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COMMONS DISCUSSION PAGES Commons Help desk Village pump (general discussion) Copyright Proposals Technical Graphics and photography discussion Photography critiques Image improvement Illustration workshop Map workshop Photography workshop Video and sound workshop Categories for discussion Undeletion requests Deletion requests Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard Translators' noticeboard Work requests for bots Contact administrators Vandalism User problems (Dispute resolution) Blocks and protections Bureaucrats' noticeboard CheckUser requests Oversight requests Telegram IRC webchat Commons mailing list (archive) Commons' bugs on Phabricator Welcome to the Village pump This page is used for discussions of the operations and policies of Wikimedia Commons. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Archive/2025/10. Please note: If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or if you want to suggest that allowing it would be a good thing, please do not comment here. It is probably pointless. One of Wikimedia Commons’ core principles is: "Only free content is allowed." This is a basic rule of the place, as inherent as the NPOV requirement on all Wikipedias. Have you read our FAQ? For changing the name of a file, see Commons:File renaming. Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer). Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the internet and you are liable to receive spam. Purposes which do not meet the scope of this page: Please do not make deletion requests here: use the relevant process for it instead. For technical support and graphics talks (PNG, SVG, GIF, etc.), please post on the Graphics village pump. To ask for image improvement, see: Graphic Lab/Photography workshop for photographs. Graphic Lab/Map workshop for maps. Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop for other illustrations. To ask for video or audio improvement, see Commons:Graphic Lab/Video and sound workshop. For translation requests, please post at Commons:Requests for translation. For media requests, please post at Commons:File requests. For questions about copyright, technical matters, or help that does not relate to the general Commons community as well as proposals, please see the other discussion boards linked in the blue panel at the top. Search archives:     Start a new discussion

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Water pump next to the church in the town center of Doel. Doel, Beveren, East Flanders, Belgium. [add]

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.

October 09

"Fictional" flags and other symbols

Commons hosts numerous erroneous flags, emblems, coats of arms etc which are used to spread misinformation across other projects. Something should be done here to tackle this problem, but existing mechanisms and practices seem inadequate. I've seen some users discussed this problem in the past so I'm pinging them: Donald Trung GPinkerton Jmabel The Squirrel Conspiracy Enyavar Dronebogus.

1. Commons has categories and warning templates for problematic symbols. Unfortunately, there is no existing mechanism to notify other projects about such files. Furthermore, the current structure is not up to the task. I think it's important to differentiate between:

• "Unofficial" symbols of real entities (File:Flag of the British Empire Exhibition.svg, File:Silver fern flag.svg)
• "Interpreted" symbols of real entities: banners with unknown status, reconstructions based on other symbols, descriptions, seals, coins (File:York banner penny (backside).jpg + SVG = "banner" with 1297 global uses), works of art like the Catalan Atlas (File:Flag of Ilkhanate.svg with 1285 global uses)
• "Invented" symbols of real entities (File:Flag of the Seljuks.svg - one of 16 Great Turkic Empires flags, used 874 times, primarily on Arabic and Farsi Wikipedia)
• Symbols used in works of fiction (File:Etoile de Feanor.svg)

We have warning templates {{Fictional}} and {{Fictitious flag}} which populate categories Special or fictional flags and Special or fictional coats of arms. The word "fictional" is too ambiguous, it conflates the types mentioned above, as well as the others, including obviously unserious stuff like File:Banana republic.svg. We should set up a structure which would differentiate such categories and probably have a parent category for all "problematic" symbols. The templates should use the same logic instead of clumsy current one: fictional insignia - fictitious flag - {{unsourced insignia}} - {{Disputed coat of arms}}.

Symbols with unclear status should have a separate category as well. Currently Category:Insignia without source is used for this purpose, but I'm not sure if its name is appropriate. First, is "insignia" a suitable word here? Second, it implies that files are without source, which is not necessarily true - a source might be present, but it might not substantiate what the image is claimed to be. I'm not sure if "proposed" flags tagged as own work (like File:Afro-Mexican Flag (proposal).svg) should go here or be considered as "invented" ones until the source is provided.

Categories under Category:Historical symbols should not include problematic images. They should be reserved for historical symbols, not for dubious ones connected to historical entities.

Wikidata is a way to spread the errors across multiple projects. There should be mechanisms to help withdrawing problematic files from Wikidata items.

2. Misleading file names are perhaps the most critical factor in spreading misuse. Editors won't question the status of a "File:Flag of Foobar" from Commons because its name implies authority and authenticity. If File:Arms of William the Conqueror (1066-1087).svg is already in widespread use, other editors wouldn't know there is anything wrong with using it somewhere else. Appending the name with "alleged", "attributed", "fictional" could help but, first, the old misleading name will stay on pages as a redirect, and editors would know nothing about it, second, such renaming requests get rejected with "does not comply with renaming guidelines" given as explanation. Changes to erroneous descriptions also get reverted with the rationale "respect the original description". I'm not sure if it's the established policy or just people blocking these efforts don't understand the problem, but attempts to remedy the problem seem futile as things stand.

3. "Sources". Anything goes as sources in file descriptions: "own work", links to other files, links to external images (like FotW). Some use quotations from historical texts, like File:Flag of Northumbria.svg with Bede's "they hung the King's banner of purple and gold over his tomb" as a source. Even if something looks like proper references to academic sources, it might turn out to be a cover for an "artistic reconstruction" case. Consider File:Banner of the Kokand Khans.svg: if you check the references, they just mention that "the colour of Kokand Khans banner was white," which is poor justification for a plain 3:2 rectangle. The file was uploaded less than a year ago and it has 268 global uses. And it's awkward to use warning templates in these cases: where do you dispute if the uploader just removes it?

4. The easiest way to deal with obviously problematic files is to delete them from Commons (or at least rename them without leaving a redirect). Had this not been done to the "Flag of the Confederation of the Rhine", multiple wikis would surely be spreading this fabrication at this moment. Unfortunately for wikis, there is reluctance to delete files here, even with Community Tech bot notifying about proposed deletions. Images might have some educational purpose after all, this implicitly overrides whatever actual miseducational purpose they actively serve. And by COM:INUSE it is deliberately "educational" in any case, even if file usage stems from incorrect Commons information.

