Shortcut: COM:VP

#	💭 Title	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Again, Internet Archive	18	7	THEBOSS40	2025-10-03 19:46
2	Which apps are using Wikimedia Commons?	7	4	Prototyperspective	2025-09-29 18:23
3	Election map rename requests	5	3	Jmabel	2025-10-04 03:02
4	Are these from the 1970s or contemporary made to look like the 1970s?	3	2	Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )	2025-10-04 00:24
5	Batch uploading	10	4	PantheraLeo1359531	2025-10-04 19:43
6	The ban on civilian unmanned flights will last until Friday (Denmark)	1	1	PantheraLeo1359531	2025-09-29 13:35
7	Commons Gazette 2025-10	1	1	RoyZuo	2025-10-01 20:22
8	Should we split by-camera categories by subject matter of photos	4	4	ReneeWrites	2025-10-03 09:35
9	Diagrams by language	1	1	Prototyperspective	2025-10-01 23:23
10	The problem with Golden hour	8	4	WereSpielChequers	2025-10-05 09:15
11	Categorization of colors on flags	27	7	Kontributor 2K	2025-10-04 20:45
12	Does anyone know the name of this type of shirt collar or the name of the fasteners?	1	1	Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )	2025-10-03 18:19
13	Confused categories	4	3	Enyavar	2025-10-05 22:14
14	Images from the National Museum of Wales	3	3	Yann	2025-10-05 20:12
15	Photo challenge August results	1	1	Jarekt	2025-10-04 04:13
16	Names of churches	6	3	JWilz12345	2025-10-05 11:03
17	Help needed identifying photographer	2	2	Rosenzweig	2025-10-05 23:10

Legend
In the last hour
In the last day
In the last week
In the last month
More than one month
Manual settings
When exceptions occur, please check the setting first.

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

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then again INTERNET IS INTERNET IF ITS SOUNDS REAL, its probally real THEBOSS40 (talk) 19:46, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you know of any, please list them here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this the same issue as the renaming of maps with "Gulf of America", "Gulf of..." etc or is this vandalisim THEBOSS40 (talk) 19:50, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is neither. - Jmabel ! talk 03:02, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

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

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

• Good point. Thanks. --RAN (talk) 00:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

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

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

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

Working on the batch upload requests would be a really impactful way to contribute. If more of these would get done, I suspect there would also be more requests and ultimately a substantially more useful Commons. I was surprised to find that page quite late and think it's way too unknown. However, at the same time only a small fraction of users are capable of implementing these roughly speaking and it probably wouldn't be the best thing to display to relative newcomers so I don't know whether mentioning it at Commons:Community portal somehow would be a good idea but that's a place that has link to places that list things one could do and backlogs.

The page is similar to the Commons:Free media resources page linked there where there's some items that could be turned into a batch upload (for example it would be great if somebody could import the free audios on FreeSoundsLibrary but I'd prioritize e.g. the free biology-illustrations in a request there). Prototyperspective (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I learned now a little bit to use OpenRefine. We have several issues that need to be adressed:

1. How many people have the knowledge to perform batch uploads?
2. What tools are available to do so? (OpenRefine may be the best tool, especially for more than 100k files and >1 TB of data
3. How hard is it to get data for upload (all relevant URLs, information, description, categorization, copyright information (may be challenging when it is varying by file to file), date, restrictions on mass requests on that website, ...)
4. Who wants to take responsibility for one or more tasks?
5. Can we run into hardware performance issues? (especially when we may come to a data amount of >100 TB in total; what are the server limits?)

I think that batch uploading will play a much more important issue in the future, as the automated generation of photographs or etc. will increase much, so we will have to address it, as a part of it may be also in danger to get lost over time. I have talks, for example, about Mapillary, that may cover many million useful images. Several administrations offer maps or orthophotos of larger global areas, etc... A batch upload from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg is going on, and this example shows the importance very well. Right now, we have ca. 755 TB of recent and not deleted media on Commons, it won't take a lot of time until the first petabytes are written. Have a nice evening -- PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Addendum: And we need to whitelist acceptable domains to perform batch uploading --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 18:47, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

