Some people are also going to want different things too. I think we already do a reasonably good job with narrow areas but not a great job for people who just want to be surprised with a broad selection of reasonable quality photos. Bawolff (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
And that's why I recommend adding that link to the category page. We should not assume all or the vast majority of users want to look at sets of pretty photos about random topics. They can open the link from there. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
So this user assumes "the vast majority of users want to look at" "the category page", and they want to "open the link from there"? RoyZuo (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Help needed to close 6,323 Category for Discussion cases
Latest comment: 3 days ago9 comments6 people in discussion
There is a large and growing backlog of open CfDs. It would be great…
if more people would participate in these discussions to move them toward closability and
if more admins or CfD/backlog-experienced users would to go through CfDs to close closable discussions (if there is a way to filter these for discussions with 3+ participants, that would be useful)
CfDs over time – this chart was made possible by generative AI and uses data of scraped from Wayback Machine archives of Category:Categories for discussion via a new tool
The oldest open discussions are from 2015. If you have any ideas how to increase participation or more easily solve more CfDs, please comment. For example, maybe there is a way to see CfDs for subjects one is interested/knowledgable in or users could identify users relevant to CfDs and ping them from there to get these to participate (e.g. top authors of the linked Wikipedia articles identified via XTools).
CfDs shouldn't be closed for the sake of it prematurely though – the reason for why they have been started should really be solved before they're closed – sometimes this requires some restructuring, renaming or categorization work. For info about CfDs, see Commons:Categories for discussion. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:55, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps we can categorize CfDs like we categorize DRs, so people who are only interested in a specific subject can browse CfDs relating to that subject more easily. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 15:19, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Good idea. Joshbaumgartner had already set up Category:Category discussions by topic in mid 2024. However, it can be difficult to categorize CfDs into these as these topic categories probably would need to be and are very broad where deepcategory fails. This probably is part of the reason for why the current subcategories are very incomplete and contain just few CfDs (which means that cat is currently not very useful and also doesn't seem to be used much so far). For example, when trying to find more than the 1 CfD currently in the Culture-related CfDs, this search does not show any CfDs and neither does this search. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, it was an attempt to do exactly that, but as a manual process it isn't going to be useful unless broadly adopted as part of the CfD process and probably needs some better gadgetry to make it user friendly for nominators to categorize their CfD from the start. Josh (talk) 01:11, 10 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Agree. Adding some functionality to a widely-used gadget or a gadget in general may not be needed for this to be broadly adopted: one could have a bot auto-categorize the CfDs and then then better-populated by topic cat could maybe be made more visible in various ways so more people use these. Since the deepcat queries break, I don't know how that could be done theoretically – maybe via petscan or quarry or the Commons SPARQL query service. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:46, 10 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree that categorizing CfDs could be useful, both for users to find them to comment, and for admins to find them to close. (That's especially true where the discussion hinges on specific knowledge bases, or is conducted in non-English languages.) I don't love the idea of canvassing users, even by neutral/automated criteria, unless it's strictly opt-in.
Like many other tasks, the CfD backlog is mostly due to a shortage of admin time. (Experienced non-admin users can also close discussions, and I think it's a great place to learn admin for those considering the mop, but obviously they are not able to delete categories when needed.) There's also a notable lack of tools to efficiently work with CfDs, which means that the workload for a given CfD is substantially higher than a DR. I can close DRs or process speedies on my phone in a few spare minutes on the bus, but closing CfDs requires my laptop and a longer block of time.
Tool to close CfDs - it should be one click to add {{Cfdh}}, {{Cfdf}}, etc, just like it is with DRs.
Tool to rename all categories in a category tree, and move associated files
Tool to add/remove CfD notices on all categories in a given category tree
There are some other less common but time-consuming CfD closure tasks that would benefit from tools. For example, sometimes we decide to merge two category trees with identical structures but different names, or to upmerge a large swath of categories. Having to work through these can make a single CfD close take hours.