5. Identification and discussion. Established misuse is hard to overcome, it takes incomparably more effort than slapping another file link or reverting the article to a "consensus" version. If editors manage to identify and properly discuss a problematic image, the end result is often just its removal from a single article. It doesn't lead to the file's removal from other pages on the same wiki, let alone other projects. The more widespread the usage, the less likely it will be dealt with: you might manually remove an image from several articles, but it's too much of a hassle if it has hundreds of inclusions. Such discussions should be centralised, but Commons does not currently serve this function. Who would notice that someone questioned the authenticity of the "Navarra Kingdom flag" on its talk page? And it has 4551 global uses together with the alternative design. There is no effective, centralized mechanism to track, discuss, and action global removals for widely used problematic files.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Qbli2mHd (talk • contribs) 22:28, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

+1 that we need some better ways to deal with this issue.

It's ridiculous that we have 4 quite different versions of an alleged National Flag of Siberian Tatars, i.e. an ethnic minority which isn't a sovereign nation (≈country) of its own (and never was) and doesn't have any official flag, and yet we have 4 flags! And it takes lengthy discussions to get just one of them deleted; see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Национальный флаг сибирских татар.jpg.

This seems to be a very common problem for flags of ethnic minorities: there are often several versions, none of them are official, they are heavily in use, and they often have questionable copyright status because they don't fall under public domain clauses for national symbols and are usually recent works. Nakonana (talk) 23:15, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

But there are certainly ethnic groups, regions, etc. that lack a nation state or lack recognition, but have a quite consistently used flag. One good example is Category:Sami flags.

I'd love to see something that sorted out the various cases better, but it's going to be really tough. There are enormous gray areas between an official flag of a universally recognized entity and one random user's fantasy. Commons is not usually heavily engaged in trying to work out the relative legitimacy of visual representations; we tend more to the binary judgement of "is this in scope"? I personally am not certain we (Commons) have the traditions and mechanisms that would let us tackle this well; we have traditionally left this sort of judgement to our various sister projects, with an understanding that they might not all come to the same conclusion in any given case. - Jmabel ! talk 01:54, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

If it's a flag that is widely used in real life and/or if there's an authoritative entity that approved the flag (e.g. a leading religious group, a university that is known to be "the" expert of the field, etc.) then I don't have an issue with such flags. But a flag that has no reception in real life, is just a fantasy flag, and the fact that there are 4 different flags for a single (rather small) ethnic group makes it quite clear that the flags lack recognition.

The problem is also that they are often used as if they are "real" flags. There's no indication in the file names and description regarding their provenance and status.

And since they are not official symbols and recent works, they are copyright protected so that we can't actually host them on Commons (at least if we're talking about flags of minorities in Russia; Russia's TOO is too low). Nakonana (talk) 13:30, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

the fact that there are 4 different flags for a single (rather small) ethnic group makes it quite clear that the flags lack recognition: plausible but by no means certain; consider the number of different LGBTQIA+ "Pride flags" out there that have some currency. - Jmabel ! talk 14:52, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I think the main problem with flags of ethnic minorities in Russia will simply be copyright. They are all recent works and neither of them is an official state symbol. All those flags are protected by copyright unless we find a CC license from each individual author of each flag. Nakonana (talk) 18:26, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't thinks it's the whole truth. It's hard to imagine a situation where photos with names like "King of Earth.jpg" are uploaded in hundreds and get introduced to various projects, while efforts to delete or at least to rename or even tag them as inauthentic get constantly disrupted. (User Kontributor 2K, who reverts my edits here with obscure explanations, has just started doing the same on Wikidata, which feeds erroneous images to Wikipedia infoboxes.) The specifics of this particular class of images (symbol designs are relatively easy to make, their inauthenticity is far from obvious on a glance, they get used on multiple pages trough templates and Wikidata statements, the editors assume that any group entity that ever existed must have a flag) make them especially problematic and cause a lot of disruption in other communities. The root of the problem lies in how Commons treats these files, and the solutions should exist here. Qbli2mHd (talk) 15:02, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank, you; btw, I usually mainly disrupt into here. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

What with the "respect the original description" reverts? Why do you remove warning templates with "I agree" comments? Why did you set up your own category for fake coats of arms outside of the existing structure? All of this makes no sense to me. Qbli2mHd (talk) 15:33, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Each file placed in Category:Unknown or fake coats of arms is subject to meticulous verification and is bound, after a certain period of time, to be nominated for deletion ; these are not fictional CoAs, in the sense “attributed but existing” - all of these fictional CoAs should be sourced and clearly indicate why they are fictional-, but users'original creations that rely on no reference. i.e. these are personal fiction, i.e. out of scope.

Commons is not a coat of arms registry office, nor a personnal web host.--Kontributor 2K (talk) 15:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

edit: @Qbli2mHd: Also, I agree, I've already corrected some, but there are a few many .--Kontributor 2K (talk) 15:17, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

edit2: @Qbli2mHd: a category that needs maintenance, among others. Help is greatly appreciated.--Kontributor 2K (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

The "Latin Empire flag" is pure fabrication derived from Philip of Courtenay arms. They should be deleted right away, but I expect the proposal to be rejected with COM:INUSE invoked; I suggested the category to be renamed in August; my edits fixing the erroneous description of "Latin Empire coats of arms" were reverted by you. It all's not worth the hassle with existing mechanisms if we can't get any traction even with obvious cases like this one. Qbli2mHd (talk) 15:44, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree, but there are many linked files and categories.

Btw, I caught this one a couple of days ago.