"How many people have the knowledge to perform batch uploads?" Are you one of them? Trade (talk) 02:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

May depend on the circumstances D:. When it contains coding etc., it could get tricky :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 08:03, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why would these issues need to be addressed? I don't see that in your comment. I think a question that needs addressing and is to some degree in the original question of the thread is how to get more people to implement Batch upload requests. I don't think there's many requests that would take a lot of server disk space and one could exempt these. Information on how to implement batch upload requests such as workflows and tools would be good to add to that page (well or on some page linked at the top there). Uploading some sounds or some biomedical illustrations wouldn't take more than a few GB and I think it's like that for most requests. For requests that require much more such many TBs, it may be good to get some community consent at some page but people can already comment at the BUrequests page. Photographs etc can already be generated and it's not a tangible problem so far but more methods to detect them would of course be useful – I don't see how it relates to batch requests though. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:52, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think that the datasets will get greater in the near future. Of course, a few GB aren't an issue, but some datasets may reach more than 100 TBs, like some aerial image sets. This trend may increase, as the number of imported files grows fast. More people can access more datasets at the same time, but you're right, bringing them into the process now is important. Maybe I am thinking too far right now :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

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

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

Appointment:

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

Removal:

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

We thank them for their service.

---

Edited by RoyZuo (talk).

---

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

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

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

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

By-camera categories should not be split into subcategories, certainly not by subject matter. Some allowance may be made for technical subcategories of camera+lens but I am not convinced even they are needed. MKFI (talk) 06:53, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

These categories shouldn't be split by subject matter, no. I added a comment in the CfD. ReneeWrites (talk) 09:35, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commons categorization isn't mainly about ontology, it's about helping people find things. Clearly, from its name, this is a category about photography, more than about a time of day, but it is certainly related to those two times of day. Perhaps this should just be a {{Cat see also}} from those categories, but there certainly should be a connection. - Jmabel ! talk 03:44, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I looked at your opinion and simply implemented my idea. I think it's more correct now. Lukas Beck (talk) 05:24, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Golden hour is when the lighting is typically the best for photographs, its not time based at all. But normally it is near sunset. THEBOSS40 (talk) 19:48, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

or sunrise ;-) Lukas Beck (talk) 09:50, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is about natural light when the sun is low in the sky. Depending on your latitude and season this can be all day in the arctic spring or a much briefer time at dawn and dusk in the tropics. Of course here in England it is more of a mythical time when it is neither raining nor cloudy, legend has it that at such times the sky over London can even be blue, though I'm skeptical. WereSpielChequers (talk) 10:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

at such times the sky over London can even be blue I have seen it. Summer of 1976, I believe. - Jmabel ! talk 01:25, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I remember that year, rather warm, far too warm to be sitting in an exam hall as I was. Don't remember any unusual sky colours though. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:15, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There was an extensive discussion on categorization on flags on my talk page. My argument is a category named for certain colors should contain all files that visually contain those colors, regardless of European heraldic rules. As far as I know, categories are intended not to serve custom regional rules, but to help users from around the world search for media. This is an international site, and the rules for flag subcategories should be universal.

My argument is based on Commons:Categories policy, which states that files should be placed in the most specific category that fits them. Therefore, a flag with visible color should be in a category named with that color. It is not helpful for a user searching for flags without a color to have to navigate through flags that contain that said color.

So I ask the community here, do black outlines, borders, and other similar design choices count as color on a image of a flag? Nebula84912 (talk) 00:31, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Categories for colors on flags should probably only include colors which are present as the primary color of a figure or of a field (background). Incidental colors, like black or white outlines around figures or colors present in fine details, shouldn't be included. For flags defined in heraldic terms, this should probably only include colors which are described in the blazon, or which are clearly implied with terms like "proper". Consider, for instance, the state flag of New York - the coat of arms at the center includes a complex landscape which can contain bits of many different colors. (I'm not certain if the landscape is even standardized.) Categorizing the flag based on every fleck of color present in that landscape is impractical, and dilutes the value of the color categories for more prominent colors. Omphalographer (talk) 02:13, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nebula84912's heading to this discussion, "Categorization of colors on flags", is misleading. The issue at hand is not the categorisation of colour palettes in flags as such, the issue is the categorisation of colours in heraldic designs as represented in flags. Obviously, not all flags are heraldic in nature, but a preponderance of insignia used by territorial public bodies such as municipalities, French départements, German länder, Swiss cantons, as well as other such territorial bodies across the globe, are indeed heraldic. Such insignia can interchangeably be represented as either coats of arms or flags, and it doesn't make sense for such flags to have their colours described in colour palettes other than the ones they were created from, which are heraldic palettes.

