This page is used for proposals relating to the operations, technical issues, and policies of Wikimedia Commons; it is distinguished from the main Village pump, which handles community-wide discussion of all kinds. The page may also be used to advertise significant discussions taking place elsewhere, such as on the talk page of a Commons policy. Recent sections with no replies for 30 days and sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=--~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives; the latest archive is Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2025/07.
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Latest comment: 8 days ago33 comments20 people in discussion
This was a long discussion, with lots of options discussed. There was a consensus not to include {{PD-text}}. However the question about {{PD-textlogo}} was more nuanced. With 11 supports (including the conditional ones), 6 opposes, there is a rough consensus to implement {{PD-textlogo}} as an option. The details of how to were more contested though.
Given the large number of opposes and conditional supports, I think it is best to implement the most conservative option, which is to only allow autopatrollers to see this option. The community can discuss to allow autoconfirmed users later if it is preferred. —Matrix(!)ping onewhen replying {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 20:55, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Should any default options be added or removed from the menu in the Upload Wizard's step in which a user is asked to choose which license option applies to a work not under copyright? Sdkbtalk20:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Support. Many organizations on Wikipedia that have simple logos do not have them uploaded to Commons and used in the article. Currently, the only way to upload such images is to choose the "enter a different license in wikitext format" option and enter "{{PD-textlogo}}" manually. Very few beginner (or even intermediate) editors will be able to navigate this process successfully, and even for experienced editors it is cumbersome. PD-textlogo is one of the most common license tags used on Commons uploads — there are more than 200,000 files that use it. As such, it ought to appear in the list. This would make it easier to upload simple logo images, benefiting Commons and the projects that use it. Sdkbtalk20:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Addressing two potential concerns. First, Sannita wrote, the team is worried about making available too many options and confusing uploaders. I agree with the overall principle that we should not add so many options that users are overwhelmed, but I don't think we're at that point yet. Also, if we're concerned about only presenting the minimum number of relevant options, we could use metadata to help customize which ones are presented to a user for a given file (e.g. a .svg file is much more likely to be a logo than a .jpg file with metadata indicating it is a recently taken photograph).
Second, there is always the risk that users upload more complex logos above the TOO. We can link to commons:TOO to provide help/explanation, and if we find that too many users are doing this for moderators to handle, we could introduce a confirmation dialogue or other further safeguards. But we should not use the difficulty of the process to try to curb undesirable uploads any more than we should block newcomers from editing just because of the risk they'll vandalize — our filters need to be targeted enough that they don't block legitimate uploads just as much as bad ones. Sdkbtalk20:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
"we could use metadata" I'd be very careful with that. The way people use media changes all the time, so making decisions about how the software behaves on something like that, I don't know... Like, if it is extracting metadata, or check on is this audio, video, or image, that's one thing, but to say 'jpg is likely not a logo and svg and png might be logos' and then steer the user into a direction based on something so likely to not be true. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Determining whether a logo is sufficiently simple for PD-textlogo is nontrivial, and the license is already frequently misapplied. Making it available as a first-class option would likely make that much worse. Omphalographer (talk) 02:57, 20 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Support Assuming there's some kind of review involved. Otherwise Oppose, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to implement a review tag or something. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:10, 20 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
How about we just disable uploads entirely to eliminate the backlogs once and for all?[Sarcasm] The entire point of Commons is to create a repository of media, and that project necessarily will entail some level of work. Reflexively opposing due to that work without even attempting (at least in your posted rationale) to weigh that cost against the added value of the potential contributions is about as stark an illustration of the anti-newcomer bias at Commons as I can conceive. Sdkbtalk21:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. I think the template is often misapplied, so I do not want to encourage its use. There are many odd cases. Paper textures do not matter. Shading does not matter. An image with just a few polygons can be copyrighted. Glrx (talk) 19:47, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support adding this to the upload wizard, basically per Skdb (including the first two sentences of their response to Krd). Indifferent to whether there should be a review process: on one hand, it'd be another backlog that will basically grow without bound, on the other, it could be nice for the reviewed ones. —Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support New users which upload logos de facto always use wrong tags such as CC-BY-4.0-own work. Go to bot-created lists such as User:Josve05a/Logos or cats like Category:Unidentified logos, almost all logos uploaded by new users have such invalid licencing - all of which has to be reviewed & fixed at some point. People will upload logos that are too complex/nonfree etc regardless of this option, but adding the option might increase the change that they familarize themselfes with the requirements for uploading logos and apply the correct tag. ~TheImaCow (talk) 21:12, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Question Why {{PD-textlogo}} instead of for example {{PD-ineligible}}? I can understand the reason that keeping it simple is prefered and in that case PD-ineligible could be more usable. I do not think adding a review is a good idea. Or well a review is a good idea but realisticly it will never be reviewed. We had {{PD-review}} but it was dropped. --MGA73 (talk) 10:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)Reply
The idea is definitely to keep things simple. There are so many possible reasons something could be PD that we can't list them all; the ability to add a custom tag in the last line will always be a significant bucket. But we do want to provide the specific PD tags for common use cases, and as argued above logos falling under PD-textlogo is one of those. PD-ineligible, by contrast, is a much more generic tag, and is generally not a good idea to use when there is a more specific tag available. I think adding it to the default options list could be risky, since people might use it for "I want to upload this but I don't know if it's actually PD or how so I'll just use PD-ineligible" situations. Sdkbtalk16:59, 6 March 2025 (UTC)Reply
I understand keeping it simple, but the copyright tags I use most are absent, instead "copyright NASA" and "US federal government" (the rest of the world?) seems questionable, as it must be the result of careful evaluation and not simply localism. So for the same principle at least the most common upload copyright tags should be present. -- ZandDev (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support for autopatrolled users only, Weak support for autoconfirmed users, Oppose for non-autoconfirmed users - enough experience is needed. Xeverything11 (talk) 07:06, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Conditional support only on the following conditions, similar to Xeverything11's conditions:
Only autopatrolled (or at least autoconfirmed) users can choose this option;
All files tagged through this manner must automatically be categorized under a maintenance category for review.
Review must be done by sysops or license reviewers.
Non-experienced or new users are not allowed to tag as such, in addition to more efficient filtering to discourage them from uploading logos etc..
Support I think new users, provided the definition of a pd-textlogo is made very clear in the upload form, could accurately tag with it. JayCubby (talk) 01:38, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Images which fit this criterion are infrequent on Commons; there are only about 40,000 images (out of 120 million) currently uploaded under this license. (By comparison, there are about 230,000 PD-textlogo images.) Omphalographer (talk) 01:35, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Latest comment: 21 days ago43 comments14 people in discussion
Proposal passes. If cross-wiki uploads are not turned off in software for non-autoconfirmed users by August 26 (two months from today), the edit filter will be activated. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:50, 26 June 2025 (UTC) Edited 23:05, 2 July 2025 (UTC) to clarify.Reply EDIT: Start date changed to August 16 to have more time between this change and temporary account activation. GPSLeo (talk) 15:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In August 2024 we had a clear consensus that we need to restrict cross-wiki uploads using the the mw:Upload dialog. That decision was announced on meta multiple times (most recent) and also tracked on phabricator phab:T370598. But nothing happened to make this technically working in a good way. Therefore I propose that we demand a technical implementation to restrict uploads using the Upload dialog. Upload using this feature should only be possible to users who are (auto)confirmed ether on Commons on the Wiki where they are using the Upload dialog or even more restricted. If there is no solution until August we change our already existing AbuseFilter to block all uploads using the Upload dialog by users how are not (auto)confirmed on Commons. This would mean that users see the upload feature when editing but the message that they do not have sufficient rights is only shown after the upload process. GPSLeo (talk) 11:09, 15 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support as long as we can provide clear messages explaining what is going on when people are refused this possibility. - Jmabel ! talk17:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support unfortunately, the interface used to upload through the visual editor is inadequate to handle/screen uploads -- information about licensing/ownership isn't sufficient, and it will upload even if the user never actually saves their edits (with no communication to the user that this is the case). Hopefully there will be improvements, but in the meantime it's too much of a risk to continue allowing this. — Rhododendritestalk | 23:17, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support as it currently is, as everyone has already mentioned, it's a hazard waiting to cause confusion again. I'd actually disable it even for people who are autoconfirmed on only the non-Commons wiki, as it doesn't take much to become autoconfirmed and you still may have no idea what Commomns is. The Tduk (talk) 02:36, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
And I noticed that warning messages are not possible. When the warning message is shown there is no save button visible. GPSLeo (talk) 21:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is the filter in production (I made it blocking uploads by the account TestLeo) that works. The thing that does not work is showing a message in warning mode of the filter that allows uploading after confirming the warning. The warning mode shows the same way as the blocking mode with the proceed button greyed out after closing the message through the dismiss button. GPSLeo (talk) 09:10, 30 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I think I understand it now. I wonder if it's a bug to be filed and resolved in the AbuseFilter side, if not in the upload dialog. whym (talk) 09:48, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The problem is in the Upload dialog and if someone touches this tool to make warning abuse filters working they could just implement the hiding of the tool for users with insufficient rights. GPSLeo (talk) 16:09, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The idea with the warning was to notify users that this tool will be limited soon. But it would not be that informative anyways as most users who see the message are autoconfirmed until the blocking for not autoconfirmed users is in force. GPSLeo (talk) 17:51, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ah, now I understand. And I agree that the warning is not necessary, because the blocking will only affect newbies, and they are often editing for the first time when they also try to upload an image. Do you know if it's possible to translate the filter notice to other languages or is it only going to be in English? kyykaarme (talk) 17:06, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think a better wording for the "headline" would be "You do not have sufficient rights on Commons to perform cross-wiki uploads." Clearer about what rights are in question, and about what exactly they cannot do. - Jmabel ! talk23:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nonetheless, I think I made the task broader than intended, didn't I? From what I read, the upload dialog and FileEx/Imp are different tools, and there's yet to support restricting other tools that aren't the upload dialog, especially at the Meta RFC discussion. I'm thinking about creating a child subtask (to that existing parent task). George Ho (talk) 00:12, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
It seems that the assumption behind the proposal is that cross-wiki uploads by new users are worse than average. How do we know that is true? I compared uploads by new users with cross-wiki-upload tag and all uploads by new users in the same date range. I found no evidence that CWU is worse in terms of the ratio of deleted uploads. One example: 15110 uploads and 5193 deleted (34.4% deleted) regardless of tags vs 3455 uploads and 968 deleted (28.0% deleted) for the cross-wiki-upload tag, both between January 11 ("20250111") and January 30 ("20250130"). This is only a quickly done database query. I'd be happy to correct any mistake I might have made (or you can fork it and run a modified query, if you want). --whym (talk) 06:11, 8 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The statistic would need to be cleaned from out of scope deletions they are much less problematic than copyright violations. All files uploaded through the cross-wiki upload are in use and therefore in scope unless they are removed from the article. But that is complicated to evaluate. GPSLeo (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
In my opinion the issue is not whether they're worse than the average: the issue is that they're problematic and that's why something needs to be done. The WMF's own study showed that newbies trust that because they're able to upload an image with a couple of clicks it must be fine, because otherwise Wikipedia wouldn't let them do it. Then they get slapped with a deletion notice and told they're infringing on someone's copyright. If newcomers upload deletion-worthy images with the UW as well, then that can be addressed by modifying the Wizard. With the cross-wiki tool the newbies don't even have a chance of finding out what they're doing wrong before they've already done it. kyykaarme (talk) 09:01, 8 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see this message in the cross-wiki upload dialog: "If you do not own the copyright on this file, or you wish to release it under a different license, consider using the Commons Upload Wizard" (link), and you are supposed to agree to "I attest that I own the copyright on this file, and agree to irrevocably release this file to Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, and I agree to the Terms of Use" (link) before uploading. Newbies might ignore it or fail to understand, but I don't think it's completely accurate to say they are not given a chance to know. It's not too difficult to modify these MediaWiki messages to include more information - we don't need the apparently non-existent developer resources for just changing text. whym (talk) 09:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@Pi.1415926535: you have scheduled the activation for August 26. I have some concerns with that date because of the planned activation of temporary accounts in September. There is no exact date but it could be at the very beginning of September. Both changes are potentially larger changes to moderation procedures. I therefore think we should not have both changes within 7 days. Do you think it would be fine to active this one or two weeks earlier? GPSLeo (talk) 07:29, 3 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 11 hours ago48 comments15 people in discussion
What does this community think about a “help desk” or volunteer team (I imagine something like Wikipedia’s Resource Exchange) dedicated to taking requests to contact the owners of specific media works to ask them to release the work under a WMC license, and facilitating that release?
So, someone posts a video of a never-before-filmed beetle molting on Instagram. Someone on Commons makes a post at the help desk referring to that video, with a link. A volunteer reaches out to the videographer, explaining that the video is of great encyclopedic value, and encouraging the release of the video under an open license. If the owner is willing, the volunteer can help them release it, either through the VRT process or by making a declaration on the original platform of posting (as simple as commenting under one’s own social media post).