Some of these may exist in some form on enwiki or other wikis, which could reduce the work required from "write from scratch" to "localize to Commons". Given the importance of the CfD process and the limited capacity of volunteer developers, I really think these should be developed and maintained by the WMF. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:31, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
some are just missions impossible unless the right person interested and capable in that task can be found.
Latest comment: 4 days ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Besides the artic fox, the boulders are very interesting. I dont know what processes shapes these rocks. Is there any category for this? 'Round boulders' dont seem to accuratly describes these rocks. Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I asked an LLM attaching the image and it returned The round boulders or rocks you're referring to are commonly known as ball boulders or spherical boulders. In geology, these are often referred to as concretions. They typically form through the process of sedimentation and mineral precipitation, resulting in rounded shapes over time.[…]. but I could not find a category named with either of these two terms so maybe it doesn't exist yet. I then searched for spherical boulders beach to find a similar image to check its categories and it found the one on the right with Category:Moeraki Boulders set but that cat has no broader cat about this in specific set. One could also create e.g. Category:Spherical rocks on beaches. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:41, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 days ago7 comments6 people in discussion
Hi there everyone, I would like to know if there are plans by Wikimedia and Wikimedia Commons to add support to the new JPEG XL and HEIC type of files. Been experimenting with them in the last days and they seem really great, allowing to shrink the file size by very much. ----LucaLindholm (talk) 11:01, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Geohakkeri Thanks, just saw it and people suggest to start discussion just here in the Village Pump on Commons to begin exploring whatever or not there is consensus on these new files. :D -- LucaLindholm (talk) 11:27, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
If the reason for its stalled status is lack of consensus to support these filetypes on Commons, I'd suggest making a thread proposing this at Commons:Village pump/Proposals where the benefits of adopting these filetypes and their characteristics are sufficiently explained. I did not read the full issue but it seems like there also are some technical challenges. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:45, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
JPEG2000 at least has some patent-related issues for some compressions, afaik. I don't know if JPEG XL has it, but I would approve the inclusion of modern filetypes, as long as they are free (thinking about OpenEXR, LAZ and glTF) :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 16:27, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would definitely support JPEG XL, as it's far superior to JPEG and manages to avoid most of the problems that doomed other JPEG replacements. Nosferattus (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
"If the reason for its stalled status is lack of consensus" no it is not. However consensus is definitely a requirement if you ever want Wikimedia to even consider doing something about it. Without that, you are at the mercy of chance or of external developers (as you might notice, I recently spent some time investigating both HEIC and JpegXL support). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:24, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Uncategorized files over timeWith the increasingly large numbers of uncategorized files, I think there needs to be some thought and work on how to address this at scale / effectively without consuming so much volunteer time. One idea is to better aid and facilitate uploaders to categorize their files at upload as outlined in Commons talk:WMF support for Commons/Upload Wizard Improvements#Guidance/facilitation of categorization; another idea would be to have tools suggest categories based on file-title, description, metadata, and content, similar to User:Alaexis/Diffusor.
On a related note, ultimately all of this is largely a two-stage process where adding initial category/ies is stage 1 and diffusion into more specific categories is stage 2; categorization can be improved a lot if initial category/ies are set if the one/s set is/are about the main topic/usefulness/uniqueness of the file. Probably both stages need some development.
.