I may not have duly verified though --Kontributor 2K (talk) 15:55, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

One situation that Commons seems to handle particularly poorly is fictitious flags of entities that actually have no flag at all. Users of other Wikimedia projects tend to assume that if Commons has a file called Flag of Somewhere.svg, it's the official flag of Somewhere; if that image is made up or unofficial and Somewhere doesn't have any flag at all, it can be hard to get rid of since it's in use. Omphalographer (talk) 03:21, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem that needs to be addressed somehow. On larger Wikipedia language projects there is a large enough population of active users to catch the problem and revert it, but time and time again I notice on smaller Wikipedia language projects that assorted fictitious Mongol Empire flags end up being used in infoboxes as if they were historical, official flags. --benlisquare_{Talk•Contribs} 04:45, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

• I will  Support all changes in formal or informal rules that will lead to the shunning of anachronistic flag (re)creations. Count me in, and please ping me if this comes to a vote or a decision. I'd like to present "the flag of the Bengal Sultanate in 1500, derived from a symbol shown in the roughly same region in an old map. Over there, I already stated: The hypothesis that this would be the National Flag of the Bengal Sultanate (in a time when no national flags existed yet), is entirely unsubstantiated. The color in the Cosa map doesn't tell us much about possible colors used on possible flags in the Ganges region in the 1500s; and quite similar flags are planted by Cosa in Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria. And yet, the Bengal WP lists it under "historical flags".
  Any Wikipedia should treat insertions like this (and most of the other examples by other users above) as "Own Research", which is disallowed generally on our platforms. Wikimedia is doing itself a disservice by allowing such uploads being presented in projects without warnings and/or disclaimers that they are not supported by historical evidence.
  The idea of systematically evaluating all these "fictional flags" depending on the 'Unofficial/Interpreted/Invented/(true)Fictional' status or some other scheme, sounds appealing to me. There are cases (like Double-headed eagles as Seljuk symbol) where wide-spread symbols can be channelled+contained in a dedicated category that explains how the symbol came to be. Other cases, like the fancy "minority flags" for oppressed ethnicities in China and Russia, often created by designers in the West, should be outright removed from projects and then be deleted here, unless a wide-spread adoption can be shown. Wikimedia is not a forge for (sub)national identities. --Enyavar (talk) 23:01, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

  We treat this garbage in different ways a lot, but cannot find a way to get rid of it apparently: File:Coat of arms of Socialist Moldova.png, File:MirandeseMPBflag.jpg, File:The Qulla Flag.svg, File:Флаг Тюркского каганата.jpg, File:Bendera Kesultanan Kutai Kartanegara ing Martadipura.png, ... --Enyavar (talk) 09:35, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Even if File:Coat of arms of Socialist Moldova.png has a place in Commons (which I doubt, it's absolutely out of scope unless it already existed in real world out of Commons), such misleading name should not be allowed at all (maybe a stricter policy on misleading names could be convenient). MGeog2022 (talk) 14:36, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

  What if the projects ignore the warnings and decides to use the files anyways? Is the fault really still on Commons? Trade (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

  Most of those files don't even have a warning on Commons. The other project might be simply unaware of the status of the flags. Nakonana (talk) 20:21, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

October 14

CentralNotice Banner Request - Wiki Science Competition India 2025

Hello Commons community,

This is to inform you of a CentralNotice banner campaign request for the upcoming Wiki Science Competition 2025 in India (Meta request link). The banner is planned to run for logged-in users from 1 November to 15 December 2025. For readers/anonymous users, it will run for two brief windows: 1–7 November and 9–15 December 2025, as recommended in the CentralNotice guidelines.

We welcome any community questions or comments about the request. The banner and landing page will be available in English, Hindi, and other Indian languages. Please see the Meta request page for all details and translations in progress.

Thanks and regards, Dev Jadiya (talk)

October 20

Help us decide the name of the new Abstract Wikipedia project

Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki that will enable users to combine functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata in order to generate natural language sentences in any supported languages. These sentences can then be used by any Wikipedia (or elsewhere).

There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with votes beginning on 20 October and 17 November 2025. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on mid-December 2025. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you!

-- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:42, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I do not like that today oppose votes (which have explanations) and comments which point out issues or counterpoints to proposed names have been hidden. This impedes deliberation and was done as far as I can see unilaterally obstructing rational community decision-making and good outcomes. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:08, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

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

Crimea is Ukraine. Wikipedia cannot be above the UN!

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing these as well since there does not seem to be any point in continuing for anyone's sanity. Please do not start yet another discussion on the same topic (or related topic), that would be disruptive at this point. @Daniel Broomfield Ua: Consider this a topic ban from discussing anything related to legal issues in Crimea (except for actual good-faith deletion discussion) for a period of 1 month. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:10, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

---

Freedom of panorama in Ukraine

According to this information there is free panorama in Ukraine since 2023: https://cedem.org.ua/consultations/svoboda-panoramy-v-ukrayini/

I repeat @JWilz12345's ping from the theme about Crimea: Ping every user who participated the 2nd Simferopol Railway Station DR request: @Well-Informed Optimist, Lesless, Liuxinyu970226, Rubin16, A.Savin, Ahonc, Brateevsky, King of Hearts, and MasterRus21thCentury: . I'll also ping the DR closer (for 1st and 2nd nominations) @Ellywa and Yann: .

Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 17:54, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Only non-commercial use is permitted per your link, but Commons does not accept non-commercial use licenses.

Relevant quotes from your link:

• створення зображень творів архітектури та образотворчого мистецтва, що постійно розташовані у доступних для громадськості місцях, та подальше використання таких об’єктів, за умови що такі дії не мають самостійного економічного значення. (Google translation: the creation of images of works of architecture and fine art that are permanently located in places accessible to the public, and the further use of such objects, provided that such actions do not have independent economic significance.)
• Мета створення зображення і те, як воно буде використане далі – надважливий елемент свободи панорами. Тепер в Україні, як і у більшості країнах ЄС (наприклад, Естонії, Латвії, Литві, Румунії), можна вільно створювати і використовувати будь-які фото та відео архітектурних об’єктів за умови їх некомерційного використання. (Google translation: The purpose of creating the image and how it will be used further is an important element of the freedom of panorama. Now in Ukraine, as in most EU countries (for example, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania), you can freely create and use any photos and videos of architectural objects, provided that they are used non-commercially.)