There’s so much valuable media shared online, and every time I have reached out to a poster to ask if they’d be willing to release, they have responded with great enthusiasm and done so. I think that a desk to streamline this and process requests from volunteers could lead to a lot of amazing encyclopedic material getting added to Commons. Eager to hear the community’s thoughts. Zanahary (talk) 02:48, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would love to do that! I have reached out a few times to people for their photos and videos—both scientists and ordinary online posters—to facilitate their release via VRT and publicly-declared CC licenses, and I’d be very happy to be a part of a more systematized effort to help free media online. Zanahary (talk) 03:06, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support Although I feel like it should be more of something like an informal Wikiproject/group then something like the Volunteer Response Team. But having a central place for people to chat about and coordinate contacting rightsholders to see if they will freely license their works is a pretty good idea. I think there's something similar for lobbying governments to create better FOP laws. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:25, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support And we should also establish best practices and scripts (not JavaScript scripts but pre-written words to copy and paste) for this purpose. I've gotten some great work off of Reddit (which I no longer use) and Flickr by asking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯21:03, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hooray! I really know nothing about coding and wizardry, so please (a message to you and everyone): run wild. My dream is that this is linked in the community portal. Zanahary (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Just completed it at User:Chaotic Enby/Request desk.js – to test it, you can install my script and the wizard should then display on your page.Ideally, it should be made into a MediaWiki namespace script so it can be called through the URL (and not require installing). This way, we can add a default button to User:Zanahary/Request desk that reloads the page while activating the JS through a URL parameter. Chaotic Enby (talk) 19:04, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Since the new request desk is still in userspace, it doesn't make sense to add a link to it right now, but I'll do it once the discussion is closed and all is "officially" moved into place! Thanks for the reminder. Chaotic Enby (talk) 00:27, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
& comment - if we are doing this, we should give some thought on how to prioritise both sources to ask, & materials to seek permission for. :) Lx 121 (talk) 15:29, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Another thought: it would be good if, in cases of publicly declared free licensing, requested materials could be uploaded either normally (with a link to the post or comment by the author indicating release) or via the VRT process, so that the uploaded could verify for the VRT without doxxing their social media account (by publicly sharing a link to a post under which they have commented inquiring about releasing under a CC license). Zanahary (talk) 23:35, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Don't we already have this? A desk for contacting rightsholders and email template resources? What would be different? I know the former is pretty dead, but that leads to the question: why would this succeed where that failed? IMO the most valuable thing we could do is to create a centralized, named "team" that's vetted and can introduce themselves as "Hi, I'm from the Wikimedia License Requests Team" rather than "Hey, I'm a random person from Wikipedia". That would require some thought as to who we would want on that front line, and I wonder about our ability to maintain an active volunteer base of people willing to take responsibility for not jsut requests but follow-up questions and the upload process. Really, most requests can be as simple as a boilerplate message to send the rights holder and a boilerplate release for them to submit to VRT, in which case I'd say efforts are best spent revamping instructions for volunteers. It's just in those rare cases where you have to make a good sales pitch to overcome objections or answer technical licensing questions that you need some advanced knowledge/skills. I could see a noticeboard being useful to get help with those questions, but don't know why a VP wouldn't work well enough. — Rhododendritestalk | 21:09, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think a reboot of WikiProject Permission Requests that is more heavily featured (qua desk rather than WikiProject) rather than tucked away, would have a much easier time building momentum. I really like your idea of creating a centralized team. Zanahary (talk) 21:39, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support: The more avenues that may lead to more high-quality media, the better. Might even bring a few more good people to the project. Don't see any harm in trying. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 07:09, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Strong oppose If one wants a file to be on Commons, they are free to obtain permission themselves. No additional team is needed for that, and no need exists for a new repository of ideas that never will be worked on. If I'm mistaken, will the list of supporters be the list of volunteers for the new team? How much capacity do they have, and why isn't that better spent on existing backlogs? --Krd16:19, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think one problem is that some institutions may not know about Commons or the advantages of free licenses (or that they even exist), and some may not know how to work on Commons (too complicated etc., had already similar cases). Many of us here are experts in the topics "Commons" and "IT", but many in general are not. I think we have to remember this --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sure. The other side of the medal is that we need to protect the qualified users from being saturated by routinne tasks offloaded to them by those not unable but unwillig to do it themselves. Krd05:30, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Mention it at the Main Page after everything else is done as the following: change "To fulfill the free license requirements, please read our Reuse guide. You can also request a file." to "To fulfill the free license requirements, please read our Reuse guide. You can also request a fileor request permission for a file already on the internet. Also advertise at VP, the usual.
Put some advice to volunteers at Commons:Permission requests e.g. don't forward emails yourself, ask them to forward to VRT. This should be done with consultance with VRT agents on Commons so the two systems can work together.
Make some requirements to join. The most obvious is license reviwers get it free and other people can go through the manual application processs.
That's fine. The old project was moribund enough that there is nothing to lose. Do look for links to that and update them, though. - Jmabel ! talk20:44, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I support this initiative in principle, and am optimistic that it might lead to positive outcomes. However, one barrier for some users may be breaking the implicit "fourth well" of anonymity by using one's private (or professional) email address to communicate (essentially "on behalf of" Wikimedia Commons) with rights holders, etc. There are many people or organisations that one might wish to contact, but not necessarily be inclined to do so – at risk of opening what could conceivably be a Pandora's box of unknown unknowns. With this in mind, I'm wondering if there might be a way for editors who wish help with this initiative to do so without necessarily using their own email address? One idea would be to create a tool that allows this communication to take place via the Commons platform itself (i.e., similarly to what happens here on this Talk page). Essentially, a "Send message" tool that would serve as the point of contact, and then, ideally, collate the email exchange as a quasi-Talk page thread. If there are unsurmountable technical complexities to that, it could be as simple as a pre-approved message from "xyz@wikimedia.commons" that invites people to visit a specific Commons Talk page to open a discussion. In addition to preserving anonymity, this method would also make the communication open and visible to other editors. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 08:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don’t think the process via this new desk needs to be more open than the normal VRT clearance process, which takes place through normal email addresses. But @wikimedia email addresses would be awesome! Zanahary (talk) 08:35, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not too sure about collating the email exchange as a talk page thread – from the point of view of the rights holder receiving the email, there is no expectation of the communication being publicly visible on Commons, and that could be seen as a breach of privacy. I do also like the idea of having @wikimedia email addresses for volunteers, if that is technically possible, although I don't think that wikimedia.commons would work since .commons isn't a TLD. Chaotic Enby (talk) 23:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 days ago27 comments16 people in discussion
Hello,
I’d like to propose two amendments of Commons:AI-generated media. Firstly, that it gets upgraded from guideline to policy.
Then, a content change: Commons should in my opinion ban the utterly large majority of AI generated media, at least for the time being. I’m advocating for a wait-and-see approach.
This is a direct outcome of ongoing judicial challenges in the US and our actual policies Commons:Fair use and Commons:Precautionary principle. The purpose is to avoid harm to Commons, should courts deem the current procedures of AI compagnies to be against the law. I’ll detail my reasoning below.
I got aware of several court cases through articles in several news outlets (partly in German, but they often happen to cite their sources) about the broad subject of AI generated media:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/25/anthropic-did-not-breach-copyright-when-training-ai-on-books-without-permission-court-rules “Anthropic did not breach copyright when training AI on books without permission, court rules“ – but this relies on US fair use provisions, according to the judge. Excerpt: „Alsup added, however, that Anthropic’s copying and storage of more than 7m pirated books in a central library infringed the authors’ copyrights and was not fair use – although the company later bought “millions” of print books as well. The judge has ordered a trial in December to determine how much Anthropic owes for the infringement.“
There’s ample further evidence that LLM training can eventually be admissible by US fair use, but constitutes first and foremost copyright infringements. That means that output by these LLM can be seen as fruits of the poisonous tree and would go against out two policies stated above, COM:Fair use and COM:PRP.
Hence, at least imagery that was generated in full by DALL-E, Midjourney, ChatGPT, etc. is certainly problematic.
So, while it’s possible that court cases in the future may result in the legality of AI generated media and hence their admissibility here, the current quagmire is so that we should, even if not strictly constrained by law, have a narrow interpretation of extant site policies and generally disallow AI-generated media site-wide for the time being. That may change in the future.
I can envision (and thus propose) a single exception: modern Photoshop or other photo editing software versions offer AI assisting tools. Their usage can constitute the borderline for current admissibility, as I think that any AI generated parts of such imagery stand behind the human-controlled parts and should be COM:De minimis. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 02:03, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is not about the resulting images. Also e.g. hereLegal experts agree that AI-generated works do not normally have an author in the legal sense, says lawyer Joerg Heidrich, who also advises AI companies: “For the user, this means that they can freely use an AI-generated image and post it on their website, for example - but on the other hand, anyone else can do the same with the same image.”. This has been discussed many times and you're not even talking about the copyright license of the images themselves. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:46, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, this is a key distinction. The law with respect to copyright on holding and training on copyrighted materials is distinct from the copyright status of materials generated from those acts. Zanahary (talk) 17:28, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment The "fruits of the poisonous tree" argument resonates strongly with me. I've long held that it's ethically dubious/hypocritical for a WMF project to take a strong stance on respecting copyright and licensing, while also accepting images from software tools that explicitly state that they do not respect copyright and licensing, and in fact are only able to exist because they knowingly ignore copyright and licensing.
That said, the legal landscape is a mess at the moment. There are a lot of cases working through a lot of different courts, and the results that have trickled in have been contradictory, meaning that we're almost certainly going to see cases reach higher courts. It's premature to draw any conclusions about how AI images are ultimately going to be classified vis-a-vis fair use.
In the meantime, my observation has been that the overwhelming majority of AI images uploaded to the project thus far have been out of scope, but that a small number of users have fought tooth and nail to keep them, using what I view to be weak arguments about hypothetical future use. I think Just because an AI image is interesting, pretty, or looks like a work of art, that doesn't mean that it is necessarily within the scope of Commons. needs to be given much more consideration. We should continue to aggressively cull the existing pool of AI images and stem the tide of new images based on scope, rather than legal principles. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 16:01, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
That's not a good reason to shoehorn restrictions outside of their intended scope. The precautory principle is about comitting a known copyright violation on the assumption that we can get away with it, not about a deletionist understanding of what is and what isn't a copyright violation. Cambalachero (talk) 19:59, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose: There are trials, yes, but how many of those trials ruled that AI images are copyright violations, and how many reached the point where no further appeals are possible? If the law rules that, all AI images can be deleted in minutes by a bot (they are all tagged with {{PD-algorithm}}), but until then, according to the law AI images are free. Cambalachero (talk) 16:39, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment This is a meta comment, but why not use Commons talk:AI-generated media for this discussion? I realize not every topic has an obvious centralized talk page to use, but this topic seems to have one. I think using dedicated places helps to save everyone's time. One giant page is more difficult to skim through than separate pages. That said, I think it's fine to leave short pointers here to advertise newly started discussions elsewhere, as written in Template:Village pump/Proposals/Header, if you want to get attention. whym (talk) 02:34, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was referring to what the template says about "significant discussions taking place elsewhere". It's been there since 2011. I think it was always something you can choose to do, while I don't know how common it was. I just wanted to raise awareness for the possibility. whym (talk) 09:39, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose: - ai images are NOT copyrightable in the usa. that part of the law is pretty solid. the ROUNDABOUT arguements about IP rights on using materials for training models are "in play" & tbd (& imho actually not very valid, just a money grab, & likely to Be DEEPLY problematic in all sorts of ways, if the rent-seekers do prevail) BUT that decision would effect TRAINING MODELS/MATERIALSnot "end-product" directly. (AND the big gorilla in the room is that, for many / most purposes the ai-biulders could pretty easily switch to PUBLIC DOMAIN materials for training; with a whole lot of open-source material as well). so tl,dr - whatever the outcome of these trials/legal disputes, is is UNLIKELY to change the fact that ai created content is NOT COPYRIGHT-ABLE, & it is also pretty unlikely that all pre-existing ai-created content would suddenly be banned. the lawsuits are about the "old-school" content-creation industry trying to wring money out of the AI boom. (hence rent-seeking :P) Lx 121 (talk) 09:15, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
You are much mistaken in thinking "for many / most purposes the ai-biulders could pretty easily switch to PUBLIC DOMAIN materials for training". In fact, the big players are experiencing since ~2023 or 2024 the same thing about data that conglomerates in the petro business are experiencing with peak oil. There are quite not enough native raw materials to train and improve the LLM any further, and that is including the whole available internet. So, the limited subset of public domain stuff is woefully inadequate for the business of OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, etc. Because of that, they are actually trying to train their LLM with synthetic data generated by other LLM, reinforcing (cultural) biases, racism, other errors in the process.
The issue with problematic training processes in regard to the outputs is that a potentially unlawful "machine" can produce "contaminated" output, meaning that a LLM trained with unlawful sources makes unlawful derivatives. That's IMHO the difference between a human, producing copyrightable content and a LLM which output is not protected in the US. The human, who lawfully (with bought or licensed books, movies, songs, art...) or unlawfully (when this human consumes e.g. pirated movies, books or songs...) learned about e.g. textual or musical content and who bases own creativity upon these sources, always adds own brain-processed things upon any thing he makes. The LLM doesn't work like this, it always only makes mash-ups, derivatives, of existing things (from the point of the law).
I would rather put the brakes upon uploading AI stuff now and wait for where the judicial challenges end. That's IMHO better than incurring a much larger clean-up endeavour later if higher courts deem AI generated media as unlawful derivatives of protected materials. I'm open to allow such media again, when the law framework has been clarified (in regard to LLM training), provided the stuff is in scope. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:47, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
respectfully i must DISAGREE with your assertion that: THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF HUMAN ART & LITERATURE up to & before 1930 is inadequate as material for an(y) AI LLM training models (PLUS the entire universe of open source materials available!).
& "waiting for the judicial challenges to end" is like waiting for the weather to stop happening, or waiting for gravity to stop working, or at least waiting for the next geological epoch to begin. i.e.: NOT GOING TO HAPPEN ANYTIME SOON. i see no valid reason to DENY/IGNORE/BLOCK all AI-created content/media-files on this basis. it sounds more like a backdoor-roundabout arguement from the "old school" flesh & blood content-creators who want to ban/block AI works as much as possible, for as long as possible... Lx 121 (talk) 10:27, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
May I suggest that you google "Growth of human knowledge"? The "THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF HUMAN ART & LITERATURE up to & before 1930" and the remainder of FOSS stuff is actually only a drop in the bucket for LLM training purposes - the human knowledge grows nearly exponentially with a doubling rate between 24-12 months in the current decade. Furthermore, everything that is related to information technologies, genetics, oncology, antibiotics, modern pop culture, etc., cannot be trained with raw materials from 1930 and before - these ideas didn't exist then or only barely.
About "waiting for the judicial challenges to end" - OK, that may have been poorly worded. I meant to say to wait for the development of a sound case law base, meaning several appellate court rulings or one from the Supreme Court. That is a limited time frame. (BTW, some scientists actually do advocate for the establishing of a new geological epoch, setting the border between the Holocene to the suggested Anthropocene around the 1950s. So, your example of "at least waiting for the next geological epoch to begin" has somewhat backfired...). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:31, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
comment - HA! i knew you were going to bring that up, BUTif we accept the anthropocene, then: a) we are already in it, the starting point is already in the past tense & b) the idea has been pretty thoroughly rejected by geologists, especially with an arbitrary 20th century start date (the most notable change in rock strata being radioisotopes). an earlier date like the neolthic revolution might have merits, but then it is basically a rename of most of the holocene.
& as for llm's; technical specialisations might need more, newer material. but general language, arts, philosophy, etc. are more than adequately represented by the world up to dec 31st, 1929 (& counting, plus open source!). so a lot of ai work, esp creative arts stuff, can be done with that. & you could probably train a pretty good AGI on that too (then take it to school for inadequately represented/updated subjects).
AND there is the whole "quantity vs quality" thing. re: growth of human knowledge. especially for "creative content" (which is what we are mostly talking about here re: ai-generated materials). nearly ALL human art-forms (of all types, including music, literature,etc.) are building on previous works. IF you trained a creative content ai on ALL AVAILABLE works that are pre-1930, & cut it off there (&/or only included subsequent works that are also pd or open source), you would STILL have covered almost all of the critical source material for human artistic inspiration, you would only be missing the last ~95 years of "iterations" (& you would even get early modern art, cinema, & scifi into the mix, plus jazz) Lx 121 (talk) 15:23, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose This proposal overreaches both legally and practically. None of the cited court cases have resulted in a final ruling that AI-generated media are inherently unlawful, nor that such output is retroactively tainted as "fruits of the poisonous tree". The training methods of some LLMs may be under scrutiny, but Commons evaluates media files, not machine learning pipelines. Commons' role is not to preemptively ban entire classes of media based on speculative future outcomes. We should stick to evaluating files individually under existing policy (especially COM:SCOPE and COM:LICENSE), not rewrite site-wide rules based on uncertainty or worst-case hypotheticals. A blanket ban would be premature, overly broad, and inconsistent with Commons' precedent of requiring concrete legal reasons, not conjecture, to exclude file types. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 18:56, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
+1 to Jonatan. We should not stop scrutinizing uploads. If AI files are evaluated as OoS and/or Licence violations, we must delete them. --Enyavar (talk) 10:08, 30 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment neutral, I just make a comment about the following wording within UK section: "it may therefore be necessary to determine whether the work was generated in the United Kingdom". Note that copyright protection generally comes with a publication (i.e. content being made available to the public), so the word "generated" looks not adequat to me when we talk about copyright. E.g. if I generate an artwork (with AI or not) in my computer in UK (or France, ect..., and that I firstly publish it online e.g. within Wikimedia Commons, then (if eligible) it is potentially under US copyright protection, and only under UK copyright protection via international convention(s). Of course if it is generated online, therefore automatically published, then this is well the first publication, and I guess that in that case the country of origin depend from where are the server. I'm not a native English speaker but I think that the words "generated" and "published" are two different things especially in matter of copyright. Christian Ferrer(talk)12:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment support. Unlike some of the previous contributors, I still fail to see Commons as a repository for any free stuff that can be scrounged from the net. "Original" AI works have failure built-in, either by getting us in legal trouble at some point, or by flooding us with trash. We should limit the exposure of the project to it as much as possible. Alexpl (talk) 09:42, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It does not because SCOPE gets trumped by INUSE. You can't get e.g. a trashy AI hallucination of the likeness some long-dead historical figure (a Viking, a Maya ruler, a Persian scientist...) deleted with SCOPE when some guy added it to a Wikipedia article in a smaller project that hasn't a policy of its own governing AI-generated media; despite it adding ZERO knowledge and only providing eye candy. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 14:56, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Actually, INUSE clearly says "It should be stressed that Commons does not overrule other projects about what is in scope". What you want to do has already been considered, and it is already rejected in Commons' policies. Cambalachero (talk) 18:43, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose yet another attempt to purge as many AI generated images from Commons as possible as sloppily as possible. There is no actual legal basis here, in actuality coming down to “I don’t like it”. Dronebogus (talk) 21:58, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 26 days ago39 comments16 people in discussion
There's been some talk on here lately about how the licensing terms for files are to complicated. At least in my own experience a lot of that has to do with user created permission and licensing templates. In most, if not all, cases they add extra requirements or restrictions that aren't included in the original versions of the CCO or PD licenses that the files are supposedly licensed as. For instance, requiring that someone who uses the image in a commercial product send a copy of said product to the author of the image. At their best, such terms just needlessly over complicate things. At worst they go against the goal of Commons to be a repository of media that "can be used by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose." There shouldn't be extra, added terms to reuse on top of the ones already imposed by the normal CCO licenses.
Aside from that, the templates create a situation where the pages for every other file on here is completely different and can't be edited or altered without asking for permission from the uploader. One example being this file, where the summary and categories can't be edited because of the template for it created by the uploader. Editors shouldn't have to ask uploaders permission to edit a files description or to change how it's categorized, period. In that case, the file should be licensed as "PD-US-no notice" since it's not the uploader's own work anyway. But the custom template makes it impossible to change without going through the uploader and having them do it. Again, such permission templates go against the spirit of the project and just add needless extra complication to editing. So user created permission and licensing templates should be banned. Adamant1 (talk) 02:31, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the suggestion. I added a link to the discussion on the talk page. I rather it take place here though since random talk pages don't usually get much participation and I'd like it to have a clear outcome. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:25, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, "user-specific" is probably a better way to phrase it. By that I mean templates created by individual uploaders (not through any kind of approval process) that include extra terms outside of the normal CCO requirements and/or that makes it impossible for other editors to edit the files page without having to ask the uploader or otherwise have them do it. Hopefully that clarifies things. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:42, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Proposals should be discussed here for maximum visibility.
Licenses: The guideline already disallows additional license terms: No user template can require additional conditions of use above and beyond the terms of their chosen license. Additional conditions such as notification can be requested but must not be required. If you see anyone adding conditions, the guideline should be brought to their attention, and the issue brought to administrators if the user does not promptly fix it. Similarly, the guideline requires that any standard license templates be substed, and disallows custom templates that combine license and user information. Can you point to any currently-used user-specific license templates, in particular any that don't already violate this guideline?
Infoboxes: There's a large number of specific templates that include infoboxes. Some are for the uploads of one specific user, which I would support disallowing. Some provide standard information for specific uses (such as the widely-used {{Hurricane auto track map 1}}) and are just fine. The user whose upload you linked to has several bad habits: creating custom templates for a handful of files, using incorrect author and license information in those templates, and adding content categories in the templates that cannot be modified on individual files. Whatever changes we make should disallow those bad habits while not banning useful templates like the hurricane maps. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:40, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Pi.1415926535: It's not the only phrasing I've seen on here but one example is the permission with File:Participants of IIIT workshop on 07 December, 2019.jpg where it has extra conditions in the third, forth, and six bullet points. The uploader wanting people to send them a message or email if they use image isn't so bad, but it's still an added condition on top of the normal licensing terms. Although point four and six seem to particularly go against the goals of the project. Especially point four. With infoboxes, I don't have a problem with templates like the ones for hurricane maps. It's more the other kind that I have an issue with and want banned. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that the third and fourth bullet points of User:I.Mahesh/Photo credit box 2019 are not acceptable conditions to add. (It would be fine to phrase them as requests, but not requirements.) The sixth bullet point was common around here for a bit, but the WMF legal advice has been changed, and it should be removed or rephrased.
Visibility can be achieved by leaving here a pointer to advertise. If needed, you can advertise more than one time per discussion. I think Commons has become too big to keep doing this one giant space for all proposals. It still has its place, but separate discussion pages are better for signal-to-noise ratio, archiving, and searching. I think the latter should be encouraged rather than discouraged. whym (talk) 13:37, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Trying to understand what is and is not acceptable.
Let's say Seattle Municipal Archives had someone with an account of their own here instead of my uploading on their behalf. Would there be a problem with a template like Template:Seattle Municipal Archives via Flickr, which is not a license template, but does explain their preferred way to be attributed?
Are we talking about eliminating existing templates, banning their continued use, or what? If eliminating, how do we handle licenses offered by users who are no longer active, or not even alive? I don't think we can retroactively change their licensing terms. Do we then delete all such files, take them up on a case-by-case basis, or what? This could get very messy, and I could imagine a lot of undesirable consequences. - Jmabel ! talk05:31, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: Since it says "preferred attribution", that's fine - it doesn't add any requirements above and beyond the license. Any templates that don't violate the current wording of COM:USER can be kept for existing files; I think any banning of them should not be retroactive. For existing files (using a custom template or not) that have disallowed extra-restrictive license terms, that's a good question, and might need someone with legal knowledge to weigh in. It may be that choosing a CC license is sufficient to release the file under that license, and the other terms are invalid and can be removed. Or it may be that they are still valid, and the files would have to be properly licensed by the users or removed. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:56, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Outside of the issue of custom licenses - which I agree should be avoided - can we examine the reasons why users feel the need to add custom permission templates to their uploads? If users feel the standard {{Information}} and CC license templates don't make it clear enough that the uploader needs to be credited by reusers, maybe we should look into improving those templates. Omphalographer (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Omphalographer: I've noticed that very few uploaders use "author" in {{Self}} or "attribution" in the various CC-BY and CC-BY-SA templates. I'm guessing that is because it is not supported by the Upload Wizard (one more reason I almost never use the Upload Wizard). - Jmabel ! talk20:48, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Grand-Duc: impossible, buggy, whatever: it doesn't work well, so virtually no one uses it. And, following your link, I can see why. That is crap UI. If they wanted to edit wikitext, they'd just use Commons:Upload. They should be able to give their attribution (with the default for "own work" being something like author=Wikimedia Commons user [[User:FOO|FOO]]); bad enough that they have to deal with a wikilink, but they certainly shouldn't have to correctly edit a template usage. Also, in my opinion, the default should be that overt restatement of author/attribution in {{Self}}, which I'm sure greatly reduces the bad attributions to just "Wikimedia Commons". - Jmabel ! talk23:08, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
user created permission and licensing templates
That's a reasonable point, given that WP has never taken automated licence processing seriously enough to look at features like a REL.
However there's a mistake underlying much of Adamant1's broader actions than this proposal (and the scatter-gun of DRs they're firing off):
A widely-used and easily recognised licence template embedded within a novel user template is not a problem.
It is not the same thing as creating a new (and awkward to process) class of licence template and thus licences.
The problem complained of in this proposal is real, and I would support that aspect of it. However it is not as broad a problem as Adamant1 complains of. If anyone wants to work on it, start by looking at the status of the implied licences (if any). Don't just assume that any sort of user wrapper around a valid licence then makes it into a problem. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:59, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I nominated a single template for deletion based on opinions of myself and others in this conversation that said template is a problem. In no way is that me "firing off a scatter-gun of deletion requests" or whatever. So spare me the defense, insulting tone. I could really care less about these types of templates in theory, the issue with yours is that they are impossible to edit or modify the categories on without (as you put it in DR) "sorting it out through the talk page."
There's absolutely no reason someone should have to "sort out" basic, uncontroversial edits to a file with the uploader through the talk page. It's just anti-user and goes against the goals of the project. As well as policy IMO. You said in the DR that this whole thing is "make-work playing at adminship." I'd argue that goes for these types of templates. Your misusing templates to protect and gatekeep basic edits to file you upload. Just because you can't legitimately protect them from edits since your not an admin. That's not what templates exist for. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think there are two topics:
New licenses: They should definitely only be created with community approval.
Custom license wrappers: The should be banned entirely. The additional information from the author/institution should be in a separate template to allow simple maintenance. Wrappers for {{Information}} or similar should also not exist except for special cases like map tiles or book pages.
I'd say that the ban should be on new user created licenses, not on licensing templates. For example, licensing templates such as this, that show that the file is licensed under CC-BY and providing the name of the author to be credited and a link to his/her/its home page, are no problem (whether they are for an external author or institution, or for a Commons user). MGeog2022 (talk) 21:27, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
What happens if someone copy/pastes the same licensing information onto each file page instead of uses a template? If that would be prohibited, too, presumably then the underlying proposal is about what can and cannot be requested and/or required of reusers, which gets pretty complicated. CC licenses do allow some customization. — Rhododendritestalk | 22:39, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm inclined to agree that only admins who know what they're doing should be able to create/edit Licensing/Permission templates. The customized template created by a non-admin mentioned in this discussion seems rather strange. See also this decision to delete an inappropriate US-PD template created by a non-admin. Muzilon (talk) 07:01, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do not think it is useless to document for historical purposes that copyright was renewed and then expired after 95 years REAL💬⬆01:05, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
"See also this decision to delete an inappropriate US-PD template created by a non-admin" (Template:PD-US-renewed) REAL💬⬆14:08, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't know what that template contained, I am saying it is not useless to record the fact that something got a renewal and has now expired 95 years from publication, that can be done with just {{PD-US-expired}} with an extra category REAL💬⬆14:25, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It contained near-nonsense: "This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1930 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was only renewed once. Unless its author has been dead for the required period, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See Commons:Hirtle chart for further explanation." (That "1930" is generated by an expression in the template.) In fact, (1) no copyrights were ever removed more than once and (2) no image as described here would be eligible for Commons, it would necessarily still be copyrighted in the U.S. - Jmabel ! talk17:51, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
My point exactly. If the creation of licensing templates were restricted to approved admins/editors (as I believe it should be), then that silly template (deleted in 2018) would never have been created in the first place. Muzilon (talk) 21:12, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Like I said I did not know what that template contained and when I hear "PD US renewed" I think of something where copyright was renewed and 95 years from publication have passed.
I oppose this idea because I often have to create new templates for public domain situations that we did not have any for. For example, Trinidad and Tobago has no current copyright term for photographs, but it used to have 50 years from publication for them until the new non retroactive copyright law in 1997. Before I created {{PD-Trinidad and Tobago-photo-1946}} we did not have any template or even information on this.
I also do not know how you are supposed to ban creating licensing templates without banning creating templates altogether. REAL💬⬆21:33, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
If an ordinary editor wants a customized licensing template, then they can ask a Template Editor to arrange that. If an ordinary editor wants to become a Template Editor, they can apply for the job. Muzilon (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
when i see files under some custom licences, i simply dont use them because i dont bother reading into their detail, especially when they are long. RoyZuo (talk) 06:38, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Question Insted of having 20+ templates that communicates the same message ("i would love to be informed if you use my image") can't we have a single template that editors are required to use instead?--Trade (talk) 01:30, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Two proposals to make the interface more user-friendly
Latest comment: 25 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Background: I set wrong coordinates for my last upoad. When I fixed this the warning appeared about a discrepancy between the coordinates in image description and the ones stored at SDC. I tried to fix coords in SDC but button "Publish changes" just did nothing. Then I tried to undo bot editing which filled in SDC for file. [s]But Abuse filter triggered with warning than this operation is prohibited for new or anonymous user. I'm not anonymous user and I supposed that I'm not "new user" with more then ten years in Commons and about two thousand uploads, so I was very surprised. As it was explained to me on Abuse filter talk page I'm still "new user" for I haven't COM:AP status.[/s] As I understand, the same reason prevents me from SDC editing.
So I propose:
Display the appropriate warning if user rights do not allow making changes in SDC or somewhere else and user clicks on "Edit" link, "Publish changes" button, etc.
Replace in filter warning misleading "new user" term with unambiguous explanation which status is necessary for the operation.
Latest comment: 24 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I found across the NOAA datasets often NC files. It is a file format for scientific purposes and is used, for example, in GIS (like GeoTIFFs). As it also distributes educational content and covers huge datasets, I want to make a proposal to add it to the supported filetypes on Commons. Here you can find several examples, alone by the NOAA --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 09:53, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. This is not a media file format. It's not clear to me what the purpose of uploading these files to Commons would be, particularly with no way to display or use their contents in the browser. Omphalographer (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The addition suggestion feels like being motivated by a wish to archive data, as the named use cases are for scientific fields which get lots of flak by Trump and his goons. But I don't think that Commons is the best place for that, as a binary file format (cf. the Wikilink in the opener) is certainly not a media file. In fact, I think that we would need a repository akin to Wikisource for such data, if they are to be hosted by Wikimedia. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:58, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. If Wikimedia were to host this data, it would probably need to be part of a larger plan to support viewing and analysis of that data (possibly an extension of wikitech:PAWS). While I appreciate the importance of archiving this data, I'm not certain that Commons (or Wikimedia in general) is the right project to be taking on that responsibility. Omphalographer (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 hours ago44 comments17 people in discussion
Starting the week of September 22 temporary accounts will be enabled on Commons (phab:T340001). Access to the IP behind temporary accounts will then be limited to admins and users in the new "temporary account IP viewer" user group. Because of this we need a policy about what is required to get this right. The WMF has the following global minimum requirements: Six months old account and 300 local edits. The right is automatically revoked after one year of inactivity.
I would suggest the following local policy: Every license reviewer or patroller can request the right on COM:RFR. New license reviewers and patrollers should add to their request if they also need the temporary account IP viewer right.
License reviewers and patrollers are trustworthy and always clearly beyond the global minimum requirements. Users without patrol right mostly do not need to view the IP behind temporary accounts. If they need to and they are trustworthy for temporary account IP viewer right they can also get the patrol right at the same time. GPSLeo (talk) 14:03, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support Needing a six month old account and 300 local edits seems like a pretty low bar on their own. Having people request the right seems a lot more reasonable. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:56, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support assuming the default request templates are modified to reflect this. (and I'm assuming admins get it by default?) All the Best -- ChuckTalk16:44, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
What would a license reviewer use IP addresses for in general? Or is the proposal more like they are deemed to have basic trust and the only thing they need to show is a clear use case for them individually, in order to obtain the rights (meaning the granting is not automatic)? whym (talk) 03:13, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it is because they are trustworthy. License reviewers have the same technical rights as patrollers and therefore do not need to request patroller rights. Granting redundant patroller rights to them only to get temporary account IP viewer rights would not make sense. GPSLeo (talk) 07:47, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's still a bit unclear to me. When a license reviewer requests, should a bureaucrat give the tool no question asked according to this proposal? Or should they ask what they will use the tool for (assuming that is not made explicit in the said request) and see if the answer is satisfactory? In my understanding, deciding to grant any advanced tool is based on trust and needs. whym (talk) 12:35, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
There are almost certainly legitimate use cases for non-admins that are involved in vandalism fighting. Mind you, I'm not really convinced that temporary accounts are anything more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; if you want to keep your IP private, make an account. I'm not sure how temporary accounts solve any problem that IP users cause other than protecting their privacy, and there's been a solution to that since day one. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 13:32, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
What's the status of VRT volunteers? Can they already automatically see the IP addresses? If not, do they count into the groups that can request rights? – b_jonas04:43, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The German WP support team often deals with block review requests (forwarding them to the local admin noticeboard), I imagine that there could be use cases for the right to see IP addresses in that context, also for Commons. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 06:55, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I think we should avoid additional user groups as far as possible. I'd suggest to remove the new user group and incorporate the new right directly into the suggested groups, i.e. sysop, patroller and license reviewer. If one needs to request the right, they can become patroller. --Krd05:48, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support Everyone has always been able to see IP addresses, and trusted patrollers and license reviewers are deemed trusted for a reason, so giving them access to temporary account IPs is entirely reasonable. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:03, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
We need to make a decision about this soon to have time to implement the process and grant the right to those who need it. GPSLeo (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Question: What if someone well experienced wants to have this tool without being a patroller nor a license reviewer, according to this proposal? Will they be told that they simply can't, and be a patroller or a license reviewer first? What if they could become a license reviewer, but not interested? Being able to view IP addresses doesn't seem highly related to doing license reviews. --whym (talk) 11:40, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If so, should it be possible to resign as patroller in that case (without losing the IP tool), arguing because they don't plan to patrol at all? Or should this bundling proposal mean that it's not possible and they would need to resign both? whym (talk) 22:00, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I can not imagine any anti vandalism work where patrol rights are not needed. They are technically not needed but not marking cleaned pages as patrolled is bad as it does not remove them from the backlog lists resulting in double work. Viewing the IP behind temporary account for personal research or just for fun is not allowed. GPSLeo (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
How about license reviewer? I believe they primarily sign up for doing file reviews, not anti-vandalism work. For example, should being active in license review be a justification to keep IP viewing rights? (I assume your answer would be no, based on your last comment above. Mine would be, too.) This proposal would be much easier for me to support, if the LR part is dropped, or if it just says the trust level required is about the same for patroller/LR/TAIP, and nothing more (with the implication that patrollers and license reviewers would pass the trust part, and that someone's needs for each tool would be individually assessed, as usual, separately from assessing trust). whym (talk) 06:13, 6 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support it would be better if we merge this with the license reviewer right. I would've also agreed on patrol, but it would be of no avail as GPSLeo said above that WMF won't allow merger with patrol rights. Shaan SenguptaTalk15:52, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Shaan Sengupta: You meant this? -> "The WMF does not allow merging with patroller rights. GPSLeo (IA/A) (talk) 06:33, 20 August 2025 (UTC)" I understood it meaning that the WMF mandates that "patrol" and "temporary account IP viewer" must remain separate user groups. But it doesn't disallow that we, the Commons community, decide that patrollers can get "temporary account IP viewer" in a straightforward way. Merging is IMHO to be understood as addition of the right to an extant user group, not as having a personal union of two rights on the same user. In fact, patrollers are much more likely to dabble in temp account affairs than license reviewers, as patrol is basically an anti-vandalism tool. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 17:12, 30 August 2025 (UTC) Grand-Duc (talk) 17:12, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Grand-Duc yup, I meant that comment only. As much as I can understand, the WMF doesn't allow merging temporary account IP viewer with patrol. In no way I am against granting that right to the patrollers. All I meant was we can merge it with LR, just like LR has patrol, it can have temporary account IP viewer too. That would make every LR have it and as far as existing patrollers are considered, they can request it to be added to their rights (or maybe if it can be granted straightaway, I'm all in) and users making new requests can mention if they want this one too or maybe we make a policy to grant the two together. I am not against either of the choices. Shaan SenguptaTalk17:22, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Every holder of the user right(s) license review and/or patrol who has been active in the last 90 days before the key date of 2025-09-15 will be granted the right to view the IP behind temporary accounts. For anybody else, it can be requested when needed, that includes new members of the aforementioned user groups. It won't be granted automatically.
I tried to include and to address any ideas and concerns from above.
There's an evident majority for using LR and patrol as marker of trusted users.
The concern about inactive patrollers and reviewers shall be addressed with the activity requirement and the key date (one week before the actual activation).
Comment What's the actual meaning of active?
Do, I need to review the edits and mark as patrolled/license review the file and mark this file version as patrolled. Or adding a category in a file/working with structured data also counted as active. Thanks for your consideration. --C1K98V(💬✒️📂)14:06, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would not grant the right automatically. We could send a mass message (because of simplicity to everyone in these groups independent of activity) and setup a page where they can confirm that they want the right. GPSLeo (talk) 15:55, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
It seems that users who request their accounts to be vanished do not understand the consequences.
Recently, the VRT team have received few request related to file attribution of Own work uploads by vanished users. Unfortunately, such request may be problematic due to impossibility of verification whether the request comes from the photo author and that changing the attribution by someone else or at a request by someone else would be violation of the Creative Commons license.
Latest comment: 1 day ago58 comments19 people in discussion
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.
There is a clear consensus for implementing such a policy, with specific cutouts, so I'm advancing this to the next step in the process: getting a page started so that we can iron out the specifics. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 02:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
There are many uploads with AI generated versions of real people or photos of real people altered using AI tools. We currently do not have a clear guideline on this. Many of these files are deleted as out of scope or for COM:DIGNITY violations. I would therefore propose a clear general ban of AI generated or edited images of real people to avoid long discussions about these photos a every deletion request. I would propose the following two rules:
AI generated photos where the description states that the photo shows an actual person are not allowed. Exception are possible for satire and caricatures if in scope. Exceptions are also possible to show the abilities of tools.
AI edited photos of people are not allowed. The same exceptions as for entirely generated photos apply. This only covers usage of generative editing. Other edits using AI tools for edits like de-noising, sharping, blurring, or similar are allowed. Edits like background changes or background removal have to be disclosed if not obvious.
Oppose I don't think Commons should introduce a blanket ban here. The principle of Commons is that we host free media that can be used across projects, but the actual use is decided locally. If English Wikipedia has already decided not to use AI-generated or AI-edited portraits of real people, then that policy will apply there, regardless of whether the file exists on Commons. Other projects might make different decisions, depending on their editorial standards and needs.
Our role should not be to pre-emptively decide what is "in scope" based on assumptions about dignity or usefulness, especially if a file is already in genuine use. COM:INUSE has always been the clearest marker of educational value. If a local project is using a file in good faith, that is already a strong signal that it meets scope requirements.
A general ban risks us moving away from being a neutral repository towards acting as content editors for individual projects. For example, if Wikinews, Wikivoyage or a smaller language Wikipedia decides that an AI-altered illustration is the best available option for explaining a current event or technological development, Commons should not prevent that use. Instead, we should let the normal scope criteria apply: is the file free, educational, and used? If yes, then it belongs here.
Adding an AI-specific ban to COM:DIGNITY conflates two issues. Dignity violations are about degrading or harmful depictions of people, regardless of the tool used. An AI illustration could be non-dignifying, but so could a Photoshopped or even a conventional photograph. The tool is not the key factor; the context and the effect are.
Scope should be judged by educational value, not by the means of creation.
Comment AI advances very fast. May be we could soon get good AT-generated images of people when free images are not available. It doesn't mean that AI images should replace real ones, but AI images would be better than no image. Yann (talk) 16:01, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I don't think we can do a blanket ban here. For example, if the president of the United States posts an AI-generated image of himself as pope, that image should certainly be in scope. If a notable blogger uses an AI-generated image of herself as an avatar, that should be in scope (I don't have an example on Commons, but I've seen them in the wild. Here's one who is probably not quite notable enough, but is a good illustration of the sort of thing I mean: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3627784224024421&set=a.133225610146984). But I do think that AI-generated images of people should be a suspect category with a high bar for keeping them, much as we treat certain sexually-related images. - Jmabel ! talk17:56, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Conditional Support. This proposal should not lead to the banning of "Trump as pope" or similar, when said AI-generated image is sourced from the subject himself. But using AI to make an illustration where no free photograph is known or available yet should be forbidden, as it may introduce copyright violation issues (take a look on the ongoing legal battles over AI training) along the concerns raised in the proposal itself. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:07, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Grand-Duc: I've now re-read the proposal three times and I don't see any language in the proposal that would justify that exception. Can you indicate what language there makes that carve-out? - Jmabel ! talk19:19, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: not in the proposal itself, yes. But I reacted to your opinion, as I see its merits (ability to cover notable events like this Trump thing) but would still like a restriction on AI-generated imagery that I deem sensible. Pi below worded it in a good way. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 19:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that sums it up. The proposal would need a third point as worded by Pi: an exception "for self-sourced images of notable people (as above) and images where the AI-edited/created version itself is the subject of commentary." Then, my condition for unconditionally supporting would be fulfilled. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 19:53, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support, with carveouts for self-sourced images of notable people (as above) and images where the AI-edited/created version itself is the subject of commentary. AI-created images of specific people are either going to be inaccurate (in which case we shouldn't have them), or closely derived from other images of that person (which we should have instead if they're free, and shouldn't have the derivative work if they're not free). Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:35, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support good idea. While I think COM:INUSE has its merits, given that a lot of wikimedia projects have declining number of editors and therefore quality problems, a slight form of moderation on Commons level is reasonable --Isderion (talk) 19:36, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support Per others. Although I agree with Grand-Duc that there should be an exception for clearly notable images where the AI-edited/created version itself is the subject of commentary. I highlighted "clearly notable" BTW because there's been a couple of deletion requests for AI generated memes where people argued they were notable because of being posted on social media sites and the like. Which IMO is flawed reasoning. There should at least be coverage of the image in a notable, national news outlet or the like for the commentary to count. Also maybe @GPSLeo: or @Josve05a: can clarifying this, but unless I'm misreading the original proposal I'm not really sure how this would circumvent COM:INUSE. I assume it would still apply and that images would have to be removed from other projects before being deleted, just like they have to be with every other type of deletion request. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:49, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
As it should be part of COM:DIGNITY it should overwrite COM:INUSE. There is room for exceptions to illustrate a tool or in some cases for caricatures. But it is intended that a photo that is currently in use on an article to show how the person looks like can be deleted also if they clearly disclose that the photo is generated. GPSLeo (talk) 09:02, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@GPSLeo: Maybe I'm misunderstanding the wording or something but COM:DIGNITY says "Commons is not required to host any photo of a person, and may delete doubtful photos regardless of educational value." So wouldn't COM:INUSE be invalid for AI generated images of people anyway? Like I don't see why an image of a person would be exempt from that as is currently purely because it's AI generated. If anything the case against an image serving a "public interest" by being hosted on Commons is stronger in such an instance. --Adamant1 (talk) 09:48, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is also my interpretation of the current guideline. I see my proposal as a clarification for this. The new thing would be that we say that almost never there is sufficient public interest to keep these photos. GPSLeo (talk) 10:19, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, COM:DIGNITY already allows deletion of problematic photos of people even when they are in use, so that situation is already covered. Adding a blanket ban would go further than necessary and risk Commons overreaching into editorial territory by deciding in advance what local projects should or should not use. I don’t think such pre-emptive editorializing is in the best interest of Commons. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 11:20, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
How exactly would it go further when its essentially just applying the exiting guideline but AI generated images? Or are saying AI generated images should be exempt from exiting guidelines that already apply for other types of media? --Adamant1 (talk) 11:37, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
A blanket ban is unnecessary and overbroad. COM:DIGNITY already allows removal of problematic (in a legal sense) depictions of people, regardless of whether they are AI-made or not. Creating a separate AI-specific prohibition risks redundancy and confusion. Scope should continue to be judged on educational value, accuracy, and actual use, not on the technical tool used to produce the file. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 11:46, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@GPSLeo: I'm trying to understand where you stand here. As I read it, you would not allow any of the exceptions people are suggesting? Is that correct? - Jmabel ! talk18:32, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am not sure what other exceptions are proposed. For me the Trump pope example would fall under the satire and caricatures exception. What I do not see as an option would be a general exception for all files in use on any project. GPSLeo (talk) 18:38, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
(1) What about the AI-generated avatar used by a notable person? or do you just consider that a "caricature"? (2) Also, what about something that may be notable in its own right? For example, if a hoax video became a major news story, does this mean we could not host a copy of that video for the article about the resulting scandal? - Jmabel ! talk19:01, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
You mean a notable person generates a photo about themself? This case would be fine maybe we write caricatures including works generated works published by the subject of the photo. Of course the regular scope rules still apply to these files. For the second case I would say it depends on the video. If the video violates the rights of depicted people we should not host it. If the video does not violate the rights of anyone we can keep it. We could formulate an exception like: "Content with broad media coverage about it as long as no rights are violated." GPSLeo (talk) 20:17, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
So we would be making a blanket decision that a Wikipedia article about a deepfake affecting an election could not contain a copy of the deepfake unless the Wikipedia in question chose to host it locally, correct? - Jmabel ! talk20:24, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
As far as I understood the ideas, I suggest a wording like this:
AI generated images where it is claimed that an actual person is depicted are inherently not allowed. Exceptions are applicable, see below.