Black is a recognised colour in heraldic palettes, but only if a field partition or a figure is coloured in it. In heraldry, black is also used stylistically to bound off adjacent fields or to distinguish figures against their repective ground more emphatically. However, such stylistic use of the colour black is not considered part of the substance of a design and conventionally has never been reported in a heraldic design's formal description.

In effect, Nebula84912 demands that all flags, including heraldic flags, must have their colours categorised as if they were instances of graphic design, which they are not. Moreover, historically, colour categorisations on Commons have followed the long-established rule that heraldic flags have their colours described in the conventional heraldic fashion. Nebula84912's innovation of describing these artifacts in terms of graphic design would therefore involve a pointless exercise of overhauling a large body of existing work.

Nebula84912 has started this work by recategorising a large number of heraldic flags that were previously categorised the conventional way. The flags thus recategorised are now in categories that include black among their colours, which their corresponding coats of arms do not. There is no point to creating this division between coats of arms and their respective flags, least of all when it would require a large amount of work to undo firmly established practice.

I propose that Nebula84912 be asked to stop this project immediately. Thanks! ARK (talk) 08:03, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with both previous, and ping, at least, @Arrow303, Baseluna014, Doc Taxon, Erlenmeyer, Jpgibert, Lokal Profil, Mrmw, Snow Lion Fenian, and Thom.lanaud: since they may not receive notifications from here. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 12:36, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree too.

In heraldry, we don't really use colors but concepts represented by a palette of colors. The "azure" concept covers all blue nuances. If we categorizes with color, which number of blue can we have? Is cerulean is categorized like "navy", "teal" or "turquoise"? Must we have a category for each color?

Regarding the black used as delimiter for the figures' shapes, it is only a convention not explicitly described. So it must not be taken in account. This is a choice done by the illustrator.

Jpgibert (talk) 13:57, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Jpgibert: we actually are categorizing flags with those colors. Category:Navy blue flags and Category:Teal flags exist, along with Category:Saffron flags, Category:Maroon flags, etc. We generally don't use heraldic tinctures to categorize flags; we use primary colors like black, blue, red, and white. This is about flags, not heraldry. Why should flags of Asia be categorized under heraldic rules? Heraldry is an European tradition, not Asian. Nebula84912 (talk) 14:36, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jpgibert: "In heraldry, we don't really use colors but concepts represented by a palette of colors." So, these next flags are actually based on European heraldry, and we should categorize them according to traditional European heraldic rules?: [1] [2][3][4] [5]

Is that what you are saying? That we should rename the color categories to those of heraldy and classify these flags as such? Nebula84912 (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

You keep talking about an imaginary consensus that simply wasn't there. For example, these flags are marked as black, and not by me: [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

There are thousands more examples that I can give. I see them categorized as such all around Commons. Therefore, that "implicit" consensus never existed. The established consensus is the explicit consensus of Commons:Categories. Nebula84912 (talk) 15:38, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

"In effect, Nebula84912 demands that all flags, including heraldic flags, must have their colours categorised as if they were instances of graphic design, which they are not" Nebula is correct. If I am looking for grey flags, I don't care if it contains a heraldic element in the center based on medieval European standards. I care if it's got a grey background or stripe or star or something. I agree that very small incidental colors may be omitted, but omitting a flag that has a huge orange chevron because it also includes a seal/coat of arms/blazon that looks similar to an arbitrary standard is not helpful for navigation. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:30, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf: Just to be clear and avoid any confusion. The claim that I'm demanding things is totally unjustified. I'm arguing for something, not demanding something. I'm suggesting that the way we categorize flags should be comprehensive, clear, and universal. "Universal" means it must account for the international nature of the Commons project. It should also be user-friendly, meaning it should not be based on convoluted rules; one shouldn't need to be well-versed in regional heraldic or vexillology rules to find what a user is looking for.