Nakonana (talk) 18:09, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, only non-commercial, but I thought it was enough. It is weird that Wikimedia Commons does not accept non-commercial use licenses. Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 18:23, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Daniel Broomfield Ua: The Wikimedia projects are indeed non-commercial in their nature. But since their inception, it is the official policy that hosted media must have the ability to be used commercially, hence the restriction. Please take a look at the first bullet point in the intro at the top of this Village Pump page: 1. If you want to ask why unfree/non-commercial material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons[...]. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:34, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

No, I don't want to ask why Wikimedia Commons is so weird. I have just said that I thought that non-commercial licenses were enough. Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Does Wikimedia steal Ukrainian intellectual property in Crimea

@Josve05a said: For copyright and Freedom of Panorama questions, Commons applies the law that is enforced de facto in the relevant territory. This is a pragmatic necessity to assess real, not theoretical, legal risk for hosted material. [1]

Does it mean that Wikimedia steals Ukrainian intellectual property in Crimea?

All panorama in Crimea is Ukrainian panorama. Since 2023, it has been free for non-commercial usage. So if some Russian takes a picture of a Ukrainian panorama in Crimea and places it on Wikimedia Commons for COMMERCIAL usage, in my humble opinion it will be theft of the Ukrainian intellectual property!

Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 19:24, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

The assertion that Wikimedia Commons "steals Ukrainian intellectual property in Crimea" stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright law and Commons' licensing policies. Copyright is not vested in the state or territory but in the individual creator of the work. For photographs, this is the photographer; for architectural works, sculptures, and other artistic creations, it is the architect, sculptor, or original artist. This principle is enshrined in the Berne Convention, to which Ukraine is a signatory.

Wikimedia Commons operates under a strict licensing framework that requires all hosted media to be freely licensed for any purpose, including commercial use. This policy is explicitly stated in Commons' licensing guidelines. Therefore, media licensed solely for non-commercial use, as permitted under Ukrainian law since 2023, does not meet Commons' licensing requirements and cannot be hosted.

Commons does not infringe upon anyone's intellectual property; it only hosts media for which the uploader has the legal right to grant a free license. If you believe specific files violate copyright (e.g. a photo is violating COM:FOP Ukraine), you may nominate them for deletion using COM:DR. (Please note: "It is not clear if copyrighted buildings in Crimea are subject to the Russian or the more restrictive Ukrainian law. Following the Commons precautionary principle, images of knowingly unfree Crimean buildings should not be uploaded to Commons. See Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2014/09#Buildings_in_Crimea. Nevertheless, photographic work created in Crimea before February 19, 1954 is the subject of the Russian law."

It appears that your contributions are not primarily aimed at building a freely licensed media repository, but rather at making a point or attempting to address what you perceive as a historical or political wrong. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

It appears that you are defending not a neutral point of view but what you perceive as historical or political right. Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I think that the Village pump could be used to make clear some situations. As I see it, you don't understand them yourself. First you said: "Commons applies the law that is enforced de facto in the relevant territory". Now you say "knowingly unfree Crimean buildings should not be uploaded to Commons".

How can a photographer make his work free for commercial use if the Ukrainian law doesn't allow it? Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 20:03, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I've found that one way to find out what is generally allowed is to learn by observing, by what other people are doing. You could look for examples of photography from Ukraine in categories such as 2025 photographs of Ukraine. Discounting the official government photographs (which aren't relevant here), at a cursory glance I'm seeing a lot of photographs of animals, nature, food and cooking, landscapes that don't contain copyrighted/copyrightable material, and historical buildings in the public domain. ReneeWrites (talk) 21:13, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

The point is the restriction of free panorama in Crimea. In my humble opinion, we cannot use Russian law there. So the point is not Ukrainian law but that Ukrainian law is applied to Crimea as well. Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 21:35, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Daniel Broomfield Ua: From my experience, Ukrainians here and on the Ukrainian Wikipedia have had a lot of problems with Ukrainian FOP law. Users of the Ukrainian Wikipedia use Сумлінне використання/fair use to host thousands of images of copyrighted statues, buildings, and monuments in Ukraine on the Ukrainian Wikipedia. I would suggest you post about these Ukrainian copyright questions on the Ukrainian Wikipedia at Кнайпа (політики) or Кнайпа (різне) where Ukrainian users can weigh in with their experience and expertise. Geoffroi 21:22, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

The point is that Crimea is Ukraine. @Josve05a says that there should be Russian law. I say that it means that Russian photographers illegally make their works free for COMMERCIAL use, and Wikimedia allows them to upload their works and is violating Ukrainian law. Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 21:31, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

It's probably not illegal to upload photos of works that are under a non-commercial FOP under a free license; it's misleading, but I think the commercial user would be responsible for figuring it out. At no point do I think this legally matters for the Wikimedia Foundation; the primary law that the WMF is subject to is US, which has no FoP, and I believe would treat photos of Ukrainian and Russian works the same.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:47, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Crimea is de jure Ukraine. But de facto it is occupied by Russia. @Josve05a claims that Wikimedia Commons has to use Russian law; I claim that Wikimedia Commons has to use Ukrainian law as to panorama in Crimea. You say that Wikimedia Commons uses US law. And @Geoffroi says that Ukrainian Wikipedians use the US fair use law, which is a violation of Ukrainian law! Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 22:01, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

So why don't you have any interest in getting consensus on these issues at the Ukrainian Wikipedia? I think it's disrespectful of you to come here with an issue that effects Wikipedia and Commons users from Ukraine without even asking them how these issues effect them and how they want this dealt with. Geoffroi 22:01, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I have been talking about the Wikimedia Commons policies. I was explained that Wikimedia and Wikipedia are completely different things. So how can the Ukrainian Wikipedia users help with Wikimedia Commons policies?