I've created the chart on the right a few days ago using some new tool that I coded with the help of AIs – does somebody know how to get data for between mid 2015 and early 2024 or why there is this quick rise from 2012 to 2015 but a decline by 2024? Prototyperspective (talk) 12:58, 10 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
The "two-stage process" that you describe is certainly helpful, e.g. by using Category:Unidentified by topic, but I am even more proud about files that I can categorize to their final location. In many cases, this might involve creating a new category for a person, of which a Wikipedia article exists in any language. This new category will, initially, most often contain only one file, but it can be inter-wiki-linked to the relevant Wikipedia articles via Wikidata. GLAMorous is a powerful tool, to find uncategorized photos of persons, of which a Wikipedia article exists. Until a suitable bot will be programmed, these photos have to be categorized manually one-by-one, please. NearEMPTiness (talk) 02:29, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Just my two cents... I think it is the job of the uploader to choose a suitable category/categories. The "penalty" for not doing so, is that an image will remain unnoticed, and is unlikely to be used in a Wikipedia article. Trying to think of a suitable category is a nice way to pass the time, certainly. But we're looking at about 1000 uncategorized images per day, and I consider myself lucky if I can find a category for more than a handful. Regards, MartinD (talk) 20:27, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
If we find 200 volunteers, who will categorise at least 5 files per day, we will proceed faster than the uploaders of uncategorized files, especially if some of the volunteers will do more than 10 files a day. NearEMPTiness (talk) 20:31, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
March 11
JSTOR image
Latest comment: 1 day ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Yes, I am right now sorting clips of uncategorized weather maps into these by-day categories. Also, when I come across a newspaper file, I add the day category, but I am not aware of any systematic effort to sort newspapers into these categories. The last time I suggested to do so was in 2024, see the full discussion here. I would support this idea, but also suggest getting support from bots if possible. --Enyavar (talk) 17:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that would be it. I was trying the wrong date formatting, and I could not find an example. Should it be News articles published on 2026-03-11, or just Articles published on 2026-03-11 so it can contain magazine articles, or just Works published on 2026-03-11, to be as broad as possible? Or should news articles be categorized by the day of the event, not the day published? News travelled slower in the past. That way someone looking up a day during the American Civil War would see the events of the day, not a day or two later, when it was published. --RAN (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Should news articles be categorized by the day of the event, not the day published? News travelled slower in the past.
In this case, there should be a category for the day the article is published, and one for the subject the article is about. "Works published on..." would be a suitable parent category with "Articles published on..." being one of its subcats. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:58, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Re "Works": Here I don't think we need to consider other periodicals, or books. The exact date of publishing is not too relevant with a scientific journal, so I don't think they would need to be categorized by date. The same with monthly periodicals: these are not daily newspapers, and should be categorized by month of appearance, even if they do have a day-date. That means, "Works published on..." (date) is really superfluous in my opinion, and will just lead to more fractures in the category tree. For example, 1876-06-09 is the exact publishing date of Twain's Tom Sawyer, but we do not need a category for "Novels published on 1876-06-09". Rather, "1876 novels" is precise enough, and "1876 books from Chicago" for the 1st edition (year book location-scheme). Ergo: Publications/Works where the publication day really matters, are (daily+weekly) newspapers, but little else. That is, I'm looking at the matter with pre-internet publications in mind. Post-1990 and post-2000, things may be different.
Then, RAN might have mixed two slightly different subjects in the comment above, namely newspaper issues (the full publication, or whole pages) and newspaper clippings (singular news articles). I think these should be approached differently.
I'm strongly supporting the idea of just categorizing newspaper issues only by date of publishing. In the times when news travelled at the speed of horses or sails, the same newspaper issue would contain stories about events that happened weeks and days ago, along with the local news of yesterday and today. Our users just should expect on their own that an earthquake that happened in Chile at a certain date in mid-19th century, would not appear in a London newspaper on the same day. Also, a weekly newspaper would still be filed by date of publication.
That said, a newspaper clipping of just a single story, should instead be categorized by the date of the event that is described in it. For example, 1921-06-22, but not 1921-06-23, despite being taken from a publication of the latter day.
I think that country subcategories will come up sooner than later, so I want to consider them early. That doesn't mean we should create by-day categories single newspapers, of course. But it still means several different patterns could be established, here I'm going for an example: "Newspapers of the United States, 1899-09-14" or "United States newspapers published on 1899-09-14" or "1899-09-14 newspapers of the United States". All three suggestions fit the existing patterns, I would say. My favorite would be the third: "<date> newspapers" and possibly "<date> newspapers of <country>" --Enyavar (talk) 05:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Would you also prepend the country name, as also established with the photos? That would fit the second suggestion in my post above.
Another thing, would you also change the category names of the year? Right now, we have "Newspapers of the United States, 1826" but also 1826 newspapers of the United Kingdom. Once we take on the daily format, the year categories could be changed to "Newspapers of <country> published in 1826", which also has the advantage of more clarity. In that way we could harmonize the two rivalling category structures. (Just a suggestion to ask if someone else sees that need; needs further debate in a CfD.) --Enyavar (talk) 16:26, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago2 comments1 person in discussion
I started a draft guideline at Commons:Upscaling that could use input. To be clear this section is not a proposal to make this a guideline but an invitation for users to edit or provide feedback on a page I plan to eventually propose as a guideline. I started to detail procedures for how to describe/tag/categorize upscaled images, but that got me wondering: what are the valid use cases for upscaling on Commons? I'm having trouble thinking of them. In some cases, upscaling is actively harmful. In others, it's a simple task that we should really just leave to our reusers if they want to. The only thing I can think of is if a Wikimedia project wants to upscale an image for use in an article. So maybe INUSE is the only realistic exception? Thoughts? — Rhododendritestalk | 17:34, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've made a bunch of edits since posting this message (and thanks, Jmabel for getting the exceptions started). Still hoping for additional comments or edits, even if to say "looks good". Planning to wait about a week and then start the proposal process at VPP. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Bot request: replace old username in file descriptions
Latest comment: 1 day ago2 comments2 people in discussion
My username was renamed from Christo to Random photos 1989, then I've renamed back to Christo.
Many of my uploaded files still contain the old username in the description
(for example in the Author field of the Information template).
Could a bot replace "Random photos 1989" with "Christo" on my files?
This is not true: The Republic of China had its first copyright law in 1928 (Wikisource), with modifications in 1944 (minor change in 1949), 1964 and finally 1985. (I know there are more copyright laws later, but 1928-1985 is the relevant timeline.
As you can check in the wikisource links provided, the copyright lenght did not change between 1928 and 1965 reforms, being the most relevant of all the texts 1944 because it included for the first time movies. This is the articles and terms:
Art. 4 General Works (Individual Author) Life of the author + 30 years (for heirs)
Art. 5 Joint Works (Multiple Authors) Life of all authors + 30 years (after the death of the last surviving author)
Art. 6 Posthumous Works 30 years from the first date of publication
Art. 7 Corporate or Official Works 30 years from the first date of publication
Art. 9 Photographs and Sound Recordings 10 years
Art. 9 Film Works 10 years (must be legally registered)
Art. 10 Translations 20 years (Note: This did not prevent others from translating the same original work)
So, there was a deletion request for some pictures (photographs) made by a folk who lived in the Mainland during ROC times and then fleed to Taiwan, and those pictures were deleted, even if, obviously, somebody linving in the ROC (both Mainland and Taiwan) between 1947 and 1966 was under the current ROC copyright laws (all 1944, 1944 and 1964 recognised 10 years post publication lenghth) and had its copyright expired by the time the 1985 copyright law was implemented, and far before URAA applied in 2002.
Just to clarify, by using for example Art. 7 and 30 years: does your statement mean that ROC government works up to 1954 would be considered public domain because they fell out of copyright before the laws changed in 1985? Or would that deadline rather be 1971, because the URAA date is 2002? Or does this work differently? Best, --Enyavar (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Not a lawyer, but my understanding is:
If a work was PD by July 10, 1985 (when the Taiwanese Copyright law changes), then it's PD. Answering your question (what was PD by July 10, 1985?):
Works by people dead by 1954 (+30 years: 1st January 1985)
Corporate works made in 1954 or before (+30 years: 1st January 1985)
Photos and videos made in 1974 or before (+10 years: 1st January 1985)
Translations made in 1964 or before (+20 years: 1st January 1985, very rare to have in Commons)
Then, 1985 changed again to
General Works Life of the author + 50 years
Cinematic (and Photo) Works 30 years from completion
And 1992 changed Cinematic (and Photo) Works to 50 years after public release; remaining the General Works unchanged.
This means anything in PD according to 1985-1992 law by 2002 was already PD in Taiwan because of 1928-1966 laws (and anything made in the Mainland under ROC rule was also PD by then). For Commons effects, anything falling in PD because of 1985 or 1992 (or 2002) law is not eligible because URAA, until 2047, when post-1996 fall into PD (The movement should ignore URAA in order to improve out projects, but it's a different debate).