Whatever the consensus, I think it shouldn't contradict Commons:Categories, as that could confuse users. Categorization should be intuitive.

If we decide that small details not visible at a simple glance should be ignored, I'm totally fine with that. However, it needs to be clear how small they need to be. Should they be invisible in the thumbnail, on the file page preview, or at the file's original size? I  Support that if they are visible at the full original size, then they should count. But I'm  Neutral if it is decided that only what is visible on the file page is considered. However, I  Oppose considering only what is visible in the thumbnail. I don't think a thumbnail defines a file; to me, it is just to give an idea of what the file is for navigating purpose. And that is my position. No more nor less. Whatever is the consensus here I will respect it. Nebula84912 (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

"I'm suggesting that the way we categorize flags should be comprehensive, clear, and universal... It should also be user-friendly, meaning it should not be based on convoluted rules". Could not agree more, and I've tried to represent these two principles below. These simple and clear principles should be obvious. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Omphalographer: How big does the figure have to be? Do small figures and inscriptions count? Do the primary colors of the boats and the sun on the New York state flag count? And what is the primary color of the boats? Is it white or brown? Or we should have to take the whole coats of arms as a figure and do not categorize the figures that form part of it at all? If we are doing that, what is the primary color of that coat of arms?

My primary concern is with colors that are clearly visible. As I said in my talk page, why users should be forced to navigate through images of flags (like this ones [19][20] [21] [22] [23][24] [25]), that clearly contain black when they are specifically searching for flags that do not? (like these ones: [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35])

Should this flag be categorized as black because it has a black acorn, i.e a figure? Nebula84912 (talk) 14:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Elementary, my dear Watson: As suggested above, read the blazon!

The coat of arms of Westernsee is blazoned thus in German:

Von Silber und Blau schräg geteilt. Oben ein sitzendes, in den Vorderpfoten eine schwarze Nuss haltendes rotes Eichhörnchen, unten fünf silberne Wellenfäden.

This may be translated into English as follows:

Per bend argent and azure; in the argent field a squirrel sejant gules holding in its forepaws a nut sable; in the azure field five barrulets wavy argent.

Observe that blazons use technical heraldic language, which is optimised for brevity and will take a bit of getting used to. The term "sable" stands for black. so a "nut sable" means a black nut.

Therefore: yes, the Flag of Westernsee should be described as having black among its heraldic colours. Kind regards, ARK (talk) 14:50, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

So this flag is black (sable) because a black cross is part of the coats of arms. That's correct? Nebula84912 (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

And this flag is purple because it has a purple flower on one of its coats of arms. Is that accurate? Nebula84912 (talk) 16:23, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

And that flag wasn't categorized as black. So according to the consensus on the file, that means the presumed consensus, that flags wasn't a black flag. So clearly, because of that example and the other examples that I gave, the "implicit" consensus that we categorize flags according to heraldic rules wasn't a real thing. Nebula84912 (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi everyone. I distinguish between a flag and the figures it may contain. For me, the Albanian flag is red, not red and black. It can also be categorized as a black eagle on a red flag. The Japanese flag is white and a red sun on a white flag. The black lines on the figures are not part of the flag, but rather part of the figures. Sorry for my English.--Erlenmeyer (talk) 17:24, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Flags with black animals and its subcategories are part of the broader Category:Black flags. This is based on the Commons guideline, Commons:Categories, which states: "The page (file, category) should be put in the most specific category/categories that fit(s) the page (not directly to its parent categories). A category can have more parent categories."

Therefore, those flags are still considered and categorized as a black flag due to the relational and hierarchical structure of the category system. If an file is considered a black flag, it should be categorized as such. The most specific subcategory for flags that contain black in this category, for example, is this category.