AI edited photos of people are inherently not allowed. The same exceptions as for entirely generated images apply. This only covers usage of generative editing. Other edits using AI tools for edits like de-noising, sharpening, blurring, or similar are allowed. Edits like background changes or background removal have to be disclosed if not obvious.
Exceptions are:
The image was sourced from the subject himself. This includes caricatures (as "Trump as pope" publicised in 2025) and "identifying" profile pictures from social media presences, when these channels or accounts are notable.
The generated imagery is itself subject of commentary in external media.
Provisional Support with some exceptions such as Pi.1415926535. and others have mentioned. I really think the default should be NO to AI generated or edited images of real people, but occasional exceptions could be allowed either by meeting strict criteria or being granted a considered individual exception. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment The definition of "using AI tools for edits like de-noising, sharping, blurring, or similar" is not clear. A common workflow I've seen is for users to paste an image into ChatGPT and give it a prompt along the lines of "enhance this image". The results of this process can be highly variable - some of the outputs are quite close to the input images, some can be substantially different, and it's not clear how (or if!) users can control that. See Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by DaniGonzdealta for a recent example.
As a separate matter: would this ban also extend to:
AI-generated images of non-specific people, such as File:Angryman.png?
These images of non specific or very long dead people are not a COM:DIGNITY problem. For such kind of generated images there are only regular questions about the scope. They are therefore out of the scope of this proposal. For these COM:INUSE should fully apply. GPSLeo (talk) 06:16, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment The technical side of this (de-noising, etc.) probably needs more precision of wording, but this is closer to what I'd hope to see. That is, I'd rather see this text as a basis for further refinement than GPSLeo's above. Also, should be gender-neutral "themself" rather than "himself." - Jmabel ! talk03:56, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Omphalographer: File:Angryman.png doesn't claim to represent a specific individual, so would presumably be unaffected. Assuming it has no copyright issue, that's exactly the sort of thing where an AI image of no one in particular might actually be good. - Jmabel ! talk04:00, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
OK, when I learned English as a foreign language back in school, the singular they was never a thing (in fact, I first encountered it here, in the Wikimedia universe). I'm quite used to the generic masculine (and my wife always gets angry at me or other people for "butchering" German if too much gender-neutral language gets used there... She feels herself unequivocally addressed by words in the generic masculine), so I implicitly saw "subject" as a male noun, hence "himself". But if "themself" is seen as better by native speakers, then let's use that word!
@Omphalographer: GPSLeo wrote "photos", I changed that to "images", specifically because any AI-generated image is NOT a photo. That would cover images in the style of a painting, yes. The proposal should cover the ban on creating AI depictions of any real person. If one is using an AI to to generate an image of en:Jesus, en:Buddha, en:Amaterasu or en:Ra, that wouldn't be banned, I think. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 05:17, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Some people might take offense to the implication that religious figures are not "actual people". Is there some other way we can draw that distinction? Alternatively, I'd have no problem with disallowing AI-generated images of specific people regardless of whether they're "real people"; in practice it is often the case that religious figures are best illustrated by artwork created within that religion, rather than generic AI-generated images. Omphalographer (talk) 06:14, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
As written above I see such generated images of very old historic or fictional personalities out of the scope of this proposal. For these the regular scope questions should apply. GPSLeo (talk) 06:24, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Aside) The Oxford English Dictionary shows "þeȝȝm sellfenn" as already in the English language in the 12th century, and "themself" with the modern spelling showing up in the Wycliffe Bible (~1382). So, not at all a neologism, but I agree that it has become more common in recent times. - Jmabel ! talk15:51, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support wholeheartedly. When there is no free illustration for biographies, and the only alternative is an AI-generated, I prefer nothing. --Bedivere (talk) 05:28, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agree, for now. I do want to say, though: it won't surprise me if over time, as AI-generated imagery becomes more pervasive, it won't surprise me if we come to view some of this more or less the same way we view things like File:Francois Villon 1489.jpg. That is, we tend to accept time-honored illustrations that are not based on anything more. - Jmabel ! talk04:40, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
That sort of image at least has some historiographical value, i.e. "this is how Villon was depicted by an artist around 1489". An AI-generated image doesn't even have that. Omphalographer (talk) 06:28, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Extended content
My perspective on this proposal
Thank you for opening this discussion. I agree that this is an important matter, since many deletion debates about AI-related files currently end up inconsistent and subjective. A clear policy would help avoid uncertainty.
Current problems
From my own experience as a contributor, I have seen files deleted not because of a clear violation of COM:POLICY, but rather because admins felt the images were "ugly" or simply unwanted.
This is not a stable or fair basis for decision-making. Decisions should be based on policy, not personal preferences.
Concerns about a blanket ban
A total prohibition on all AI-edited photos of real people seems excessive.
Minor AI-assisted edits (such as noise reduction, sharpening, de-noising, or color adjustment) are functionally the same as using tools like Photoshop or GIMP. To ban them outright would risk discouraging good-faith contributors and useful innovation.
Suggested middle ground
Instead of a full ban, we could consider:
Requiring clear disclosure when AI tools were used.
Encouraging case-by-case community review instead of a blanket rule.
Risks of abuse
Without nuance, there is a high risk of admins applying personal bias when deleting files. This undermines trust in Commons processes.
My own recent experience is a clear example of this problem.
Summary (TL;DR): A clear policy is needed, but a blanket ban would be too harsh. Require disclosure of AI edits, evaluate case-by-case, and delete only if there are real policy violations. --Masry1973 | مصري1973 (talk) 20:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Masry1973: No offense, but did you write your comment using AI? Whatever the case, can you at least rewrite it as a normal comment without all the imbedded subsection and actually vote? Otherwise it's hard to read and comes off like an attempt to hijack the original proposal. Not to say your doing that, but the multiple bullet pointed subsections and new line that aren't written as normal paragraphs really don't help with things. Thanks. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:13, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
For context, I deleted some of Masry1973's AI uploads for scope reasons and they've since tried to get that reversed on several different forums, both here and on meta. Whether or not they're using AI to communicate, all of their comments are massive walls of questionably coherent and relevant text. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Did you create this comment using AI tools? The exception for AI assisted photo editing was already mentioned in the first draft. GPSLeo (talk) 22:14, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hesitant support there are some notable AI images of real individuals (like the aforementioned File:Pope Trump AI by Donald Trump.png). Those should obviously be kept if they aren’t pornographic (deepfake porn sucks and is potentially illegal). Caricatures and cartoons are also fine. But realistic representations meant to illustrate the person for “educational” purposes should 100% be banned because they perpetuate misinformation and are ideally always going to be deleted independently on those grounds anyway. Obviously facetious depictions of real individuals are also pretty much always OOS even if they don’t have the accuracy problems. Dronebogus (talk) 15:48, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
The specific carveouts should be: Notable images (like the trump pope ones); INUSE files (for the time being; at minimum they should be removed before nominating them for deletion) Cartoons and caricatures (which are rarely in scope but can’t be deleted under this hypothetical policy) and Obviously facetious or impossible depictions even if realistic (ditto). Dronebogus (talk) 20:57, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
As the guideline contains nothing that should not be obvious for everyone or is not part of any existing policy I see no reason for a separate guideline. But we should link the WMF policy at a prominent place at an existing policy/guideline page. I also do not like the reporting steps suggested. Sending a mail to oversight and WMF legal seems redundant and only creates unnecessary work for oversight volunteers. I also think the explicit rule "soliciting personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18 years for an illegal purpose" is unnecessary as this applies to everyone independent of the age. If something is missing it should better be added as section of existing pages like Commons:Photographs of identifiable people, Commons:Harassment or Commons:Nudity. GPSLeo (talk) 06:46, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'm proposing to make the gadget Tabular Import/Export default enabled for all (registered and unregistered) users. This gadget makes it a lot easier to work with the tabular data in the Data namespace. Especially for the editors wanting to make use of Charts, this can help them to make use of external programs like Excel or anything that supports CSV, when working with the data. There are indications (wishlist, Phabricator and the charts discussion pages) that the JSON used to save the data, is a barrier of entry for people who want to make a graph and hopefully this gadget can help them get started, with simple Import and Export methods.
The gadget is already in use and was recently (2 months ago) updated by me to make use of newer coding standards and MediaWiki features. I can make it so that only people visiting Data pages will have the overhead of this gadget applied (using Gadgets' namespaces filter), and its dependencies are already lazy loaded after making interactions with the functionality, so the overhead should be minimal for other users. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:34, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support I was actually just trying to figure out how to import an Excel file to the data namespace a few weeks ago but I couldn't figure out how to enable the gadget or otherwise do it. So enabling it by default would be really helpful for people like me who can't figure it out on their own lol. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The drawings I am uploading were created by draftsmen employed by
my grandfather. The drawings belonged to my grandfather. My father
and subsequently I inherited the drawings. My father is not my
employer. Rather I am his heir.
Can the dialogue be revised to include my case realistically.
@Matrix: that's a good workaround, but does that mean that heirs are, in general, supposed to go that route through the Wizard? For heirs, "The creator has released or published this work under a free license" is simply not true. People shouldn't have to lie to the Wizard to make it work. - Jmabel ! talk19:41, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: In my opinion, in cases where the works are published, they should probably go through VRT. However, in this case the works are unpublished, so going through VRT is unnecessary and time-consuming. This is an edge case that I don't think is worth covering. —Matrix(!)ping onewhen replying {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 20:10, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 21 hours ago46 comments12 people in discussion
There is an ongoing discussion at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems about a proposed interaction ban, which we will not repeat here. There was a side detail mentioned in it: that there would be no Commons' policy being enforced, and that it would be simply the en-wiki policy being used as if it applied here as well. And it seems that this was not the first IBAN in Commons.
I wrote a page, Commons:Interaction ban, to avoid confusions and have a local policy on the issue. It says basically the same things as en:Wikipedia:Banning policy, except for the stuff related to other bans and the Arbitration Comitee (which I don't think are a thing around here), and specific links to policies or discussion venues. Please check if the page triming is correct, or if there's something that should be clarified or changed from that project. Also, what about uploads from someone with an interaction ban? Should be it allowed to tag for speedy deletion or deletion discussion, or an IBAN should prevent that? And of course, we should discuss if we should have a local policy to begin with, or if using the en.wiki one by default is fine as it is. Cambalachero (talk) 15:30, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Tagging something for deletion should not be a violation of an Iban. Reverting a user’s edits in good faith should not be considered a serious violation of an Iban, but should ideally be avoided. Editing the same page/file as another user, even if they made that page or uploaded that file, should not be a violation of an interaction ban (this hasn’t come up recently but some people on Wikipedia treat this as a violation of de facto interaction bans and similar, which to me is a serious overreach of policy stemming from an entrenched ownership culture that should be explicitly discouraged on Commons). Dronebogus (talk) 15:40, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Tagging something for deletion should infact be considered an iban- that's how it all started in the first point. Good faith is too subjective. Editing the same file is not a violation as long as one doesn't revert the other. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 16:57, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The fact that it’s how it started doesn’t mean we have to keep applying it that way. Adamant1 makes a good case for why including deletion as an Iban violation is a bad idea. Interaction bans are meant to stop people from “interacting” in the sense of talking to each other, not in the sense of simply knowing each other exist and occasionally bump into one another while going about their business. Dronebogus (talk) 19:39, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you nominate someone's file for deletion, you are in fact gonna interact- like that would actually be a disusssion. It's also kinda irrelavant- he is leaving per his latest edit. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:42, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm constantly telling people that they aren't obligated to participate in a DR just because I nominated their file for deletion. So it doesn't necessarily have to lead to interaction. There's no reason the person who's file is nominated for deletion can't just stay out of it or at least make a single comment that has nothing to with the nominator and leave it at that. Know one is forced to vote in a DR for their own files though. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:47, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I mean, it's unlikely people won't want to argue against a deletion of something they put effort in.
A single comment would still be an interaction- it would be hard to declare what is and isn't a "small comment" for the purposes of intetaction. And also, the kind of people who fall into ibans aren't the kind of people who do not argue. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 20:00, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Make an exception for them to write one message that doesn't have anything to do with the nominator or it violates the iban then. Problem solved. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:03, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, yeah, that would solve the replying person's side- but that would still leave open the scenaio where the nominator nominates a very large number of the other person's files- like one person might try to overwhelm and provoke the other by nominating lots of files. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 20:10, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sure, but stuff like that is already an issue regardless of if the users are banned from interacting with each other or not. Like if Rod was to vandalize Dronebogus' user page or something, there's already a reason to sanction him for it regardless of the iban. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:16, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was talking more of an edge case? Like both users have uploaded tons of files- so there must be a lot of files with dubious copyright- and usually nominators hold back from nominating someone over and over again in a short span of time, especially because most DRs are mostly found through categories and therefore are more user randomied. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 20:24, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry but what is the point of an interaction ban if we are going to begin making exceptions for such "good faith" but perfectly avoidable situations you mention? An interaction ban means no interaction, and that's it. Bedivere (talk) 20:28, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm totally with Bedivere here. If you are banned from interacting with someone, stay the hell away from their stuff. I can imagine allowing that someone might accidentally edit some category or policy page that 20 people have touched and it turns out the other one has also been there, but a picture they uploaded? Trust that if it is important, someone else will get there eventually.
The closest I can imagine to an exception is if you are (for example) mass-nominating the entire contents of a category for deletion as images of a copyrighted work, and you might incidentally sweep up an image or two of theirs, well, mistakes happen. No one can be expected to click through to see the history of each of 50+ images that all obviously have the same problem. But if you know it's an area in which they work heavily? Probably stay the hell away from that entire area. - Jmabel ! talk04:03, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is exactly the sort of “turf war” attitude popular on Enwiki I don’t want exported over here. People don’t own pages, let alone entire topic areas, and people frequently butt heads because they edit in the same area. Who has to “stay the hell away from” who in those cases? Dronebogus (talk) 13:51, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
let alone entire topic areas staying out of the area entirely might not be necessary, but it might be wise to take a more cautious approach, like, actually checking the history of all 50 images that you want to nominate (unless it qualifies for urgent matters like speedy deletion). Nakonana (talk) 15:32, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Nakonana: I've accidently nominated images for deletion that I didn't mean to before because they all looked the same. So I thought I had checked the previous ones I actually hadn't. Dronebogus actually got me blocked for supposedly intentionally nominating in use files for deletion when that was what happened. So it's something I don't think it's something there should be any consequences for. Otherwise there's to much room for people to just concern troll about even though the user might have actually checked the images and just made an honest mistake. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Don't get me wrong, I do think that there should be some leeway here. But the ultimate goal would still be to stay as far away from one another as possible, even if that means to take some extra effort into making that work as good as possible. But yeah, mistakes can easily happen with tools like VFC.
I'd also say that adding / removing categories in good faith on a file/category that the other party created should be fine.
I'd say it's mostly deletion requests, reverts, and direct interactions in discussions that make things escalate, so the IBAN should focus on those. Nakonana (talk) 15:50, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support the adoption of Wikipedia policy. Suggestions above don't make any sense and the interaction ban would lose all its meaning. If this policy has to exist to enforce something here, then it should be serious. Yacàwotçã (talk) 15:53, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Adding that if there's any problem with the other user's edits, this can easily be handled by another, uninvolved user. Commons is big enough for that. Yacàwotçã (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't like Dronebogus either. But seriously, why aren't you globally banned for socking and harassment at this point? It literally boggles my mind how much some users can get away with on here compared to others. What an absolute dumpster fire. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:03, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely NOTHING to do with the Holocaust. Don't try to distort my comment with such a reprehensible pov pushing ever again. I have nonetheless clarified what I meant. Best regards Yacàwotçã (talk) 19:11, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Of course, jews wearing yellow stars and being treated as second class citizens has nothing to do with the holocaust. And yes, you clarified- but that does not mean making that analogy was not a reprehensible thing. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Recently there was a proposal (or at least a discussion) to do an IBAN between me and Yann. One of the reason's I didn't (and still don't) support it is because it's not super intuitive to see who's done what where or to account for that when making edits like it is on Wikipedia. I of course wouldn't want to see Yann blocked just because he did a routine, non-controversial deletion of a file I happened to edit. Perhaps there would be leeway for edits like that. I really don't know. but I don't think so given how much concern trolling goes on with this project.
Anyway, I'd say the same for tagging something for deletion per Dronebogus. I'm not a fan of him personally and I could really care less if he's purged from the project but then at the same time, people can't be expected to check every last file they nominate for deletion to see who's edited it before doing so. There isn't even a reasonable way to do it with the VisualFileChange tool. So those things would have to be worked out before any kind of policy for IBANs is imposed. I don't really see how they can be though. Really, you might as well just indef someone instead of doing an interaction ban since they would only be able to superficial edits to their own files at that point. It would certainly make an administrators job unworkable if they had an interaction ban with any even remotely active user. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamant1 (talk • contribs)
Support: It's nice to see a discrete Commons policy develop for this. IBANs offer a non-block mechanism to address behavior issues. I see the reason for concern regarding possible overlaps in editing someone's uploads, but IBANs shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "never see the other person on your watchlist". If the issue is so significant as to warrant a more absolutist approach, that should be recorded in the individual IBAN's parameters. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:12, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Cambalachero: People don't nominate files for deletion using the pages when they do it with VisualFileChange tool. Like if someone nominates a category of images for deletion using the tool, it's just a list of files. It's not at all intuitive to open single pages to check their histories. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:52, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We have many different not technically enforced sanctions. I do not see why we should make a policy only for one special type sanction. GPSLeo (talk) 16:34, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment: Dronebogus and Yacàwotçã are the two users with an ongoing discussion about being interaction-banned, and their comments here may be influenced by it. On second thought, we may close this discussion for the time being and restart it after that discussion has ended, to avoid overlap. Cambalachero (talk) 16:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@CambalacheroSupport with a change that if a user accidently performs iban-violating edits using a tool, then it would not count as a violation if they revert it manually or by the undo button just after- it would be hard to avoid interactions while using a tool, but I think policing their edits right after is something users can manage. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:02, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I wouldn't have an issue with that myself as the main person who's opposing this but there should be leeway for someone to let them know about it and then revert the edit. Since there's to much room for honest, good faithed mistakes to go unnoticed by the user who did them on here. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:38, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment I think that we should have a note in our policy that says "if you have an IBAN from another project, don't try to use commons to circumvent that IBAN". (this has happened where we have had to enforce an en-wiki ArbCom Iban on commons.) All the Best -- ChuckTalk16:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Because we've had users come to Commons to harrass people who they have IBans with on other projects. (noonicarus and WMrapids for example) All the Best -- ChuckTalk19:21, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We aren't inforcing the Iban, discouraging people from using commons to circumvent another IBAN, because if they do, it's a block on commons that won't help them get the IBan removed. All the Best -- ChuckTalk04:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Your original made it sound more like "We will enforce other wiki's decisions here" instead of "using Commons to circumvent other wiki's bans is not good- so don't do that". DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 05:12, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Technically, IBANs from other Wikipedias do not apply here, so they would not be circumventing anything. However, we may point that if there is a conflict between two users that is being carried over from another project where it caused a local IBAN, that would be taken into account as context and precedent when discussing the users' conduct. The projects have autonomy, but we are not stupid. Cambalachero (talk) 13:09, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Weak support in principle, but Weak oppose as written. Editing patterns on Commons are just too different from those on Wikipedia. It is far more common for users here to perform actions on large groups of files or categories here. Along the lines of what DoctorWhoFan91 says, I'd want to see some exceptions/acknowledgements for these differences before supporting. — Rhododendritestalk | 16:59, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
RfC: Are Exey Panteleev's "Geekography" images in COM:SCOPE?
Geekography is a project whereby Panteleev depicts technological concepts via nude models (with various compositional, prop, lighting, graphical, etc. components to depict the concept with varying degrees of cleverness). According to the text on the category page, the project received some press attention, with the project or individual photos winning a Moscow Contemporary Art Center Winzavod award, included in three years' American International Color Awards, and covered by publications like The Next Web, GQ Italy, Liberation, Mail.ru, Reflex, SHO Art Magazine, and Hacker Magazine. Panteleev continued the project after this recognition, to the point that we have more than 600 such photographs on Commons.
There have been dozens of deletion requests about these images. In some cases objections focused on their inclusion in the main technology category tree (e.g. a nude photo inspired by "computer mouse" in the category for computer mice), which have themselves been discussed separately here and concern a different question from what this RfC asks.
The DRs largely focus on (a) whether the images are in COM:SCOPE, and (b) the extent to which awards and press received by a photographic project affect whether files are in COM:SCOPE. Most DRs have resulted in keeping the files, but some have also led to deletions. These DRs and splintered discussions have become particularly tendentious, leading to conflict that has spilled over to noticeboards on multiple occasions. I am proposing an RfC because the reasons for keeping/deleting do not vary much from one DR to the next, the images themselves do not vary much in educational value (or lack thereof), and disputes over the images have led to a disproportionate amount of conflict.
This RfC does not aim to preclude all further DRs, but instead aims to determine a broad consensus about whether these images are in scope or to identify the conditions in which they can be determined to be in scope. — Rhododendritestalk | 17:21, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I know there will be edge cases, but it's the best way here- atleast the file will be judged based on itself and not 600 other files.
And also to be clear, I'm not saying the basis should be if it's good or bad art- but that it's an attempt at art and not just "shock for shock's sake"- it's not art to write "cite" or "delete" or a game logo on a naked woman. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:38, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm abstaining overall and don't have a strong opinion beyond resolving this conflict, but "strong oppose" on making Wikimedians the arbiters of what's real art. — Rhododendritestalk | 17:41, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If someone created a gallery on Commons containing all the new dick pics that grace Commons every day, would you also count that as INUSE and ask for those to be kept? DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Even by conservative estimates, there are probably 80 files that would remain (my estimates would say around 150). But acc to Rod's arguments, I'm not sure they would be satisfied with anything less than 600. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:05, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Only if INUSE applies or they won an award. Penises are notable. We don’t need 600 mostly identical pictures of penises. Therefore we delete them. Why is “Geekography” (a far less notable topic than the human reproductive system) any different? Dronebogus (talk) 19:01, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
What he said. Notability isn't inherited. Some of the photos in this collection received some media attention in the early 2010s; we can keep the photos that were part of the collection at that time in recognition of that attention. (I happen to think that most of that attention was more in light of the project's shock value than its artistic value, but that's neither here nor there.) But the hundreds(?) of additional photos which have been taken in the subsequent decade haven't been similarly recognized; they don't become notable just because they're the continuation of a project which got some attention in the past. Omphalographer (talk) 01:48, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes. I've taken a look at quite a few of the files. These are definitely artistic photography where the models are nude. Some of them very cleverly illustrate computer coding. The photographer has also won awards for their work. We can certainly classify them so people don't stumble upon them looking for SFW images. Abzeronow (talk) 02:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes While I don't personally care for them, they are in scope. The fact that many of them are in use would suggest that they are considered "realistically useful for an educational purpose". I understand why people want to delete them as an embarrassment to the project but perhaps the real - and much more difficult - solution is tightening up the scoping rules. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 03:09, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Respectfully, @Counterfeit Purses: why they in scope? Some of them are in use, sure, but those have been in use for a long time and some of them won awards and received contemporary press coverage; why do we need 600 more taken years later that received no attention and will probably never see any educational use on Wikipedia or otherwise? Dronebogus (talk) 13:39, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
They are in scope because they meet the criteria that are defined in COM:SCOPE, just like any other file here that is considered to be in scope. There's nothing special about these images nor does there need to be. They don't need to be award-winning, by a notable photographer, or have received press coverage. None of those criteria would be suggested in a discussion about deleting random Commons image. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 14:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
They don't meet the criteria- "Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose(The expression "educational" is to be understood according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or informative"). Literally the only reason people are arguing they are in scope is because it informs people of Exey- but they aren't all in scope in that regard- because only some of Exey's work is something that a WMF project would educate about. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you say they are in scope, then there must be a logical pathway of that thought- it can't just be because people go round and round in circles saying so because someone said so and on and on in a circle. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 15:04, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes. Notable. (I've previously noted that I find them annoying, taking a concept which might have been somewhat clever for a small carefully selected group of images but riffing on it ad nauseam. I'll add that I also object to the rather obvious continued sexual objectification. That said, that does not make them out of scope; it makes it something targeted at a core audience of which I am not a member. I therefore evaluate it much as I would for the works of an editorial cartoonist whose views I disagree with - even if I don't care for them, if the creator &/or their work has achieved a certain level of notoriety, and they are free licensed, they are in scope for Commons.) -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 03:39, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
De factoyes even though I may not like that. We've had at least a dozen DRs on them, probably more, and while there may be questions about whether some particular crop of an image is usable or not, I haven't seen any where the conclusion is that they are out of scope. This is a lot of what drove me to handle these as a special case in drafting Commons:Principle of least astonishment: how to accept that they are in scope without "polluting" otherwise useful categories. - Jmabel ! talk04:08, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I think also that artist is notable and thus the work would be also. Also, the photographs what I have seen are toying with sexual objectification, but in the end they are pretty harmless. --Zache (talk) 18:04, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
What do you mean “toying” with sexual objectification? That’s literally all they are! And it’s not harmless if it actively degrades the reputation of the project and promotes sexist stereotypes about both Wikimedia and the world of computer science (namely that they’re chauvinistic sausage parties) Dronebogus (talk) 18:12, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes. The point of COM:EDUSE is to prevent spam and clutter and misuse, not to exert editorial control. The value of Commons is that you can go to a category and choose from a broad selection of photos. The Panteleev categories would be excessive if we had dozens of retakes and hundreds of thousands of total files. But no: we have less than a thousand photos from Panteleev, and basically no repeats. We have countless categories featuring orders of magnitude more photos, with many repeats, from photographers far less noteworthy (see Category:Photographs by Flickr photographer). It's absurd that <1,000 photos from a creator with this much press coverage would be considered excessive.
I participated in the recent DRs. The nominal reason at the top of the page always focused on SCOPE or EDUSE, but in the longer discussions, it became apparent that the real motivation for some was about the moral value of the photos. For example, see comments such as So we’re finally admitting this is mainly to get gooners to pay attention to computer science by putting it on naked women’s asses? and There is also the issue (which we fall over ourselves to not talk about, lest we be seen as prudish) that these are a pretty crass objectification of women's bodies. Women are not there as a canvas to explain geek trivia to a bunch of incels, because it's the only way to motivate them to look at a screen. (both from this discussion).
There have been a million mentions of COM:NOTCENSORED, but I don't know that it has been internalized by everyone. It's not about whether you're being a prude; it's about being able to freely discuss any topic. You could use these photos to teach about technology in a distasteful way, sure, but you could also use them to teach about misogyny in the tech space. Hosting the images on Commons is not an endorsement; we host many images depicting subjects far worse than distasteful nudes. Keeping an image on Commons is merely acknowledging that it could be useful for an educational purpose, whether that education be positive or negative about the image. –IagoQnsi (talk) 23:23, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Again, if I might repeat- there are 800 files. Yes, some people use ideological reasons to try to get the file deleted, and some use ideological reasons to try to keep it- doesn't mean we have to ignore those with a valid !vote. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 05:15, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
From what I have seen in the DRs, they do tend to become ideological grounds instead of a discussion of the files- basically on discussions of prudeness and censorship and a lot more stuff. I would say while the project is in scope, that does not mean that is inheritable by every file, and hence the file should actually say something rather than just being random stuff on some naked women (not an exaggeration- some of these files are literally just random game logos or jargon written on some nude women). DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:30, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The ideological grounds you refer to, if they exist, also come from those who nominate the images for deletion. There are thousands of images of nude women on Commons, but if one of them happens to have an HTML tag drawn on the body, it must automatically be nominated for deletion because "the project is not notable". I have created an article on Wikipedia, I plan on expanding it, turning it into a good article and, why not, developing a gallery here on Commons to connect the projects in a way that should be better explored by editors. Commons should function as a repository of freely licensed images, not as a regulator of what is or is not acceptable. The only concerns so far have been those of scope, which no longer apply now that the artist has a Wikipedia page backed by solid sources. And the argument that the project is notable but its photos are not makes no sense whatsoever. If an exhibition (of works in the public domain) is notable, then I would expect all the works to be uploaded here, not only those that Commons jurors approve of based on personal and subjective criteria. Yacàwotçã (talk) 17:40, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
That's really not true- it always comes from everyone (including very significantly you). You do realise COM:Nudity#New uploads means most naked bodies actually get deleted?
Not to sound pointy, but if you can do that, then someone can make a gallery of every new cock that graces Commons every day and say it can't be deleted because it's INUSE.
Except that would be a useful gallery linked in another project, specifically in the article of the artist himself. If a reader can see the artworks of the artists they're reading about through Wikimedia projects, why force them to go to Flickr or another site?
The deleted images you refer to are usually low-quality ones, usually poorly taken dick pictures, which totally aren't the case for a professional photographer like Panteleev. Take this example; some may consider it artistic and even favorite the image, but if there was a, let's say, Flickr logo on her back, then it would be "out of scope" because... well because yes!!! Makes no sense whatsoever. Yacàwotçã (talk) 17:56, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Not every single thing related to a person or subject is notable or worthy of including in an article. Plenty of things get left out of many articles. Including for artists. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:59, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'd say the photographs of a notable professional photographer are definitely in scope just as the books of a notable writer are in scope. He is notable because of his photographs, not because he gave an interview, people want to see his photographs. Yacàwotçã (talk) 18:02, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think so. Just because Stephen King is notable that doesn't every random thing he scribbles on a napkin after wiping his face with it during dinner is educational. I'm sure you get the difference between "X is notable" and "whatever created by X is educational." --Adamant1 (talk) 18:15, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've never referred to the several non-published photographs Panteleev presumably takes during the photoshoots (he confirms it somewhere, I've read it while creating his article). I'm talking about the published photographs, analogous to Stephen Kings's published books, whose notability no one dares to deny. Yacàwotçã (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We don't actually keep every book of every writer on Commons, only ones which are notable (assuming, of course, everything being talked about is not under copyright). DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:10, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment Actually we do and you should know Fæ uploaded all of them from Internet Archive years ago, those that were in the public domain. Yes, all of them, quite literally. Yacàwotçã (talk) 18:14, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Plenty of people have complained about Fae's uploads and nominated them for deletion. So that's not the example you seem to think it is. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do not care for this discussion if Yacàwotçã is just gonna utter repeated falsehoods to make an incorrect point. I'm just gonna nom the files in that cat in batches where they meet the criteria, wait for them to be deleted, just like the files nominated with the right criteria were, and wait to see the reaction to what happens when they make galleries and pages on wiki projects with nothing but naked women. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:29, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We aren't a webhost- we do not collect artist's art here- just what could be educational.
No, we keep "exceptional" dick pics, not non-poor ones. That pic would only be in scope if it is part of some film or something else- Commons isn't gonna keep a file bcs some men wanna see naked women. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:00, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
COM:WEBHOST, although not explicitly, refers primarily to personal files: "Wikimedia Commons is not a place to store your vacation photo collection", it doesn't refers to the artworks of a random notable professional Russian photographer, who are uploaded here because they could be used in his article on different Wikipedias (yes, in the plural). Yacàwotçã (talk) 18:05, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
It refers to files in scope- which these files do not obtain inherently.
My arguments always been that the photographs from the original project are educational and therefore in scope but that doesn't mean every single thing the guy creates going forward inherently is. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:36, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Could you link to a concrete list of which photographs are part of the original project, and where that's documented? It looks like the press comes from a range of a few years -- are those all about one set of photographs that didn't change in those years? — Rhododendritestalk | 17:40, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
It looks like the original project was between 2011 and 2013. So I assume any photographs taken after that weren't a part of it. Like there's some from his Flickr account that are more recent. I wouldn't include those as part of the original series that's notable since they were taken 10 years later. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:51, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Source for what exactly? I can't prove a negative that the photographs taken by him in 2023 weren't discussed in GQ or wherever (obviously). But if you look at his biography that's linked to at the top of this all the coverage and whatnot for the project seem to be from 2011 to 2013. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
(I didn't ask, but I would have): source for the claim that there was a concrete "original project" that you can discern from "the rest" -- something more concrete than "probably after that press". — Rhododendritestalk | 18:04, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well, look at this way. We know there was a "Project Geekography" that he started in 2011 and got some press coverage for at the time. The question would be if everything he does after that is a part of it. If I look at recent images by him on his Flickr account there's nothing about "Project Geekography." So I assume they are just random photographs that he took in the meanwhile. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:15, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The Flickr about talks about Geekography going for "more than a decade". And indeed, it's the same person doing the same formula with the same style. So to be clear, you're just guessing at an "original project" delineation for the purpose of DR, and not basing it on documentation from the photographer or some other source? — Rhododendritestalk | 18:34, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I assume Adamant means the files that were published before Exey got all those attention and awards and stuff.
Obviously, their argument would be very much incorrect in a world where an artist getting attention means everything they do is notable, which seems to be the world which at least Rod lives in. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:40, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
IMO these hyperboles don't help. It is a simple enough and understandable enough argument to just say "Calling all art in a notable art project in scope is complicated when the art project is open-ended and spans hundreds of files". — Rhododendritestalk | 18:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The main page for the Flickr account mentions the project. I was talking about the descriptions of individual photographs like this one though, which there's no evidence of having anything to do with the whole "geography thing." Like Tom Baker's personal websites mentions that he played Doctor Who. That doesn't mean random photographs on there of his cats playing on a fence in his back yard are educational or where taken on the set of the show. I don't really see what's complicated or hyperbole about that. "Tom Baker played the Doctor in the 70s so a picture of his cat on a fence from 2025 is educational" is a meaningless non-argument. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:51, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have been trying to say that- scope isn't inheritable- just because some people found Exey's work to be cool doesn't mean every attempt of his counts as keepable, no matter when it was taken. Some images of the project are keepable, many are very much not. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:54, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
what's complicated is Rod wants to push his point- like he does not even care/like about the files- he is defending them because other people have issues with it. (
to quote- I have no fondness for Exey Panteleev (though encyclopedically notable) and actually find his photographs rather dull; what I do object to is censorship, and I find the Streisand effect interesting. That, as far as I can recall, is what motivated me to start uploading his images in the first place—as a way to counter what I see as the unreasonable puritanism of a few individuals who occasionally open deletion requests for his work.)
The whole things just circular arguments all the way down. Rod should be indefed for trolling and his uploaded as part of this deleted as such. That would be the end of it. Not that I blame Rhododendrites for started the discussion but it would clearly be a non-issue at this point if Rod hadn't of uploaded the images just to be pointy. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Let's not start that, given that you can't start it, and no one else wants to give their time to collect all the evidence that would be required for that.
The files would still not be deleted, and we would still all need to argue about them, so it's also irrelevant (would make the DRs more full of truths and less toxic though). DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:17, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@DoctorWhoFan91: I don't even know who's taking issue with the images being deleted outside of Rob at this point. Like you could have a DR for the files where 10 people vote to delete them as OOS, Rob does some grandstanding about censorship and previous DRs and Blah Blah Blah Blah. Then whoever closes it is like "yep, I'm going with that guy!" and keeps the images. So I don't know. The whole thing is totally ridiculous. But the discussions would be a little more balanced and guideline based if Rob wasn't involved. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Rod. People definitely are, given the opposes in DRs. I mean, the admins aren't just going with 1 guy (or atleast most aren't)- many people are going against deletion (not with correct logic still). Also, btw, seems like he is leaving Commons, given his recent edit. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:35, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Admins recently have just been outright supervoting (IMO don’t sue me) in regard to Geekography. This is why I finally decided enough was enough and started nominating them for deletion. Dronebogus (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I said some admins- I remember the supervotes too.
Just my opinion of course, but now that Rod indefed themselves the images should be re-nominated for deletion with the explicit understanding that Tm's wall of nonsense and supervoting are both invalid reasons to keep the files. That seems like the only legitimate way to deal with the whole thing though. I'm not going to do it myself, but I'd also suggest someone do a proposal to ban supervoting when the DR involves questions of educational value since that's something the wider community (not individual admins) should have the right to decide. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:12, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Rhododendrites (11×); Yacàwotçã (15×); DoctorWhoFan91 (28×); Adamant1 (31×)] - maybe those of us ^(me too, to be clear) dominating this discussion (and/or past discussions of the subject) can take a beat, not go 30 indents deep with replies, and just wait for some uninvolved participation before scheming about how to take advantage of an opponent leaving the project. — Rhododendritestalk | 22:17, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Apparently discussions based on policy go out of the window when men see naked women being objectified- then somehow writing something on a woman illustrates the concept. It really is a madwoman's task to try to talk policy in DRs- why the fuck am I even trying! DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 11:24, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I wanna ask one basic question to those saying yes- does this mean that you think that scope should be inheritable- that just because Exey had some "thought"-provoking pics, the other pics are also fine, no matter how low effort, say like literally just writing a word or a logo on a naked woman? And as an extension, images which were taken after the coverage happened, so even further away by association?
@Abzeronow given that you closed some of the DRs today- can you answer this question? What separates vulvas by Exey(or other nude photographers), and vulvas by anyone else. (Is it male gratification?) DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 11:03, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Panteleev is a notable photographer, we have tons of photos from other notable photographers and nobody is saying those notable photographers have a scope problem. I'm not focused on the genitalia, rather how props are framed, and how the model is posed, and what the artistic intent of the photograph is. I'm an amateur photographer, and I've been photographing for about 30 years now. Maybe I could have been more clear in my close, but there hasn't been any consensus in the discussions to delete, just back and forth with "I don't like it" and "Commons is not censored." Abzeronow (talk) 23:19, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have seen people say that about photographers on Commons- obviously, it's rare, as few people have had all/most of their works uploaded to Commons.
I'm going to fork the conversation to specifically address DoctorWhoFan91 and Dronebogus's accusations that Abzeronow and my closes constituted supervoting.
The Exey Panteleev situation has been a clusterfuck for years. It's the perfect convergence of a bunch of factors that make for a messy discussion: people have strong views about pornography (and pornography on Commons); Exey is a borderline notable figure, and while some of his work has received recognition, he churns it out at such a high volume that applying that recognition to the entire body of work isn't straightforward; the high number of DRs over the years brings in the question of how much precedence from previous DRs has to factor into current ones; some of the DRs have been for a massive number of files, with files with different considerations all lumped together; and some of the regular participants have proven incapable of behaving, resulting in at least one block directly from conduct in an Exey DR and an IBAN proposal. Sifting through this mess to close DRs is difficult work.
There have been at least 85 DRs, of which at least 79 were kept and 6 were deleted. Almost all of the deletions were for copyright reasons. There is a clear precedence that at least some of the Exey Panteleev files are in scope, and a less clear but still justifiable consensus that all of them are, based on that history.
There were 20 or so DRs open since May. I closed almost all of them keep with the identical note, seen at the bottom of this DR, for example, and I think that close is justifiable based on the comments in the specific DRs and the preponderance of Exey DRs that formed a precedence. Abzeronow then closed the rest of the open ones, with a less clear but still perfectly serviceable close message. As with the ones I closed, I don't personally like the outcome, but I think it's the correct one from a policy standpoint.
DoctorWhoFan91 and Dronebogus immediately opened up new DRs, despite both of them knowing that this Village Pump discussion was already ongoing. At best, that can be viewed as jumping the gun; they should have waited for this discussion to progress, as it would have either given them a better case for refiling (and COM:DR specifically says that you should only refile if "you can add new information or clarification"), or a clear indication not to do so. At worst, that can be viewed as a cynical attempt at forum shopping and/or an attempt to capitalize on the fact that one of the chief defenders of these files just blocked themselves and won't be able to participate this time around. Considering Dronebogus's history, I find it very difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt here. Considering DoctorWhoFan91's participation in the discussion above and the RodRabelo7/Yacàwotçã IBAN discussion, I'm find it very difficult to extend them the benefit of the doubt either. IMO, the refilings were disruptive, regardless of the editors' motivations.
As far as I'm concerned, any further Exey Panteleev DRs should be speedy kept closed as premature/forum shopping/disruptive until the discussion above closes. Once again, I personally think most of these files should be deleted. I've voted as such pretty consistently. Notionally, I should be "on DoctorWhoFan91 and Dronebogus's side" here. However, the endless relisting of Exey Panteleev files at DR is not productive, especially while this VP discussion is ongoing.
If you should be on “our side” then why aren’t you? Nobody’s putting a gun to your head. Nobody actually seems to like these images. 90% aren’t in use and never will be. Why are we cargo-cultishly accepting them as being in scope because a few of them got some minor attention 10 years ago? Dronebogus (talk) 21:08, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would like to say that a lot are DRs by prudish ips, or people being, to use a relatively neutral word, dramatic in their nominations instead of calm- and the number of those DRs shouldn't count- but only the useful precedents set in those DRs. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 21:22, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I just want to say I wasn't the one who said you were supervoting. I did say that about abzeronow, because he in fact was- he should not have closed the DR while the scope discussion was going on here.
I apologise that I reacted almost equally as badly as Abzeronow in trying to circumvent this discussion- 45% of the blame lies with me, and so I'm for that. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would also like to say that though I think the abzeronow's close was really bad, I will not nom any more of Exey's files until this discussion closes.
And also that if someone else's conduct leads to ANU here, to not punish me by association- just bcs I think kinda similiar to some people here doesn't mean I condone their conduct. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 21:15, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
For the sake of clarity: would you mind updating your closure message on these DRs to clarify that the closure is procedural, not a recognition of consensus in the discussion? Omphalographer (talk) 21:27, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Not on the topic of supervoting, but since it was mentioned above: 90% aren’t in use and never will be. That is to say, they are about average for Commons. If we exclude images that were initially uploaded specifically to illustrate a Wikipedia article, 10% usage would be above average. We have tons of categories full of clearly in-scope images only a handful of which are ever likely to be used in Wikipedia or other sister projects. INUSE is a sufficient reason to keep an image (if legally OK), but it is far from necessary. - Jmabel ! talk00:11, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
But it’s easy to see how the million unused photos of grass or the Taj Mahal could one day find educational use. It’s impossible to see how these unused Geekography images will ever find educational use. We also don’t tolerate hundreds of redundant snapshots of penises, even though they are objectively far more educational, because Commons isn’t a glorified porn repository. Hosting hundreds of these sexist and explicitly objectifying softcore pornographic images (far more than literally any other topic in the field of human sexuality I suspect) actively damages Commons’ reputation. Dronebogus (talk) 13:40, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Disallow administrators from supervoting when closing SCOPE related DRs
Latest comment: 17 hours ago43 comments11 people in discussion
I think we all agree that it's important for administrators use a measure of neutrality when making decisions. At least we should. There's been many instances over the years where admins have closed SCOPE related deletion requests as keep or delete based on their own personal opinions, not the number of users who voted that way or even based on the strength of their arguments. I have yet to see an instance where doing so didn't either just cause needless drama, the files to be re-nominated for deletion, or both.
At the end of the day it should be on members of the community to decide what exactly is in scope and educational for our project. It's not, or at least shouldn't be, on individual admins to decide what is based on their personal opinions and regardless of how many users in the DR disagree with them. Doing so just pisses people off and discourages participation. So supervoting in SCOPE DRs should not be allowed. I don't expect there to be any consequences for it, but the DR where it's done should re-opened and/or re-closed by another, more neutral administrator.
Votes (Disallow administrators from supervoting when closing SCOPE related DRs)
Support banning supervoting in general. A DR should either be uncontested or have a clear consensus for an admin to act on it. That should be common sense. --Dronebogus (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support supervoting like that just makes a mockery of the process- why bother having a discussion/!vote if it all depends on what the closing admin thinks. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose there are many cases where users vote who are not active community members. There are regularly cases with coordinated voting. GPSLeo (talk) 18:22, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Admins can ignore obvious cases of vote manipulation or “empty” votes with no argument. That could be written as a carveout. But a good-faith consensus cannot be overridden by a single admin’s opinion. Dronebogus (talk) 18:29, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@GPSLeo: Coordinated voting already isn't allowed. So I wouldn't say an administrator who ignores it is "supervoting" anymore then I would if they ignore vandalism, obvious harassment, or anything else along those lines when closing a DR. That's not supervoting. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:28, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
This only moves the problem where to draw the line between legitimate expression of interest of a group and not legitimate coordinated voting. The majority of coordinated voting (mostly coming from a discussion on other wiki) on deletion requests does not violate any rule. GPSLeo (talk) 18:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
No, if not done using sockpuppets or using inappropriate language there is no policy against this. We can only just ignore their votes and comments. I think this is the correct way to handle this. GPSLeo (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
It really depends. At least in my experience if an account is an SPA they usually factor that in to the close and ignore them. Or if it's a sock they will block it and not count the vote. But I don't think it actually effects this in any meaningful way. Otherwise the whole thing just becomes circular. "We can't have this policy because another policy doesn't exist" and so and so forth. You have to draw a line somewhere. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:44, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose People level accusations of supervoting when they don't like the outcome of the discussion, but I can't recall a single situation where someone leveled that accusation and the community went "yep, that close was a mistake". I'm sure it has happened, but the overwhelming majority of accusations - as is the case with the accusations leveled against Abzeronow and myself above - are spurious. I'll go into more detail about the the Exey Panteleev situation in that discussion thread, but for this discussion thread, I'll just say that trying to codify a policy around a highly subjective term typically leveled by people angry at the outcome of a messy discussion isn't going to solve any problems, it's just going to make messy situations more messy. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I can't recall a single situation where someone leveled that accusation and the community went "yep, that close was a mistake"@The Squirrel Conspiracy: That's because there is no meaningful "community" on here at this point because of issues like this one. Fully stop, there's literally zero point in contributing to a DR, let alone is there any in contesting the closer of one, if participants who reasonable arguments are just going to be ignored by whomever closes it. This stuff is always circular and self justifying though. Admins do things to turn people off from participating in deletion requests. So then the lack of participation becomes the justification for you guys to continuing to do it. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I get the point but I don't think it's supervoting, when most of the time it's admins making tough and complex decisions some people will not like because of their (perceived) negative outcome. --Bedivere (talk) 02:29, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I forgot to mention: questionable decisions can always be revised or even reversed. Closure or so called supervotes are not written in stone. Bedivere (talk) 02:43, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@DoctorWhoFan91: At least from what I've seen there isn't an official process to do it. So you usually have to ask the admin on their talk page. 99% of the time they will just talk in circles, refuse to do it, and just act like the user is being argumentative though. Kind of the same as some of the comments here claiming that the only reason anyone would care about supervoting is because they don't like the outcome or whatever. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ignoring other people’s opinions because you’re the one in a position of power isn’t a “tough [or] complex decision”. You’re treating non-admin Commons users like they’re children and you know what’s best for them even if they don’t like it. Dronebogus (talk) 13:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well, other people's opinions can be wrong too. And as I said, responding to @DoctorWhoFan91 an admin can be reached on their talk page or you can just renominate the conflicting image for deletion again. Bedivere (talk) 15:00, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
At least from what I've seen asking the admin about it on their talk page it doesn't lead to anything except pointless arguing. There should really be more official processes and guidelines for this stuff outside of asking you guys to pretty please with a cherry on top to reverse your own crap actions. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
"an admin can be reached on their talk page"- while they say shit like "the images illustrate the concept well" and the concept is "unicode characters on naked women"?? Like I'm trying to assume good faith, but all it says to me is "men would find anything educating if it's on a naked woman."
I did renom them, TSC had an issue with it and closed the discussion- so don't say there is a process for getting admins to listen while they do stuff like that. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 15:09, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose I've disagreed with many closes, and I've run into some tone-deaf admins. That said, closing is not just counting votes but rather evaluating the stated positions; it is not a vote. Furthermore, outlawing supervoting would enable canvassing and ballot stuffing. Glrx (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. If there's a specific close that is problematic, we can talk about that, but I see no evidence of a systemic problem. Frankly, I think allowing the Panteleev discussions to go on for any amount of time was generous, given how many previous DRs there had already been with the same arguments and same outcome. When a settled matter is brought back up over and over, that's not building consensus; that's just an endurance test. Genuine community consensus should not be overturned because the minority is more persistent. –IagoQnsi (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you actually took the time to go through the discussions instead of just saying per this person and this person, you would see that the arguments are usually different. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 17:11, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Your claim that the people who want the the Panteleev images to be deleted are just a persistent minority is patently false. The persistent minority is the two or three people who repeatedly steamroll any discussion even slightly related to the photographs with their handwaving nonsense. The majority on here have always wanted the images to be deleted though. Administrators just can't be bothered to not go with whomever makes the shortest, lamest non-argument in any given DR for some reason. But if you actually look through the discussions essentially everyone except for 1 or 2 users who repeatedly steamrolled the discussions wanted the images to be deleted. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:16, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discussion (Disallow administrators from supervoting when closing SCOPE related DRs)
Flawed premise - There is no such thing as "supervoting" on Commons. That is a Wikipedia concept. For better and worse, we afford admins more leeway here to enforce policy, make decisions, reduce disruption, etc. Two things, though: first, it's hard to separate this from the context, which is (yet again) the Geekography images. I'll hold off commenting until the above proposal is resolved, since we're otherwise wasting time talking about an unusual case. Second, one thing I would support -- which you may or may not see as related, but has become a pet peeve of mine -- is to have some language somewhere that encourages admins to articulate reasons for a closing decision other than e.g. "per discussion" when the discussion is not self-evident. But that would be a different proposal, of course. — Rhododendritestalk | 18:18, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
“There’s no such thing”? Why, because you say there isn’t? It’s literally going on right now with multiple admins closing DRs based on personal whims. Admins should have to respect community consensus; otherwise why even have a vote? Dronebogus (talk) 18:22, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
[sigh] No. Read the actual policies that apply here. Commons doesn't even have a "consensus" policy, and it's barely mentioned in most policies. That does wind up how we make a lot of decisions, but it's not the organizing principle that it is on Wikipedia. The deletion policy just says The file/page may be deleted on decision by an admin if there were good reasons given in the debate for doing so instead of "assessing consensus and making a decision". Point is, you're applying principles from Wikipedia to Commons. The bludgeoning and assumptions of bad faith are starting to get out of hand with this stuff. — Rhododendritestalk | 18:33, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The debate was actively going on- and abzeronow was involved in it. There were reasons being given in the DR and here on the village pump- abzeronow actively chose to ignore them.
In my experience ‘bludgeoning” usually means “I think you’re talking too much and hope some admin agrees enough to threaten you into shutting up”. Dronebogus (talk) 18:39, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm going away from this discussion- it feels like it's gonna turn into a mess, and I don't want to get punished by association for anyone else's edits. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
In retrospect I probably should have waited until the other proposal was finished to do this one since there is some overlap. Even though I think minimal and there's plenty of other examples. That said, I agree the timing could have been better. I just to have some free time and it was on my mind anyway. But that's still my bad for not waiting to do it. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:36, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The issue there was not just the "supervoting"(call it whatever you want on whatever project)- it's the fact that it was closed with the words "in scope" while the scope is very actively being argued- it's very much an admin imposing their own view- one which they won't even discuss btw- they just repeat the statement. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:24, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Rhododendrites: "Supervoting" isn't something that Wikipedia came up with. It's been a concept in the corporate world for when certain shareholders, like founders or management, have significantly more voting power than other shareholders. It's certainly not something that's confined to the Geekography images on here either. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Commons inherits a lot of it's policies, terms, and the like from Wikipedia even if they aren't explicitly laid out anywhere. So I don't really see what the problem with that. Call it supervoting or whatever, but there's still the general concept of administrators making non-neutral closes based on their own personal opinions that this is trying to address. So I don't think the exact semantics matter that much. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:41, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not going to vote in this discussion, but a close where there is no consensus to delete and no clear policy reason to delete is not a "supervote". There was a discussion in which I was thinking of deleting based on whether a particular crop was in scope but the discussion was also full of animosity between the nominator and the uploader and I felt the merits over policy was overshadowed by that. So I noted in the close that there would be no prejudice in reopening that discussion with a different nominator so the discussion could be solely focused on discussion of if the crop was in scope or not. Abzeronow (talk) 01:23, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Cool. I never said this has anything to do with the Exey Panteleev photographs in my original comment and I've been pretty clear since then that it's a wider problem. Apparently I can't make a proposal about a long standing issue just because you got in a row with a couple of users about some photographs that I never brought up and could really give a crap about though. Go figure. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:58, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support. Many organizations on Wikipedia that have simple logos do not have them uploaded to Commons and used in the article. Currently, the only way to upload such images is to choose the "enter a different license in wikitext format" option and enter "{{PD-textlogo}}" manually. Very few beginner (or even intermediate) editors will be able to navigate this process successfully, and even for experienced editors it is cumbersome. PD-textlogo is one of the most common license tags used on Commons uploads — there are more than 200,000 files that use it. As such, it ought to appear in the list. This would make it easier to upload simple logo images, benefiting Commons and the projects that use it. Sdkb talk 20:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose. Determining whether a logo is sufficiently simple for PD-textlogo is nontrivial, and the license is already frequently misapplied. Making it available as a first-class option would likely make that much worse. Omphalographer (talk) 02:57, 20 December 2024 (UTC).svg/20px-Pictogram_voting_comment_(orange).svg.png)
Comment only if this will result in it being uploaded but tagged for review. - Jmabel ! talk 07:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Question Why {{PD-textlogo}} instead of for example {{PD-ineligible}}? I can understand the reason that keeping it simple is prefered and in that case PD-ineligible could be more usable. I do not think adding a review is a good idea. Or well a review is a good idea but realisticly it will never be reviewed. We had {{PD-review}} but it was dropped. --MGA73 (talk) 10:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Weak support for autoconfirmed users, 
Strong support This is really needed. Often, only the awareness of free license is missing, and raising awareness can lead to new opportunities --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 09:53, 25 June 2025 (UTC)
Strong oppose If one wants a file to be on Commons, they are free to obtain permission themselves. No additional team is needed for that, and no need exists for a new repository of ideas that never will be worked on. If I'm mistaken, will the list of supporters be the list of volunteers for the new team? How much capacity do they have, and why isn't that better spent on existing backlogs? --Krd 16:19, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
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Weak oppose i believe we should have strict rules about this. IP is one of the personal information. as such, people shouldnt get this right easy. modern_primat ඞඞඞ ----TALK 21:37, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
Info, per phab:T340001, the deployment date for Commons has postponed to the week of October 6. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:57, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
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