Comment, regarding the DR you linked, it was not correct to say "some pictures (photographs) made by a folk who lived in the Mainland during ROC times and then fleed to Taiwan". Per my comment in the DR, the photographs depict that person, so clearly the person did not "make" the photos. It is unknown who has taken the photographs, so we can only assume for the photographs taken in mainland China, the works of the unknown author are subjected to PRC laws, while for the photographs taken in Taiwan, the works of the unknown author are subjected to ROC laws. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
That's a topic for The Undeletion requewst itself, and I can't see the pics (Where were those made?), but if the man moved to Taiwan in 1949 (mny guess: post-1949 are pics of Taiwan), then the whole rationale works.
And still: PRC had no copyright law at all, PRC did not have a Constitution (so, abolish all of the ROC laws) until 1954, and works made by people without PRC passport at the time (two pics, if made in the Mainland) fall into the copyright laws of the country who gives citizenship to the photographer, not the laws of the place where the pics are made. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 21:52, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
When a new law extends the length of the copyright term, there are two possibilities:
The new term applies only to works that were under copyright on the effective date of the change, or
The new term applies to all works, including those whose copyrights under the old law had expired.
The second is less common, but the combination of the dates in the existing guidance looks like that might be the case in Taiwan. I don't read the language and I'd rather not trust Google translation with something as subtle as this, so I think we need a Chinese reader to look at that issue. . Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 20:07, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I believe there is no combination in the existing guide, someone did 2002-50 = 1952, and followed up with the 2002 (1992) laws regardles of previous possible considerations.
About the possibilities you name, it's the first option, according to article 50 of the 1990 text, which I'll quote in Chinese (you can Google translate to get an idea while waiting for a subtile native translation which I can't provide because I'm not a native speaker).
I'm also not a lawyer, so below is just what I understood by reading the law:
I think the explanation can be found in the article 106-1 of 1998 law (for English translation, see "article106bis" in page 57 of this PDF, the PDF was for later versions of the law, but article 106 is the same).
From reading Article 106-1, I think it meant that for works completed before the WTO date (1 Jan 2002), if those works haven't obtain copyright under the previous versions of the law, and are still under the copyright terms of the current version of the law (e.g. death+50 years), the current law shall apply to those works (there are some exceptions for foreign works, but that's not the subject of discussion).
Article 117 also states Article 106-1 shall take effect on the WTO date (1 Jan 2002)
To me, this meant that most works created before 2002 shall be subjected to the current copyright terms, hence works that are not PD in 2002 will subject to URAA protection (with exceptions for some unpublished works, registered works and foreign works)
Article 106 has two clauses on it (quoting the English version you linked):
"this Act shall apply to works that were completed prior to the date on which the World Trade Organization Agreement took effect in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China":
where such works did not enjoy copyright under the provisions of the respective versions of this Act (condition 1, the works had copyright and expired under previous versions of the act)
but
where the term of protection for economic rights has not expired in accordance with this Act; (condition 2)
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm using now AI to help me navigate this but:
Once again, not a lawyer, but it seems like the works those whose copyright protection period expired before June 11, 1992, shall become public property because the copyright economic rights protection period has expired, and anyone may freely use them. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:15, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
This introduces a new nuance: 1944 ROC law (and following ups) did include a provision (apparently, only for films) in which in order to be protected they needed to be registered (simillar to US law). Apparently, the law is retroactive for those films failing to fulfill legal register. But only for those (because the need to register in order to have copyright was only for films under the 1944 version, not in the original 1928 law) and not retroactive for works already in PD according to the then valid law.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:35, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, this second TIPO documents seems to confirm what the "such works did not enjoy copyright under the provisions of the respective versions of this Act " in article 106 did mean: The law is retroactive but only for works not covered by the older versions of the copyright law (Movies not registered according to article 10 in 1944 law ( 電影片得由著作人享有著作權十年。但以依法令准演者為限). Indeed it's not exactly a US-like copyright registry, it seems every film was protected... unless they were censored films. For works which are not movies, the law was fully authomatic, so it will change nothing on the restoration proposal of deleted photos.--TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
The first statement by TIPO is referring to registered works. Please note that prior to 1985, all works are required to be registered in order to have copyright protection, so not just for films.
You can see this in Article 1 of any versions prior to 1985, which states "works that are registered according to this law shall have copyright". This register system was abolished with the 1985 law, and it was changed to the current system of "automatic copyright upon creation".
The 1990 text clarified (in Article 50-1, as you quoted above) that the 1985 law will restore copyright for unregistered works published after 10 July 1965. These works subsequently have their copyright terms extended under Article 106 of the 1992 law.
To me, the 1990 text also meant that unregistered works published before 1965, still have not "enjoyed copyright" under any versions of the law, until the Article 106-1 came in effect in 2002, and restore copyright to them.
The fact the register system exist before 1985 is exactly the reason why I specified there are exceptions to registered works. It has a slightly different calculation for their copyright terms, hence it is more complicated (similar to the registered works in the U.S.)
However, to my understanding, currently there isn't a digital system to check for past registration records in Taiwan (unlike the U.S. Copyright Public Records System), so not sure how people here in Commons can check if a particular work was registered or not.
Thanks for the nuance. All works had to be registered
Same
Unregistered works [only those] had its copyright extended, as clarified in 智著字第09300006140號 and 智著字第0920008530-0號. Registered works with their original copyright term expired are considered PD.
Yes, the system is complicated, but the current guidance and explanation is wrong. Works properly registered under 1928-1965 copyright law whose term expired before 1992 (indeed, before 1954/64/74) are PD. This should be explained, and those files should be in Commons.
IDK if there is a registry, but we can assume, at least, for movies, that any film not censored by the government was indeed registered (same for magazines; otherwise, they would not be able to publish it in a military dictatorship with censorship such as Taiwan). For photographs, especially non-professional ones, it can be tricky.
The undeletion request is the undeletion request, we can talk about it in the specific pages. We have undeletion petition for works made in Taiwan, in the Mainland, for pictures, films and paitings. Each has a different case. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 09:37, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
As I stated before, the paragraph in 智著字第09300006140號 (the first TIPO statement you quoted) are specifically referring to registered works, so it doesn't contradicts with my statement about unregistered works. The paragraph is simply stating for registered works that entered PD before the 1992 law, they would remain in PD even if the 1992 law extended the copyrighted terms.
Please note that 智著字第89007299號 (the second TIPO statement you quoted) was made in 29 August 2000. The statement did use the term "Article 106-1", but the text TIPO quote is definitely Article 106, not Article 106-1. So, the statement was probably referring to Article 106 only.
This means when that statement was made in 2000, it was definitely true that unregistered works published before 1965 was still in PD, since they do not meet the requirements of Article 106, which previously came in effect in 1998.
Article 106-1 (the important part) only came in effect in 2 years later in 2002, as dictated by Article 117 which states Article 106-1 to 106-3 shall come in effect on the WTO date. Only then in 2002, unregistered works published before 1965 have their copyright restored retroactively.
Please see this TIPO statement from 17 September 2003, which states, "又我國自九十一年一月一日加入WTO後，之前未曾依我國歷次修正施行之著作權法受保護之電影著作，將依著作權法第一百零六條之一回溯保護著作公開發表後五十年，亦即原先在我國未曾受著作權法保護之本國及外國人著作，將因適用回溯保護之規定而受保護（即四十一年一月一日至七十四年七月十一日間發行而未註冊之影片將因本條文規定仍受著作權法保護）".
Note that they specifically used the term "回溯保護", which means "retroactive protection".
The sentence in bold roughly translates to "unregistered films released between 1 January 1952 and 11 July 1985 will still be protected by copyright law under the provisions of this article". The sentence is referring to films because TIPO was answering a question about films, but I think it would apply to any unregistered works from 1952 to 1985.