As I mentioned on my talk page, if we want to create more specific categories, we could create subcategories like "[Colors] flags of Germany with black outlines" or "Black outlines in [colors] flags of Germany." However, for now, the existing categories are the most specific ones available. Nebula84912 (talk) 18:08, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

And according with your logic, this flag actually is not a black flag, it is just a white flag. Nebula84912 (talk) 18:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you: this is a great example. If I am looking for flags with a white background, I want to find this flag. I don't care if it has a European conventional blazon animal on it or whatever. I care that it's got a field of white with stuff on top. It's beyond bizarre to hold every flag from all time and culture to some hyper-specific arbitrary ruleset. Just use common sense and make flags find-able by the features someone would expect to use to find them. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:33, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

ːːːIndeed, for me, this flag is white with a black eagle, like this one, fleur-de-lis black on a white flag, not a black and white flag.--Erlenmeyer (talk) 22:47, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The colours of the flag of the Swiss municipality of Seengen are not a matter of opinion. As in most heraldic flags throughout the world, they are a matter of public record, issued by an official publisher in the form of a blazon. In this case, please refer to the corresponding coat of arms of Seengen and read the blazon given and referenced to the official source in the file description:

In Weiss rot bewehrter und gezungter schwarzer Adler.

Which may be rendered thus in technical heraldic English:

Argent, an eagle displayed sable, armed and langued gules.

Which may be rendered thus in non-technical English:

On a white field, a black eagle with red tongue, beak, and claws, its wings and legs spread.

So, per the blazon,the colours of the flag are white, black and red.

Therefore, the flag of Seengen is correctly filed under c:Category:Black,_red,_white_flags_of_Switzerland.

By contrast, the flag of the Swiss municipality of Schafisheim has been incorrectly moved from the from Category:Red and white flags of Switzerland to Category:Black, red, white flags of Switzerland because the black outlines in the visual representation of the flag are accidental to the design rather than constitutive. For proof of this, read the blazon given by the same official publisher of the coat of arms of Schafisheim:

In Rot schreitendes weisses Schaf.

Which may be rendered thus in technical heraldic English:

Gules, a sheep passant argent.

Which may be rendered thus in non-technical English:

On a red field, a white sheep walking.

So, per the blazon, the colours of this flag are red and white. No black.

Coats of arms and their corresponding flags are instances of the same underlying heraldic design. Categorising their colours by two separate rulesets is a mistake.

I propose that this mistake be called out for the nmistake that it is and that Nebula84912 be asked to stop spreading it around any further. Thank you. ARK (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

About the response from Koavf:

“In effect, Nebula84912 demands that all flags, including heraldic flags, must have their colours categorised as if they were instances of graphic design, which they are not" Nebula is correct.”

First, this stance implies that if this principle is applied to vexillology, there is no justification for not applying it, later or not, to heraldry.
In both cases, this would amount to reducing a sophisticated science to a simple “wysiwig” concept, and for what reason? Enabling as many people as possible to access an image as quickly as possible, based on the simplest possible criterion, the candor of the criterion going hand in hand with this claim to democratize science; an approach that can straightforwardly be likened to the notion of “leveling down”.
In other words, by accepting this definition, it becomes unnecessary to know the basic rules of heraldry in order to quickly access an image through a search.
The said heraldry rules define, for an example, that in this image, there is no black/brown/pink/white, but only white (“argent”), on which an element specified as “au naturel” is placed. That is how it is.
And, as a matter of fact, this principle is already within everyone's reach, although it does require, it's true, a minimum of effort and circumspection — the minimum that is probably essential in all things — which makes the option of categorizing flags or coats of arms “as if they were instances of graphic design”, based on the will of accessibility to the greatest number of people (“I don't care if it contains a heraldic element in the center based on medieval European standards. I care if it's got a gray background or stripe or star or something”), very, very questionable.
Not to mention that if it were decided to go down this this route, it would also be possible, if not essential, to take into account the foreground gradient sometimes present in these images, which result, on the screen in front of our eyes, in several shades of the same color, which one could just as easily take the trouble to specify by categorization — for search results to be increasingly accurate, fast, without the need for refinement, or reflection, i.e. instantaneous.
I make a brief aside regarding the message inserted here, which contains (too?) many examples, three of which I will comment on:

1. File:Flag of Bangor University.svg
2. File:Flag of the British Army.svg
3. File:Flag of the Sons of Glyndwr.svg

- The first one does indeed contain black, since at least the “claws” and some “tongue” elements are filled with it.
- The second one does too, since the contour at the underside of the crown contains black ermine spots, on a white field, but as for the underside of the crown being filled with black, it's potentially resulting from an unfortunate choice by the illustrator; the other version is the one to be considered in regard of this. Let's note by the way that on these flags, possibly, there are also no green or blue, but a crown “au naturel”.
- The third example does not contain black at all: it's simply a categorization error, since what was qualified as black is actually blue — unless I have eyesight problems. That being, I corrected the category while I was at it, based on the visual and assuming that the coat of arms is correct, assumption being the only thing that can be relied on in this specific situation, since none of the associated files provides any reference.
More generally, it can be said that the implicit consensus is shared by users who have an approach based on the knowledge they have acquired in the field to which they contribute, and categorization errors are widely the result of contributors who are ill-informed, overly hasty, or overly confident.
This being, it goes without saying that, as the latter contributors are in the majority, it is very likely that the question will arise again someday, and it is even possible that the principle of categorization based on colors displayed rather than on specific rules will be accepted here in record time. in accordance with the rule of the majority.
Depending on what, in the long run, logically, this should also apply to heraldry.
In any case, the prime consideration here seems to have been diluted, as the conversation often strays off course and tends to go off in several directions, with sometimes many, many examples given simultaneously, which complicates the reading and makes it difficult to provide a truly concrete answer on any specific point.
First, it is said in the conclusion of the introduction to this topic, that therefore defines the core of the discussion: “do black outlines, borders, and other similar design choices count as color on a image of a flag?”
Here, it would be difficult not to consider that this wording could be a source of confusion, encouraging future debates to stray from a specific point, since that question concerns three elements, the first two of which (“outlines, borders”) may be distinct from each other, while the third (“other similar design choices”) is rather vague, and above all dilutes the primary concern, which is whether or not to take into account the outlines when categorizing the files in colour categories.
Indeed, it was this particular point that initially led ARK to start a discussion on Nebula84912's talk page, opening that I transcribe below:

“European municipal flags use heraldic colours. Black is one of these colours, but only if a figure or a ground are coloured in it: if a black outline is drawn around an element, that black outline does not count as one of the heraldic colours used in a flag or a coat of arms. Therefore, please stop categorising flags as containing the colour black when that colour is only used for outlines. The Flag of Hergiswil, for instance, contains only three colours: white, yellow and blue (that's "argent", "or", and "azure" in heraldic terminology). The black outlines do not count as a colour.”

“The black outlines do not count as a colour” is the primary point to discuss, before anything else including small elements, so that the discussion is not flooded.
It can already be seen here that many examples have been given, many points have been discussed, many points except this one.
From which it appears that so far, nobody has yet expressed an argument against the facts first exposed by ARK, namely “the black outlines do not count as a colour.”
I will add two very simple examples, in the form of coats-of-arms, the shape here being irrelevant and the outlines of the shield not to be taken into account, only those of the elements (for the example).
The principle proposed by Nebula84912 amounts to considering that two files representing the same figure, such as the examples below, are not composed of the same group of colors, and therefore categorized as such, meaning that both examples should no longer stand together in Argent and gules in heraldry, despite the fact that only a personal choice, linked to aesthetic constraints, or a consensual one, such as in the files of the Blazon Project of the French Wikipedia, defines the presence of this black color, which is in no way an element of the coat of arms definition, thus taking it in account for the description, or the colour categorization, is totally irrelevant in an encyclopedic concept.