May I remind you that this is not Wikipedia, and we are not Wikipedians, we are Commons contributors. Wikipedia policies are completely irrelevant here. Look at the address bar in your web browser, tell me what letters come after "https://", tell me if it says "Wikipedia" anywhere. --@Benlisquare [2] Daniel Broomfield Ua (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Can you please go away? Nobody's interested in your personal anti-Russian obsession. Geoffroi 22:24, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Whether under Ukrainian or Russian law, copyrighted works in Crimea cannot be hosted on Commons for commercial use. Sculptures under Ukrainian FOP are non-commercial only, and under Russian law not free at all (hence delete regardless). Buildings that are above COM:TOO should be deleted per the precautionary principle according to the quote from COM:FOP Russia quoted by me above ("... images of knowingly unfree Crimean buildings should not be uploaded to Commons..."). I don’t understand what you want, these are the rules Commons follows, so what outcome are you seeking? --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:27, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

He hates Russia and Russians. That's why he's here. You or another admin should block him so we don't waste more time on a discussion that's obviously going absolutely nowhere. Geoffroi 22:41, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons and country-specific Wikipedia projects are different projects, abiding by different standards. Files hosted on Commons can be used by any and all Wikiprojects (as well as websites outside of Commons), so they require a much more permissible license to be hosted here. This is different from "fair use", which certain Wikiprojects allow (such as the English and Ukrainian Wikipedias). Commons does not allow fair use.

If you want to argue what the Ukrainian Wikipedia allows or which laws it abides by, you need to make that argument there, not here. Furthermore, while the Village Pump is a good place to ask questions and get answers, it's not the right place to argue against Commons policy, which we all have to abide by regardless of how we feel about it.

Do you have any questions left at this point? If not, I will be asking an admin to close this discussion as well. ReneeWrites (talk) 22:40, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

October 21

Template TOC by page order number

In categories with many members (ex. more than 1 000) and almost all files starting with the same leters exemple, is there a TOC template allowing you to move by page number [ ⇱ ꞏ 2nd pag ꞏ 3rd pag ... 7th pag ꞏ ⇲ ] ? Is there another soluction to to get the same result ? .. thanks --JotaCartas (talk) 20:43, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

No, this is not possible. URLs for pages in MediaWiki category listings operate by specifying what filename to start at using the filefrom or fileuntil query parameters - there's no way to request a specific numbered page. Omphalographer (talk) 21:16, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I thought so. Some time ago, I used in a similar solution (exemple), but besides being impractical and very laborious, it was applied in a very stable category that's practically only loaded by me. Thanks. JotaCartas (talk) 22:07, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Not by page number, but maybe one of the following might help?

• {{LargeCategoryTOC}}
• {{CategoryTOC with prefix}}
• {{LargeCategoryTOCcustom}}
• {{Search inside category}}

Nakonana (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

However what you can do, is change the sort order: for example this edit moved one page "Starr-070616-7307-Epidendrum…" to from S to E. If this is something that would be helpful to Commons, either specifically for this category, or for several I would be happy to help. Please feel free to revert my edit if it's not useful. Rich Farmbrough, 10:46 22 October 2025 (GMT).

October 22

Types of contributors

I once stumbled upon a page that described different types of editors in terms of how they work, such as batch uploaders. Now I can't find that page. Do you know how it's called? Juandev (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

There's these pages on Commons (also see the pages linked from there): Category:Wikimedia contributions and Commons:Commons contributions achievements. Don't know if either is what you meant. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:06, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

None of those. Never mind. Juandev (talk) 08:59, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Maybe Commons:Meet our photographers and Commons:Meet our illustrators, linked from Main Page. – b_jonas 10:19, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

@Juandev WikiFauna? (see enwiki too) Una tantum (talk) 11:57, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Commons:User access levels? See also Category:User permissions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:25, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Commons:Structured_data/About/Why#Users and User Stories? --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:39, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Strange notification effect

For the last 18 hours or so, when I get notified about talk page message there's a block of solid colour over the message with an information icons and a "reply…" tag. I have to click this to see the text. The "i" icon takes me to the image page… which I suppose is a type of information about the icon.

This may, of course, have something to do with my settings. Even so it's a change in behaviour, so we should be able to track down the proximate cause. Rich Farmbrough, 14:15 22 October 2025 (GMT).

October 24

Files with a strange history

File:Freedom.png and File:Ethics.png. I think they are strange, but it's hard to describe why and what to do with it. Any ideas? Анастасия Львова^ru/en 08:49, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Typical vandalism. They need to be reverted back to the original version and all other files need to be hidden. The files where the permission is for need to be uploaded under a new name. GPSLeo (talk) 09:22, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

It is more complicated than typical, take a look at Special:Log. So shouldn't the history be cleaned? Анастасия Львова^ru/en 09:29, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the logs clarify that there were several images that successively used the filename at different times. Each image was deleted and another image was later uploaded, etc. Your undeletion request was likely for the last image only, but that was not specified in the undeletion request and all images were undeleted. The previous images should be deleted again, assuming it's worth the trouble to keep the last one whose scope is dubious. The strangest thing, though, is that the uploader of the last image claims to be ChatGPT and states at the same time that they own a copyright on the image and that the image is in the public domain, and apparently you validated all those statements [3]. -- Asclepias (talk) 12:26, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

but that was not specified in the undeletion request -- I didn't see it and didn't know about it, do you agree?

@The Squirrel Conspiracy: deleted files when they were already licensed as they are now. I can suggest that it was some idea about the SCOPE, but the text is about a license. Theoretically it was possible to discuss on the undelete requests page, why they have been deleted like this while they were marked as {{PD-algorithm}}. Based on the written comments, the author indicated that there was no problem with licensing, so I approved it. It's possible to delete cc-by-sa template and left PD-algorithm only (and thank you for pointing that out! Probably one day someone else will work, not only have an access, and I will be even more careful than now). However, the puzzle lies outside the VRT, and as the only active agent in this queue, I'm not always ideal at resolving such issues instead of simple confirming (by the way, on the original page ChatGPT wasn't mentioned, so without VRT it was hard to approve that it is PD-algorithm; again, I am happy to discuss how it can be formatted in this situation). Анастасия Львова^ru/en 13:22, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, it's not easy to know the full context of a deleted file. The VRT member cannot view the deleted page and the administrator cannot view the mail. Now that the context is better known, if the image is public domain by its AI nature, it doesn't need a permission. Or, if the image is not PD and the uploader sends a mail, that serves only if there's information to be independently verified that way. The deletion reason being scope, if the uploader wants undeletion, they can request at UDR saying why the image should be in scope. Is it easier for a VRT member or for an undeleting administrator at UDR to evaluate if the contents of the mail has relevance in relation to the deletion issue? It may not be always possible. Each initially has only a part of the information. In this case, the deletion reason of the deletion log was detailed by the deleting administrator on the talk page of the uploader, and the mail might be cautiously assumed to be along the lines of what the uploader wrote on their talk page in reply. Anyway, no harm is done by the temporary undeletion, which allows a more complete view of the context. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:38, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