1) Ok, I understand now. Obviously, we should focus on analizing both the registered and unregistered works
7) Ok, good find. I must admit I'm starting to get lost on details, but I get the 2002 law did override some of the conclusions I had arrive.
Focusing on what we can agree (changing the wording in PD-Taiwan, even creating a new template if necessary):
What is PD in Taiwan (and compatible with URAA)?
Registered works by people dead by July 11, 1955 (+30 years: 11th July 1985)
Registered corporate works made in July 11, 1955 or before (+30 years: 11th July 1985)
Registered photos, sound works and audiovisual works made in July 11, 1975 or before (+10 years: 11th July 1985)
Registered translations made in July 11, 1965 or before (+20 years: 11th July 1985, very rare to have in Commons)
Any unregistered work made before July 11, 1965 Any unregistered work made before 1st January 1952 (+50 years after creation in the time URAA was effective)
Taking into consideration the current discovering only affect works registered, perhaps instead of changing the existing templates should we create a PD-ROC-Registered template? I believe using ROC as name is better because it covers both Mainland and Taiwan period, but it could be named PD-Taiwan-Registered too.
Also, I'm unsure if the right date should be July 11 or January 1 (although I believe de facto will always be January 1 because works fall into PD at the begining of the year). @Tvpuppy: What do you think about this? TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
As I mentioned before, the copyright terms calculation for registered works is more complicated, so I cannot be sure if your calculation are accurate. However, I have some comments:
Registered works that entered PD before 11 June 1992 is in PD on the URAA date. This is because Article 106 of the 1992 law states the 1992 law only applies to registered works that are still in their copyright terms. This means the copyright terms of registered works whose copyright has expired in 1992 were not extended under the 1992 law, hence remained in the PD ever since.
For some registered works, there is a distinction between the creation date and publish date. This is because between 1985 and 1992, the copyright terms are calculated from the creation date. However, prior to 1985 and starting from 1992, copyright terms are calculated from the publish date. It is possible for works to be created and registered before 1985, but wasn't published until before 2002. This means the calculation might be different for those works.
I agree "PD-ROC-Registered" is more suitable than "PD-Taiwan-Registered", as some works might be registered to the ROC government when ROC still governed mainland China before 1949.
The concept of "works fall into PD at the beginning of the year" was only first introduced in Article 35 of the 1992 law. Prior to 11 June 1992, works fall into PD on the date it was created/published.
Latest comment: 3 hours ago5 comments3 people in discussion
This image is a Quality image.This image shows all of the lit LCD panels, which occurs when the batteries are reinserted.
I'm a bit confused about uploading images of Game & Watch consoles to Commons.
Would the screens on the consoles count as a derivative work? In the United States, most photographs of game consoles (like the Nintendo DS) have utilitarian aspects, as stated in this section of the guideline. However, it states later in the guideline that anything on a utilitarian object may be subject to copyright.
I have several questions regarding this. Do the permanently colored backgrounds of the screens on Game & Watch consoles, such as those listed in Category:Game & Watch and its subcategories, count as utilitarian? When all of the LCD panels on the console are lit, would it not count as utilitarian?
The graphics displayed by a video game are fundamentally not utilitarian in nature, regardless of whether they're being displayed in the course of normal gameplay. Omphalographer (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would assume it would not count as de minimis, either, given the examples in that guideline.
Would this mean that most of the images that depict Game & Watch games need to be edited to conceal their graphics? (The reason I say most is that this would probably exclude ones like Ball with its screen off, which may be under the TOO.)JudeHalley (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Not so much de minimis as ineligible for copyright.
Also: if there is an imae of a console we want ot us, and the content on the screen is not relevant, it is easy enough to blur or otherwise cover anything that is not relevant to the purpose of the photo and would constitute a copyright violation. - Jmabel ! talk05:15, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose your proposed links aren't better and secondly these links can be added to those linked category pages. There's some useful links on these pages already. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2026 (UTC)_cases_over_time_on_Commons.png)
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Comment, regarding the DR you linked, it was not correct to say "