One could also mention this flag, which in no way contains black, since it shows a red lion debruised by a green bend, in no way it has to be categorized in Black on flags with white fields, or simply in any wrong category.
I don't need to recall that I fully support the current categorization process, based on this principle, process that is respected by all experienced contributors, however, I would like to point out again that so far, nobody has yet expressed an argument against this process, i.e. an argument favorable to Nebula84912's way, so it seems reasonable that all subsequent arguments should not stray from this subject.
And, not only do I propose too that Nebula84912 be asked to stop this project immediately, but also that they restore all the files that were wrongfully moved.
Thank you. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 16:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is this post a joke? You wrote a preposterous wall of text and then ended that "nobody has yet expressed an argument against this process, i.e. an argument favorable to Nebula84912's way". Yes, I have: a normal person looking for a flag with a white field would want to find File:CHE Seengen Flag.svg. It's like you're deliberately not paying attention to very simple arguments and then you expect someone else to read a novel. And, also Nebula pointed out that there are a lot of flags that just don't follow European heraldic conventions in any way. Why would we apply these rules to them? It's just silly and not helpful. If you haven't noticed these arguments, it's because you're not paying attention on purpose. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:13, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, in the context, “nobody has yet expressed an argument against this process, i.e. an argument favorable to Nebula84912's way” was in regard of the reason for the initial intervention on Nebula84912's talk page, namely: currently, the black outlines do not count as a colour.

A question that remains wide open,
Thank you. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Whether or not black as used in an outline is included in the colors of a flag is secondary to the primary points that Nebula made, which are "I'm suggesting that the way we categorize flags should be comprehensive, clear, and universal... It should also be user-friendly, meaning it should not be based on convoluted rules". These two principles are correct. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't say that the question of the outlines is secondary, nor the current rule convoluted.

This said, as long as the question remains open, at least things don't get any worse. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 20:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone know the name of this type of shirt collar or the name of the fasteners? File:George Dewey Sanford (1898-1965) in 1925 at 63 Concord Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey.png RAN (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I do not know why there are two different categories for Category:Books from London by year and Category:Books published in London by year, but what strikes me is the strange way they behave.

The Category:1915 books from London seems to be categorized in Category:Books from London by year at the bottom of the page. However, when clicking that category, it is not found there – but it can be found in Category:Books published in London by year, although such a category is not listed at the bottom of the page.

The same applies to some other categories, like e.g. Category:1918 books from London, while others of this kind behave as expected. I suppose there must be some bug in the template {{Books from London by year}}. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:07, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jan.Kamenicek: have you asked any of the people who created these categories there intention and, in particular whether they intended a distinction? - Jmabel ! talk 01:30, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, I was more interested in the strange way in which the categories are distributed into superior categories than in the purpose of the two categories, which I wanted to discuss somewhere else once I understand this. Nevertheless I am pinging @Enyavar and AnRo0002: . --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:51, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, there are two parts of the category tree that are not in accordance: "Books published in London" "(Books published in Paris", "Books published in Cincinnati, Ohio", whatever). These pre-existing categories were categorized by place of publication, which was enough until we recognized that it's a bit unhandy to group 200'000 files in the same category. That was the starting point to break them up by year; and the process is far from done. (We/I could appreciate your help, if you'd like). In my opinion, it makes sense to start subcategorize by place+year IF you can expect most of the by-year categories having more than 10 titles.

However, there were also pre-existing "1866 books from the United Kingdom", "1866 books from Germany"... and so on, and that led me to create "1866 books from London" and similar categories in the first place. Eventually, more cities were added with the same scheme (the big centers of publication in the 19th century: London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Boston, Leipzig, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg... according to current numbers of files), and I would think that "<year> books from <city/or US state/or country>" is the preferred scheme. That is my opinion just based on the amount of categories that already exist, I'm open for a debate if necssary. So far, I hesitated to start a debate to rename the parent category that is still "published in".

The "Books published in London by year" seems to be an early error. I was not aware; but would suggest to create a redirect to "books from London by year". All my best. --Enyavar (talk) 22:14, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The National Museum of Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru) has released over 2000 images under CC-0 or CC-BY-SA licences (website here), with resolutions up to 4000px. There are many images already uploaded (e.g.) that can therefore be upgraded to a higher resolution.