I am happy that you're agree that there is no harm :) So the fate of the images is another case, but I would like to clarify the steps one more time: if we have a PD image that was created with AI and published somewhere before moving to Commons, how should it work? The first impression will be about the copyright; the first move of a prompt creator will be to go to VRT. A prompt creator in this situation should not say that they is an author, but still can prove that the first publication is controlled by them; and what's happening after that? {{PD-algorithm}} with VRT ticket or I missed something?.. Анастасия Львова^ru/en 17:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

How could this happen in 2025? Isn't file overwriting restricted to own uploads or experienced users, from around 2 years ago? I hope the restriction was not removed. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:41, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the logs clarify that there were several images that successively used the filename at different times. Each image was deleted and another image was later uploaded, etc. Sorry, I hadn't read that: they are not "normal" overwritten files, then. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:44, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

@Abzeronow: you restored them; thank you again, but may be you have clues about the situation? Анастасия Львова^ru/en 09:31, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

I find it also strange. Users (especially new ones like the case here) should not be allowed to upload files with identical filenames. I have two explanations:

• if the uploaders specifically view the existing file, they can then choose to "upload a new version" which would result in overwritten files as we can see here. But I find that explanation dubious, given how there were five different users involved in the "Freedom "file and four different users for the "Ethics" file.
• I suspect instead that this pattern was created by deletion and subsequent recreation: If an admin chooses to move or delete a file because of its generic name and non-educational content ("Freedom.png" !), the file gets hidden from view by all other users. Since the file doesn't exist afterwards, another user can upload a file with the exact same name. The edit summaries of the overwrites "User created page with UploadWizard" indicate that to me. Does upload of a new file restore an old deleted file as visible content again, like the case here?

--Enyavar (talk) 09:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

If the second explanation is true, this seems like a critical bug in MediaWiki (any user can undelete any deleted file only by knowing its name!!!). It's incredible that it hasn't been detected and fixed long time ago. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:06, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

When an administrator undeletes a page or file, by default they will undelete all revisions of that item, potentially including ones which were deleted long before the most recent recreation. Changing this to recognize older "layers" of deletions and only reversing the most recent deletion might be a worthwhile enhancement request. Omphalographer (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

This makes sense: it seemed too strange than any user uploading a file with the same name as a deleted file, would undelete that file, and such serious bug being undetected (probably) for years.

The matter here is that the admin who undeletes the file should look at the previous version, and undelete only the versions that are related to the last one (but it's possible that some of the previous revisions are of interest, and should also be undeleted).

In any case, for those 2 files, I wonder why they were undeleted by an admin, to be later overwritten by other user in 2025, when, since 2023, file overwriting is restricted to experienced users (and the user who overwrote one of the files had only around 100 edits). This makes me doubt if they were actually undeleted by an admin, or if the serious bug that Envayar and me suspected does really exist. If such a bug does exist, I think it should be reported in Phabricator as soon as possible (I don't have a Phabricator account). MGeog2022 (talk) 10:42, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

See above and the logs. It was not overwriting. The files were not undeleted before yesterday. -- Asclepias (talk) 13:05, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Ohhhh, I see now. Sorry for the confusion :-( MGeog2022 (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

These files should never have been undeleted; a valid license - OTRS or not - doesn't negate them being out of scope. As for the previous images, as MGeog2022 pointed out above, they were previous uploads that were subsequently deleted. I've re-deleted them. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 17:35, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile to salt these two filenames, since they're obviously prone to inadvertent reuse. Omphalographer (talk) 21:14, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, probably should be salted so no one else uses those filenames. Abzeronow (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

October 25

Trees

Are the images of trees on this website really free of copyright? [4] Is there a specific way to upload images from the National Park Service? No Swan So Fine (talk) 22:14, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

@No Swan So Fine: US National Park Service images are indeed in public domain. Please use {{PD-USGov-NPS}} license tag. MKFI (talk) 08:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@MKFI: Many thanks - I've attempted to do so here. No Swan So Fine (talk) 20:57, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@No Swan So Fine: File:George W. Bush Wier Cutleaf Silver Maple tree, White House, July 2001 03.jpg looks fine. You do not need both {{PD-USGov}} and {{PD-USGov-NPS}}, the latter is a more specific version of the first. MKFI (talk) 06:54, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Migration of Lingua Libre project pages to Commons

See also Category:Lingua Libre pronunciation (+286 languages, +1.4M files).

Hello everyone,

I’m writing on behalf of the Lingua Libre community — a Wikimedia-affiliated project led by Wikimedians and supported by chapters such as Wikimedia France and the Wikimedia Foundation (see meta:Lingua Libre/Supports).

Over the past years, Lingua Libre has contributed significantly to Commons:

• We have uploaded around 1.4 million audio recordings, mainly used across Wiktionaries, Wikipedias, Wikidata and Wikidata Lexemes.
• For the past 8 years, we have documented our work and maintained our infrastructure on our own wiki (https://lingualibre.org/wiki/).

However, as with many open source and Wikimedia-related initiatives, our volunteer and technical resources are limited. Maintaining a stand alone MediaWiki installation and its servers have been difficult and resources-eating. Resources we would prefer to direct toward events, trainings and contributions.

To ensure long-term sustainability and better integration with Wikimedia projects, we would like to remigrate our project documentation and resources to Commons and close down our stand alone wiki.

• This migration would include about 100 documentation and project pages and about 1,000 resource pages.
• I have prepared a hosting space at Commons:Lingua Libre for this purpose and plan to carefully use Special:Import to bring over the relevant wikipages.
• Since these wikipages are rarely edited I usually handle their maintenance myself, so hosting them on Commons would not add any significant maintenance work on Commons users. Lingua Libre wikimedians just move back here and continue to maintain those pages.

Before proceeding, we've been asked to confirm explicit support from Commons community. So we would like to ask:

👉 Is the Commons community comfortable with hosting the Lingua Libre project pages under Commons:Lingua Libre ?

While we are ourselves wikimedians, Commons users, and sometimes administrators, I would like to ensure this move is ok with the community. Your feedback and guidance would be very welcome.

Yug (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2025 (UTC) --on behalf of the Lingua Libre project.

@Yug: Hi, It looks OK on principle. Could you please give an example of the documentation and project pages, and of the resource pages you would like to move to Commons? Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:34, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello Yann, you can see part of our documentation page on lingualibre:Category:Lingua_Libre:Help, lingualibre:Help:Lists, lingualibre:LinguaLibre:Roles, etc (web archives). For our internal resources pages those are mostly lists, which are under open license and have been discussed earlier. It looks like this lingualibre:List:Fra/Swadesh, lingualibre:List:Cmn/Swadesh, etc, (web archives) and we want to keep them editable by the community.

Please note the site is currently under regular AI queries overload and therefore out of reach. This causes bugs in the app. It's also why we need to migrate. Yug (talk) 10:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I see. Indeed the pages at Lingua Libre take a long time to load. This is an additional good reason to move them here. So  Support. Yann (talk) 10:27, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

•  Support considering that all of the files are already on Commons and are [at least in general] in scope, I don't see any problem with bringing over the documentation. Heck, I'm not sure why the documentation and the files themselves were split to begin with. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 09:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
•  Support, looks good to me.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:37, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

•  Support. welcome back, friends! Juwan (talk) 12:07, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
•  Support Yes because of free knowledge --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:05, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

  PS: And thank you for your work :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

•  Support Clearly of great educational value. --benlisquare_{Talk•Contribs} 15:13, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
•  Support per above. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
•  Support, Great initiative. Akbarali (talk)
•  Support per Yann and TSC. Abzeronow (talk) 00:06, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

October 26

How to categorise 12,000 media needing categories as of 2019?

We teamed-up in January 2025 to categorise 50,500 files, and now we got stuck at the letter "E" and 12,000 media needing categories as of 2019. The work is getting increasingly difficult, because the low hanging fruit have been harvested, i.e. for instance files that are used in the article about the person shown in the photo. Are you experienced in categorisation? If so, you can help by eiter starting at the letter "E" (most difficult option), or by entering a useful keyword, or at any letter of your choice. Please leave a comment on Category talk:All media needing categories as of 2019, if you reach a round or funny number, or if you have a good idea, how to simplify the task. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 11:14, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I need help with increasing a figure size

I made a table "The stages of Chronic Kidney Disease." as a png file here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_kidney_disease#Classification / By stages. However this Table came out too small. Is there a way to place it, so that it take the same width as the text above and below it? ApoieRacional (talk) 12:49, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to create the table with wiki syntax / markup? Because the same width as the text above and below it will actually be variety of widths, depending on a person's screen size. For example, I'm editing on mobile most of the time, so the width of the text is quite narrow for me, while, if you're using a computer, the text for you will obviously be quite wide. There's no "one" width of the text, and therefore it's not clear which width your table is supposed to be. If you use wiki tables, then the size will automatically adjust to the user's screen size. Nakonana (talk) 12:55, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

See w:en:Help:Table and w:e:Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup. Nakonana (talk) 12:57, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

My file is not in a Table format. It is png. ApoieRacional (talk) 12:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, understand that, but I'm suggesting to recreate the table in Wiki Markup, because it has to be readable on all types of screens, and no matter which width you choose for the png, there will always be dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of screens where the png-table will not have the same width as the text. More so, the ping-table might be very unreadable on certain screen sizes. Nakonana (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I tried to make an actual wiki-table. Unfortunately Wikipedia still does not allow importing csv, xls or tab-delimited files. I do not have time or will to learn all the intricacies of w:en:Help:Table . I can provide the original xls file, and would be wiki-grateful, if you can make a wiki-table out of it (if you have done this before, it should not take you a long time). ApoieRacional (talk) 13:02, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

The display size of png files can be adjusted by inserting |upright=3.5| or any other desired factor. NearEMPTiness (talk) 13:06, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. The table looks perfect. I am looking forward to the time, when WikiMedia can import xls or csv tables ! ApoieRacional (talk) 13:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

It's fairly simple. You have a table with 4 columns and 7(?) rows, and you write it up row-by-row. So:

Wikitext

{| class=wikitable 
|-
! Stage 
! eGFR
! Kidney function 
! Typical clinical clues 
|-
| G1
| >90
| normal or high
| kidney damage present, but... 
|-
| G2
| 60-89
| Mildly decreased 
| damage mild
|-
| G3a
| 
|
|
|-
| G3b
| 
|
|
|-
| G4
| 
|
|
|-
| G5
| 
|
|
|}

Just fill out the blanks for each row. Nakonana (talk) 13:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. I agree, that this method is good for a small table, like mine. And I will wait till WikiMedia makes it possible to import table as xls or csv. ApoieRacional (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Just copy and paste the table using the visual editor. This works fine in most cases. GPSLeo (talk) 13:35, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. It worked ! And it was an easier way, than what other proposed. ApoieRacional (talk) 13:43, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

CfD discussion conducted/closed correctly and inconsistent outcomes?

As someone not overly experienced in CfD discussions, I'd appreciate some feedback from more experienced users as to whether this particular CfD discussion has been conducted and closed in the manner we'd expect, and what happens if- as appears to be the case here- the outcome appears to be inconsistent with a previous discussion and test case regarding the same group of categories?

(My comment listing the issues in detail- but which I don't want to post here as it reflects my personal point-of-view- is here).

Thank you, Ubcule (talk) 14:35, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

To be honest, I have no experience with CFDs too. The discussion mentioned is years old. I simply evaluated the votes and set a final deadline. It had to be at least 14 days. That's what happened. However, I can't edit the many categories. And if I may say so, I found the discussion and the many categories rather confusing and not suitable for concrete discussion. What is the best way to close these discussions, which have long been forgotten? I often find discussions that have been unfinished for years. --XRay 💬 14:50, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the number of categories nominated was huge and unwieldy, and I didn't like having to do it that way. But the only alternative was to arbitrarily split it into numerous separate discussions for the same issue (i.e. excessively intersectional categories, all created by the same user).

That's why I discussed it beforehand and started a test case/discussion- because I wanted to make sure of what I was doing before going ahead and nominating *all* such categories. The consensus then seemed to be in favour of deletion, suggesting that the same would apply to all other such categories.

As I said, in hindsight I shouldn't have included the non-intersectional "exposure time" categories- which weren't covered by the previous discussions and should have been nominated separately- but virtually everything else was an "intersection" category, which was.

The instructions you linked for me to follow stated that "Typically, only users experienced in category discussions should close a discussion. However, if the discussion has led to a very clear consensus, other users should feel free to do so." There doesn't seem to have been a consensus here, however. Ubcule (talk) 16:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, I don't have any experience with this. I also don't like the long-running discussions. I'm also reluctant to submit deletion requests because I can't assess whether categories might be needed somewhere, for example when applying a filter. Something like this is just irritating. However, I had the impression that no one was interested in the discussion anymore. I have no idea how the discussion and the comprehensive list of categories can be dealt with. In any case, I am grateful for any way to end the discussion and finally remove the discussion templates. Some procedures at Commons are simply unwieldy or even cumbersome. --XRay 💬 16:55, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

If I may add one more thing: the discussion is very vague, and I found it difficult to summarize. Smaller, clearly structured lists would have been ideal. --XRay 💬 16:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

It would have been more prudent to ask an admin to close the discussion in this case. Besides the reasons you mentioned, it's generally not recommended to close a discussion yourself if you're one of the participants, unless there is a clear consensus. ReneeWrites (talk) 17:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Looking into this a bit more, there does appear to be a consensus to delete the categories that are excessively specific such as Category:Taken with Nikon D7100 and AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED + Hoya ND400 filter + Hoya ND16 filter. This is not explicitly mentioned in the closing summary, but I assume these categories were put under the "camera + lens" summary, which only had one "weak keep" vote.

In the discussion itself, there were two votes for deletion and one neutral vote from someone who also argued they should be deleted, and their contents upmerged. That makes three votes for deletion versus one or zero votes for keep (because nobody argued specifically that these categories should be kept). ReneeWrites (talk) 17:57, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@ReneeWrites: Inedeed- the "excessively specific" intersectional categories *were* the main motivation for this nomination in the first place, and make up the vast majority of nominated categories (other than the "exposure time" ones which I've already conceded should have been discussed separately).

I've no problem with ("taken with") general filter categories. I've no problem with lens categories. I've no problem with camera categories.

It's the excessive and unproductive creation of arbitrary *intersections* of those categories that were the problem- as others have noted, searching on multiple categories (and improving the search tools in that direction if necessary) is how this should be dealt with.

We can't possibly cover all combinations; any attempt to do so (like this one) will be arbitrary, incomplete and hence pointless.

And yes, I wasn't too clear on what categories XRay's vote summaries were meant to refer to, or where they drew the line. Is anyone arguing in favour of keeping the likes of (e.g.) Category:Taken with Nikon D7100 and Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters?

18:52, 26 October 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ubcule (talk • contribs) 18:52, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

There are plenty of categories with cameras, filters, and lenses. I had already voted neutrally in the discussion here. Too many for my taste. Even I find it difficult to see the point in them. However, I find the point of the filter + camera categories even less clear. I had advocated for keeping the others. --XRay 💬 19:15, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@Ubcule: Perhaps a suggestion: We close the discussion and group the similar categories. Then we open a new discussion for each group that we would actually like to delete. We let that run for four weeks and see if we can reach a consensus. My guess is that we will be able to quickly delete the categories “Filter + something” in particular. --XRay 💬 10:19, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps one more addition: the new discussion should include a specific proposal as to what should replace the categories to be deleted. That would make it easier. --XRay 💬 17:05, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

@XRay: - That depends what you mean by "similar", though. Personally, I would consider *all* the intersectional categories listed to be "similar" in that they were nominated for the same reason, i.e. excessive and contrived intersectionalism. (The only ones I'd group and discuss completely separately would be those for exposure times.)

And I don't want to have to repeat this whole process again; it was a lot of work to nominate them all in the first place, and we had two discussions before I went ahead and did that.

Also, there's no need for *anything* to replace the deleted intersection categories; the images can- and should- simply be moved up the hierarchy to the nearest remaining parent categories.

They will likely end up in multiple categories; that's fine, an image belonging to multiple distinct and complementary categories is perfectly reasonable if they make sense.

I'd also appreciate further input from anyone else who wishes to contribute to the CfD itself (including ReneeWrites (talk · contribs) if they want to do so). Ubcule (talk) 21:15, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Just an example: Look at Category:Taken with Nikon D7100 and Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters. At all images [[Category:Taken with Nikon D7100 and Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C + Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation filters]] will be replaced by [[Category:Taken with Nikon D7100 and Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C]] and [[Category:Taken using Hoya PRO1 Digital Circular Polarisation]] (both existing categories). The empty first category can then be deleted. --XRay 💬 07:14, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

BTW: I think I can help with these changes. I would write a small script (bot) for the changes. --XRay 💬 07:51, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

October 27

Category:Scientific journals of Russia

These are mostly categorised by templates, and the results do not fit into our category structure. Could someone please sort out the templates? Rathfelder (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2025 (UTC)