Is there a centralized list of GLAM file resources that this should be added to? Dogfennydd (talk) 21:26, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Small side note: Actually, if they are photographs of paintings, we should either totally ignore their cc license (since they are not the copyright owners according to how the WMF views COM:PD-ART), or we can be "nice" and use {{Licensed PD-Art}} as this. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 21:38, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Comment I am uploading some: Category:Pictures from Amgueddfa Cymru Images. Yann (talk) 20:12, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Home interiors: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Time to milk the cows.	Old style Chinese decoration	Contemporary blue and white bathroom
Author	Magnolia677	Pauloleong2002	OKJaguar
Score	10	9	7

Bark: Entries • Votes • Scores

Rank	1	2	3
image
Title	Andrews Mare, Lyndhurst, New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK	Willow trees on the bank of the river Windrush at Witney, Oxfordshire, UK	Tree on Lake Gunn Nature Walk in Fiordland National Park in Southland on South Island of New Zealand
Author	JoanaImages	Scampz	Karel Stipek Austria
Score	17	14	10

Congratulations to JoanaImages, Magnolia677, Scampz, Karel Stipek Austria, Pauloleong2002 and OKJaguar. -- Jarekt (talk) 04:13, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do we have some official policy on names of churches? Is it required that the official name of the church be used as the category name instead of the common name? For example, this one. Ping involved editor Sanglahi86 for this discussion. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 10:03, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have created categories for hundreds of churches, and I rather hope we don't become too prescriptive here. Sometimes when I create a category I'm aware that there is or could be a school of the same name unless we include the word church, or that we need separate categories for the new and old churches of that name in that village. Other times I add the county or state because St Mary's or Holy Trinity is a common church name and every Hereford is likely to have one - by contrast St Barnabas is pretty safe unless your city is as ubiquitous/large as Birmingham. But churches, especially interesting ones, do change their official names - and category redirects are a good solution if the current name for a church building isn't the name it had when lots of photographs were taken of it. Very occasionally we will find that we need to rename and disambiguate a church category because we now have images of two St Barnabas, Birminghams. But in my experience that's rare enough that we can do that as and when we find that our category is ambiguous and receiving images of different buildings that may be in different continents. WereSpielChequers (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm never sure whether we should use St Barnabas Church, St Barnabas' Church, or Church of St Barnabas. Then there's St. Barnabas, Saint Barnabas...

Same goes for naming Wikipedia articles, BTW. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:54, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Pigsonthewing@WereSpielChequers for example, for the category I linked: Category:Saint Vincent Ferrer Parish Church (Bogo) vs. Category:Archdiocesan Shrine of Saint Vincent Ferrer (Bogo, Cebu). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:19, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've not yet been to the Philippines, and I don't know how they name their churches, and looking at the names in our images "Bogo City Church" has less detail than I'd like. The key details that would differentiate it from any other church in Bogo would be Saint Vincent Ferrer, so I would have likely started the category as St Vincent Ferrer church, Bogo assuming either Bogo is an unusual city/town name or Vincent Ferrer is a rare saint name. St Vincent Ferrer church, Bogo, Cebu is probably overkill, based on a quick Google image search. Most of my categorisation of churches has been in England, and there we have the problem that local photographers will use names that are clear if you also know where the photograph was taken. My assumption is that the category name needs to work globally, which is fine if there is only one place called Bogo, but more detail is needed if you are in a place called Perth, Newcastle or Boston. However as long as the name works for people and other names are included in category redirects I'm not concerned as to which is the category name and which a redirect. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:08, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WereSpielChequers what I meant is which of the two I mentioned is preferrable: the usual name "Saint Vincent Ferrer Parish Church (Bogo)" or the very formal name that highlights its status as a shrine: "Archdiocesan Shrine of Saint Vincent Ferrer (Bogo)"? I would prefer the former since it is aligned with the names of other churches in other countries (like "Eglise de Saint-XXX (PLACENAME)" for those in France). IMO there is no need to highlight the church's status as a shrine through the category name, and it's best to transfer such detail in the category itself as a note (using {{En}} or other language templates). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 11:03, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi all. I recently came across this photograph of Marie Goldsmith, and I'm having difficulty attempting to identify the photographer or photography studio that created it. The photograph was taken in Paris in 1916, and it is currently archived in the archives de l’État de Neuchâtel. From what I can parse of the signature, it seems to say "Bournoff" or "Gournoff" or something similar, but I haven't been able to find anything by this name from searching around. Could someone here help me try and identify this photographer? Thanks in advance. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:07, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

en:Pierre Choumoff. --Rosenzweig τ 23:10, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply