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A few months ago I went there, categorized a few images (spent quite some time geolocating them), provided some ideas at the talk page which were fully, totally ignored by that community as if I do not exist. Not going to do it again. Ymblanter (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that you should feel ignored, keeping in mind that "no criticism is praise enough." Implementing procedures to fight the backlog will take some time. It's a task for unsung heroes, who are sufficiently self-motivated to categorise files or to motivate uploaders to to it themselves. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: I completely agree with the comment "don't remove it from Category:All media needing categories as of 2020!", but the problem is that when using Cat-a-lot it automatically removes it. Wouter (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Cat-a-lot makes it easy to add the category Unidentified people to all photos of people, for example. The user can be proud because now so many images have a category added. Another user has then to solve the problem with "Unidentified people" with over 31,000 images. I've personally noticed that there are images with the person's full name in the description and that also have a Wikipedia article. Wouter (talk) 10:10, 31 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is a very good comment, indeed. I have subsequently categorized some of these people and found that this is easier than categorizing those grouped by dates. Thus, I think it is helpful, to put them temporarily into this category. You may skip the mass uploads starting with a number, if you want to categorize them manually. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 03:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
You can combine the research of several people and get a result: File:Bakkikayam.jpg The description is in the Malayalam language. This limits the picture to the Indian state of Kerala, or the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahe district). This is a dam on some river. But I dont want to speculate.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Based on the metadata and image quality, I have the impression that the photo was not taken in 2017, but that a scan of a photo was made in 2017. Wouter (talk) 19:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
There also is the issue that most of the files in these needing-categories cats are of low quality and/or low usefulness/relevance so what categorizing them does is
cluttering categories
creating work for those contributors who keep these categories clean and well-subcategorized
@Vysotsky: Thanks, this is a very useful link, indeed. It is relatively easy to categorize these files, especially those of people. However, I am also interested in finding high-quality photos that are not being used, because they cannot be found, because they aren't well enough described. NearEMPTiness (talk) 08:54, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Completely agree. Even more: categorizing photos not being used might be more important. At the same time, I think it is good to also look at the ones heavily used. Your call has worked fine so far: 34,000 uncategorized images brought back to 19,139 within one month. Thanks. Vysotsky (talk) 14:24, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
January 02
History maps of Europe
Latest comment: 18 days ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Hi, I would like to discuss the description in all categories of the scheme "Maps of in the th century" (see for example Italy, Belgium, Spain, Poland). There are three different points about the current system I would like to invite comments on:
the wording of the definition in the first paragraph of the hatnote
whether or not to include "you may also be looking for similar maps" (second and third paragraph) of the description
whether or not to re-include a distinction between history maps (in this category group) vs. old maps (not in this category group)
For the first point, there are two proposals, the first is the current "Maps showing all or most of the territory (geographic area) of modern-day - as the lands were in the 8th century (701-800 CE)" which I would prefer to replace with a simple "This category is about maps of the history of in the 8th century (701-800 CE)", given that "modern-day territories" are not always the same as they were in the respective century. Another critism of mine is that "all or most" excludes history maps that only cover smaller parts of the country in question.
For the second point, my argument is that these paragraphs are not necessary, since the links to the Atlas project should be included in the respective parent category (i.e. "Maps of the history of "), which is also linked via template.
For the third point, I find it essential to point out that Commons has always distinguished "current", "history" and "old" maps, formulated in Template:TFOMC: "history" maps include this map of Poland in the 16th century (created recently, depicting the past) but "old" maps include this 16th-century map of Poland (created to depict the present, back then). There are certain grey areas where these categories DO overlap, especially "old history maps", but in quite many cases they don't. The respective category names are quite similar and can be confused, so I would suggest to mention this right in the category description.
I've put my own opinion in italics to explain why I think this requires debate, but I would like for people to check out the scheme examples for themselves, and judge on their own. Peace, --Enyavar (talk) 08:11, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Enyavar: I'm trying to understand the first point. A couple of questions that may help me understand:
Would there be no such thing as "maps of Germany" for any date before 1866? Or would we take "Germany" before that date to mean the German-speaking world (and, if so, would that include areas where the rulers spoke German, but most of their subject did not)? or what? (Similarly for Italy.)
Similarly: would there be no such thing as maps of Poland or Lithuania between 1795 and 1918? If so, what would we call maps of that area in that period?
I could easily provide a dozen similar examples, but answers to those two will at least give me a clue where this proposes to head. - Jmabel ! talk18:49, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for that question, our categories about "history of" do not really care for nation states existing. Germany's history begins quite some time before it became a nation in the 19th century, and Polish history did not stop during the times of division: Poland in the 19th century is unquestionably a valid category. Our history categories generally imply that people know the limits of a subject without exact definitions.
Your question is getting to the reason why I am uncomfortable with the current hatnote/definition of these categories. I have not checked for all countries in Europe, but I'm quite confident: We do not define the subject of "Maps of the history of Poland" with a hatnote. We do not define "Poland in the 16th century" either. So why would we define the combination subcategory of the two so narrowly and rigidly, that only 6 out of 26 files currently in the category even match that (unreasonable) definition? (And of course, Poland/16th is just a stand-in here, I would argue the same for Spain/12th and Italy/8th and all others)
I would even be okay with no definition at all, besides a template notice (my third point) that "maps of in Xth century" is about history maps, and old maps have to be found in "Xth-century maps of ". --Enyavar (talk) 04:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Please read the original post, that is not a comment on the actual questions of this topic. Old maps are not the topic here, this is about history maps (i.e. Maps showing history of specific countries/centuries) regardless of when they were produced.
Please do not post to this board just to identify categories of an arbitrary unimportant file out of tens of thousand of files that lack categories / location-identification. There are other places for this such as Category:Ports and harbours (unidentified). This board isn't really for lots of extremely narrow-topic requests like this. The linked cat contains over 130 files and nothing is even special about the one you asked about. Thanks, Prototyperspective (talk) 12:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I care about Commons even when it sounds unfriendly (sorry if it does, it's not meant to be unfriendly). The user has been cluttering this board with many of these threads already. There are hundreds of these files and nothing is special about this one that warrants creating a thread about it but not any of the hundreds of the other files. I have hundreds of files, categories, and topics that would be more important but I don't spam them here because I have more respect for people's attention, time, and productivity. If this kind of posting is accepted here, users may just as well post about each and every image in Category:Drone videos from unidentified countries, Category:Unidentified caves and whatnot. Somebody has to say it imo. Please do not create these kinds of threads here. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:42, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree there need to be a balance, between endless threads about search puzzles and only business and efficiency. People can always skip them and not spend any time on them. But other people are curious and find a satisfaction solving puzzles and often learning new things doing it. Just dont tel people how to spend their time. By the way: In the background I also categorise, sort, correct, update and do many other usefull things, beside uploading files (more than 28000 uploads from 2008, without mass Glam uploads).Smiley.toerist (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Further above there is a thread about 34,000 media files needing categories as of 2020. You want a thread here about every 10th of these files? Please reflect on your practices. This is not okay, and I won't post threads here about dozens of files and categories I consider important either. I could and I'm sure many other users have lots of files and categories they'd like to talk about but they use the established ways for this such as adding the file to the respective Unidentified category. Please have some respect for people's time and attention and the value of the community being able to focus on genuine large-scale subjects such as "34,000 media needing categories as of 2020" which is a scope far above individual files. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:30, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Then don't complain when I come here asking about random 434 individual files that are missing categories. In separate threads that clutter the page. What's the place to discuss topics concerning the Commons project? There's > 500,000 files missing categories, I'll just be making individual threads about one random file of these that I think looks nice /s Also 6,215 categories for discussion, I'll just make a new thread about one arbitrary individual case once a day.
If the community doesn't want to have a place where there's focused attention on unsolved tasks of which there are hundreds of highly-important ones that affect whole branches of categories and things of that scale that aren't even posted here then so be it. The value of not wasting community attention and focus and having such a place is pretty clear. Just saying "there's nothing wrong" without addressing anything that has been said and without any reason other than that this place is in your view for any topic isn't convincing and I don't see how it can be convincing. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
If there is certain pattern to the individual files, you can certainly use some examples to demonstrate and see if some general solution can be applied or tips found. I am afraid that in practice it is individualy resolved and the easy ones are resolved first, so it will get progressively harder. I am working on the files without categories, where I use my knowledge to resolve. I know a lot of trains/trams etc and using the geografic location some files have, one can give the rigth local categories (countries, region etc). However I dont think that some magical wand or procedure will come up from the discussions. It is just hard work. I just dont see why individual discussions over files, interfere with project discussions. Why not have both and let people contribute as they see fit and feel is the best use of their time. I have no problem with contributing to both types of discussions. Maybe I will spend more time in total to the Commons. Volonteers need to have satisfaction and pleasure in there work. Some fun elements contribute to that. This is not a compagny workplace where everything needs to work exclusively for the compagny defined targets. We dont get paid for that.Smiley.toerist (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
To be fair, they are not asking about all the files in the Universe, or about all the files someone uploaded on Commons and did not know about the existence of the categories.They are asking about their own recent uploads. Nobody arguing here that this approach is scalable, and this noticeboard is certainly not for asking to categorize every single file. But I guess if people sometimes ask about their own uploads - well, this also will not scale well, but I think we are still in a situation where this is so far manageable. If you want to bring your own uploads, after making an effort to figure out what was the object 30 years ago when you took the picture - why not? I personally do not mind doing some OSINT once in a while, as soon as it is not overburdening and it is not compulsory for me to deliver. Ymblanter (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Basically, all I was saying is that the user is by now doing this too often, almost routinely.
Pointing out the issues with this - such as using up community attention of the many users watching this place that's needed much more for other issues - and trying to inhibit it at least somewhat wasn't really done before so I brought it up after the user made like 20 posts here of that kind and I think it would be great if users are generally expected to ask such things at other dedicated places if adding an Unidentified category isn't enough such as at least just the Help desk. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:51, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
If the topic doesn't interest you just skip over it. I generally find that when asking questions on niche message boards of the WikiUniverse, they tend to go unanswered, too few eyes there. Note that the question was answered quickly, and the clutter is in debate about whether asking questions here is wrong. --RAN (talk) 19:44, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Many of these threads aren't answered quickly and even if they were this doesn't address other issues such as this being unfair to those who add such files to Unidentified categories instead of cherrypicking a random file out of these and posting about it here. What's the particular need for the location of the photo to be identified with lots of eyes here? It wasn't even used anywhere and isn't used anywhere nor is it in any way special or unique (same for the other photos of the 20+ threads the user is routinely posting about here as more or less the only user who keeps on shamelessly posting such trivialities here). Prototyperspective (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Smiley.toerist: I hope they ask more questions, or even start a mystery of the day/week/month image for the landing page. The more people involved the better. The Library of Congress does the same thing. --RAN (talk) 03:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I remember someone started a page a few months ago exactly for these kinds of identification requests, but I have already forgotten how to get there. Perhaps it could benefit from clearer/easier ways to arrive on said page (e.g. link from main page/VP?). --HyperGaruda (talk) 07:58, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
triaging might sound good for management, but as you correctly identified, firstly it sends questions to places hard to find in the first place, secondly those places are often unwatched ghost towns. we already have these problems with many of the separate Template:Lang-HD that were created but never watched so occasionally newbies post questions there that end up unanswered for years. RoyZuo (talk) 12:04, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the more people involved the better - that's why it would be perfectly fine and great if people posted about the subject of image identification. But posting about one individual case doesn't achieve that and is a far too narrow scope. One could also create a category of unidentified files of the week/... and then post about it here so these prioritized files get identified or embed a few files where identification is of particular importance (e.g. due to it being heavily used or due to this being required to save them from deletion or because they could be used somewhere). However, posting about one or so individual random files helps nobody and is a burden. Let's have threads about the subject files missing categories / in Unidentified xy categories, that would be great but a thread like this would only drown these out and makes it seem like we got no such problems/tasks except for rare cases of individual files.
.
Also and in part of relating to what I meant with "fair" - imagine what would happen if more people feel comfortable with and entitled to post here about arbitrary individual files they'd like to have categorized.
This board would become wholly unusable.
By now it's just 1-3 users doing this every now and then (mainly Smiley.toerist) and it's not that much of a problem because so few users are doing it but they are establishing a practice as acceptable and doing something others including those adding files to Unidentified categories or starting categories for discussion etc other users so far refrain posting about via similar threads about such super-niche super-specific things. I don't mean to sound unfriendly but it would be good if sooner or later somebody said something about this. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
The Commons gets to many new files (a lot of mass uploads) with very limited/missing data. Whatever the community does later to categorize and add the missing data, its to much to keep up. One cannot limit the number of incoming files. The best solution is that the uploaders are encouraged to do the maximum on research so that the files are as complete as posible. It is much more effort to do the work later with people who are not familiar with the subject (and only interested in getting the numbers down / a job). If ones declines to help uploaders, the risk is that the uploaders will just dump the files. So there is a balance to be kept. The first tactic is to refer to more appropiate local platforms with many eyes and local knowledge. Its easy if the country speaks a non-English langauge. My next query I put in the Bistro: [1] Dedicated/specialized boards have an chicken and egg problem. They dont work until there are enough willing eyes. The other strategy is to ignore the question treads. If they are no reactions, they disappear fairly quicly and discourage the further questions. And if they are interesting threads they get reactions. This board is largely selfregulating. An one can always also react on the talk page of the user. As Prototyperspective says it is no problem, only a potential problem later. Wait and see. One can always start a new discussion then and have more support when more users experience this as a problem.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is great reasoning why we should have threads about the subject of Unidentified xyz files and/or categories of files thereof. It's not a reason to post about a random individual one file of such. I won't repeat the things I already explained in my prior comments but one thing I'd like to repeat is that such threads additionally "makes it seem like we got no such problems/tasks except for rare cases of individual files" so is not just taking up space that could be used to discuss any of the 10.000+ more important topics (really that many) but actively defeats the stated purpose.
The best solution is that the downloaders[uploaders you probably mean] are encouraged to do the maximum on research so that the files are as complete as posible Things like this could be discussed in such a thread of broader scope; there's ideas for what could be done. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:44, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree to continue this discussion in a new thread. I wil start a new one shortly. @Prototyperspective: From the perpective of contributors who mainly work on reducing the backlogs this may be great reasoning, however not from the perpective of uploaders of old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation. The timescale is different. Uploaders want to finish the uploads in limited time and combine the information from the community discussions with whatever background information and/or documentation they have. This usefull combination is no longer posible once the file is uploaded and disappears into unidentified and very broad categories. Backlog catch ups are often much more work, than the work by the uploader. That is why facilitating the work of uploaders limits the risk that uploaders find extensive research to much trouble and just upload the files with limited research. And often when one research is resolved and lot more files can be uploaded with the results. For example: If with one picture the location/name of a church is found, all the interior and detail pictures can also be placed in the correct categories. Any information can often help to reconstruct a trip of many years ago. 1948 was 78 years ago and no one in the family pictures is living.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:27, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
however not from the perpective of uploaders of old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation this is not the case - you could start a thread about the problem of old material with little documentation and/or create a backlog category and/or meta page about such. Basically, I recommend when looking at individual cases out of thousands to abstract / think about what the broader topic or issue is. Here you identified that as old material (mostly not own work) with little documentation so you could start a thread about that. This usefull combination is no longer posible then start a thread about that issue. I don't currently see how this then would not be possible anymore which further highlights how a thread about that would be needed. and disappears into unidentified and very broad categories there's thousands of files in these - why is this particular file so special or you so privileged to unfairly ask about one particular unused file thereof? Should all the other users adding files to these cats ask about their individual files (or even small sets of files) they added there too? So far we can just hope that nobody else or at least not more than 3 user do the same behavior or else this forum would be a cluttered mess that people would stop browsing & watching/monitoring and where threads about important subjects get even fewer than the already few replies. Moreover, you identified a problem of files disappearing into unidentified and very broad categories and then nothing being done - so why not start a thread about that problem. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
January 27
360deg panoramic viewer
Latest comment: 2 days ago14 comments6 people in discussion
Unsure why it wasn't displaying correctly with the Commons tool, but I managed to make it display correctly directly with Pannellum (the viewer used by the Commons tool), see this link [2]. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:34, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
The Toolforge-based pano viewer has been broken in that manner for a while now. Unfortunately the maintainer is no longer active. Maybe it would be possible to convert {{Pano360}} to direct Pannellum links? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
To create the direct link to Pannellum, it would have to obtain the thumbnail URL for the pano viewer, and also the image's height and width to calculate the vertical angle of view. Perhaps it is possible doing this in the template, but I'm not sure how. Maybe someone else more knowledgeable can figure this out? Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I should clarify the part I'm not sure how to do is obtaining the image's height and width. The calculation for vertical angle of view (vaov parameter in Pannellum) should be simple, which is just 360*(height/width). Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, true. Width and height would be doable for images with those parameters added to structured data, but that's not true for all images. The thumbnail URL is apparently determined by an MD5 hash of the filename (see [3]) which wouldn't be easy for use to implement in a template, though Special:Filepath may work. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:26, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Definitely a good idea. I think the height and width is not needed if the file has Google Photo Sphere XMP metadata.
Also, I think then it does not actually matter (despite the name of the template) whether the image is less than 360deg degrees also in the horizontal direction.
@Jmabel Yes, your assumption is correct. The image you linked (and other similar images that doesn't show the full vertical view) wasn't displaying correctly for me as well. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I had always assumed that the 360 panorama tool requires images to be seamless in their entirety, including at the top and bottom. The images in (for example) Category:360deg panoramics in Japan all look (for a lack of a better word) distorted to create this effect, and the panorama viewer works on these images normally. While the "ring" Tvpuppy links to is not one I've seen before on Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@ReneeWrites: as recently as when I uploaded that pano, the viewer was working correctly in this respect. We have a lot more 360deg panoramas than we have photospheres. The downward part of a photosphere is particularly difficult to create by stitching a series of imags take in any sane way with a conventional, handheld camera, and getting the entire sky right for an outdoor panorama is also very difficult. I have about an 80-90% success rate shooting panos handheld with no special tools; I cannot imagine having even a third of that success rate shooting photospheres. - Jmabel ! talk20:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ah, I had only seen the photospheres, I thought that's what was being discussed when people talked about panos. I haven't been able to make a photosphere myself and I'm unsure how to even do that, or how to test photospheres locally before uploading them to Commons. ReneeWrites (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
January 28
NASA images processed by third parties
Latest comment: 7 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
When you nominate an image for deletion should you also !vote
Latest comment: 7 hours ago8 comments7 people in discussion
When you nominate an image for deletion should you also !vote? Should you add a Delete as well as nominate, or is that double !voting? I have noticed at some closures that the decision was made by counting the Delete and the Keep and the simple majority was enforced. RAN (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't think so unless one has converted a speedy deletion request to a regular deletion request because otherwise it's generally implied that one is voting delete (with exceptions where the user makes clear they're unsure whether the deletion rationale applies). I don't think enforcing the simple majority is usually a good way to close controversial DRs without clear consensus but there the nominator is usually (?) counted as 1 person voting for deletion if they didn't clarify that they changed their mind or that they're unsure about whether deletion rationale applies (the latter is most commonly the case for copyright-deletion cases). Prototyperspective (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
The simple majority might be a legit base for decision making if the DR is questioning whether a file is in project scope, but otherwise the decision is usually more a matter of arguments presented. It is uncommon for the nominating party to vote one way or the other except in cases like the ones listed by Prototyperspective. Nakonana (talk) 17:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's generally implied that, if you create a deletion request for a file, it's because you think there's a reason it should be deleted. Re. closure decisions, keep in mind that deletion discussions are not a vote - decisions are made on the balance of arguments, not by counting the keep/delete templates. Omphalographer (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Richard Arthur Norton, that's generally not required as a "delete" vote is typically implied, but in some cases it's useful to vote. For example, when converting a speedy deletion tag to a DR, one might even wish to vote Keep. When I vote on a DR I started I'll usually use {{Vk}} or {{Vd}} in the nomination itself. There is no automagic counter, most admins likely identify vk/vd templates visually. - Alexis Jazzping plz23:41, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
However, it would probably be more useful to scan for e.g. 'videos that are in another language than English that are used in English Wikipedia but don't have subtitles' and things of that sort. A large use-case I'd imagine for these categories is to enable people seeing which files not in the language of a Wikipedia are used in a language Wikipedia so that they can e.g. redub the video or add subtitles or translate the subtitles or translate the diagram labels etc etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:59, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/101756 - would be a list of videos without subtitles in any language ordered by number of usages in Wikimedia. It would also be possible to make the list be for subtitles in a specific language. Doing it based on number of views instead of page usages would be much harder (but probably not impossible, just be more work) Bawolff (talk) 00:09, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
January 30
Categories for people born on a particular day
Latest comment: 5 days ago6 comments5 people in discussion
For example these. Is this a thing? I don't like it. Pinging @Mr-ahk since he is the one person I've seen on my watchlist using one of these, perhaps he'll have a clue what is going on here. - Jmabel ! talk06:10, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Category:Births by year (btw this category has contradictory categorization) is I think narrow enough with making it more specific isn't useful and just adds extra work and overly incomplete categories etc so I would suggest nominating these for discussion/deletion. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:53, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's not that much different from categories like Category:Photographs taken on 2026-01-29 and Category:Videos taken on 2026-01-29 isn't it? After all persons are born on a certain day (their birthday). There are lots of people who want to know which celebrity they share their birthday with or whatever famous person died on that same day. Categories like Category:1942 births are not that useful then because who's going to take the effort to read all these thousands of entries? Let alone the bunch of politicians or whatever they are with only one picture and no Wikidata entry shown on (some of) these _births pages. Probably it can also be a solution to repair apparently abandoned projects like the red links on for example: January 10. Mr-ahk (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
People who are not notable for a Wikidata item should also not have a category about them. Such information should not be stored on Commons and especially not through categories as categories can not have references. GPSLeo (talk) 23:09, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's not how we currently categorize births (or deaths), but I see no issue with changing that, especially for categories that contain thousands of entries (and thus would have reasonably populated subcategories, as well). Diffusing crowded categories to more specific subcategories is in line with Commons policy. But the births-by-year (and deaths-by-year) categories are usually added via the infobox, so a change would have to be made to how that works. ReneeWrites (talk) 23:10, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
January 31
Central banner request for Wiki Loves Punjab 2026 contest
Latest comment: 5 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
2. No, although Commons' Move file user script that is enabled for all users has a mapping that DOES prefer one form. It is defined in MediaWiki:Gadget-AjaxQuickDelete.js
3. It seems that not many people have a particular care about this and it doesn't cause too many problems either. Yet changing things is disruptive no matter what and carries risk. --TheDJ (talk * contribs) 16:25, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
thx thedj, i also remember the file move gadget.
i think sticking to a single version for a single thing is better as it avoids uncertainty and chaos.
Latest comment: 2 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
At File:BackFromPasture.jpg the translation of the text in the image was deleted as an "hallucination". Can someone check the translation using other than Google AI, to see if it was accurate. If accurate could the translation be restored. The illustration may be a copy of an earlier work. RAN (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I cropped out the text and ran it through a couple of computer-vision models on lmarena (I got "gpt-5.2" and "gpt-5.2-high"). They gave me translations that differed wildly from both your translation and each other; contextual information suggests that all three are badly wrong. Carnildo (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
February 01
Metadata gibberish
Latest comment: 3 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Stumbled onto this image File:"Slavery Memorial" Brown.jpeg and noticed the "User comments" in the file metadata. Just a bunch of strings of characters, no seeming logic - wondering if it was originally something legible and just rendered incorrectly, or if it's something else. Any ideas on what it means? /is there a need to fix it, or should I just leave it alone? 19h00s (talk) 20:36, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
They might have been written in a different script than Latin maybe. Sometimes I see stuff similar to this when trying to convert a scanned text page (=image) and saved in PDF format into an editable MS Word document with Word failing to decipher the script/text from the PDF file. I don't know whether something like this could also happen for meta data. Nakonana (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The best overall strategy to limit the backlog of files with incomplete information/categories
Latest comment: 8 hours ago8 comments5 people in discussion
This is a follow up discussion of the thread 'Unidentified French port in 1948'.
Quote from the discussion:
The Commons gets to many new files (a lot of mass uploads) with very limited/missing data. Whatever the community does later to categorize and add the missing data, its to much to keep up. One cannot limit the number of incoming files. The best solution is that the uploaders are encouraged to do the maximum on research so that the files are as complete as posible. It is much more effort to do the work later with people who are not familiar with the subject (and only interested in getting the numbers down / a job)Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
See also Wish457: UI and badges for categorization requests. If you're referring to uploaders, lots of the files are from large numbers of different uploaders each not uploading a very large number. (Moreover, it would make little sense to send sth like that when they properly categorized one or a few files as an exception to most of the other files they uploaded.) Prototyperspective (talk) 17:17, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
To start the discussion it is best analyse how the problem files backlogs are reduced: (the role of uploaders has been discussed sufficiently in the past threads)
Deliberate actions such as the thread 'Do you want to help, to categorise 34,000 media needing categories as of 2020, please?' and Would it be useful to start with the 6,991 images that are currently used in Wikipedia? by Vysotsky
The random organic reduction, wich takes place anyway: When a Commons contributor comes across a problem file during his usual work (for example categorising, sorting categories, adding SD, etc), he/she does the research and the problem file is no more. The frequency of this happening depends on the number of eyes seeing the file. The problem with using 'unknown, undefined' categories is that it puts the problem files under the carpet, not to be seen again except for the workers of deliberate actions. The more categories the files have (not the unknown/undefined) the more visible the files are.Smiley.toerist (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
People can browse or filter via unidentified categories and add the fitting categories to them. The case of files with the person name in the title may be a slightly special case as we don't really want categories for all of these.
For other cases like cities we want and have categories and that cat is so that users can add these categories.
This year, the questions focus on various topics that will be central to the Foundation's Product & Technology department's plans for the next fiscal year (July 2026-June 2027). They include global trends, experiments, new users and administrators, users who can control IP addresses, and even our readers.
Latest comment: 3 hours ago73 comments17 people in discussion
Hi, we need to have a frank discussion about mass uploads of propaganda material from terrorist organizations. Several Iranian "news outlets" have opened their licenses to allow more dissemination of disinformation on the Internet. I can give you a couple of examples. For example, w:Tasnim and w:Fars news agency which both officially and unofficially are the propaganda arm of w:IRGC (a widely designated terrorist organization). I find it somewhat funny an organization that has no respect for human lives (or many other things we take for granted) is somehow respecting international licenses and copyright laws but whatever. I don't have a problem is uploading some files from them as it might show examples of propaganda or portraits of the leaders of the Iranian regime that are hard to come by but the current scale of mass uploads doesn't make any sense to me. For example: 50K images from Mehrnews.com, 52K images from farsnews.ir, 9K images from Khameni.ir (the website of the supreme leader of Iran), Mizan, the news agency of the judiciary system (the organization that executes around 1,000 people every year), 63K from Tasnim (literally the propaganda arm of IRGC) and several more cases in Category:Images from websites of Iran. It has many problems: 1- Many of these images/videos are not really educational. 2- The "text" and in many cases, the image itself is pure propaganda (for example: the text of this image is quite a rubbing of salt on the injury when IRGC has killed 30,000 unarmed protesters, shot people in hospital beds, ran them over with fire trucks and here it calls the murdered protesters "rioters and terrorists" 3- It is causing us a lot of reputational damage in Persian media. For example: https://www.neutralpov.com/p/new-video-inside-wikipedias-hosting Can we please stop doing this? Amir (talk) 15:05, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
We should host these files as we can not make a decision on the line what kind of propaganda we host and what not. But we need better rules on how these files are described and that original descriptions from the source have to be labeled as such. One example where this is done in a good way are the files with original nazi descriptions in Category:Images from the German Federal Archive. GPSLeo (talk) 17:25, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Mostly agreed. Maybe we need a template applied to all these files with a warning: Propaganda from the Iranian government (or equivalent). Yann (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree strongly with GPSLeo, and would strongly favor a similar wording to what we use for images in the Bundesarchiv over a blanket accusation of propaganda, which in English is a very loaded word. - Jmabel ! talk20:23, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Maybe paste part of the "no warranty" clause from the CC licenses into the template? Something like this:
Tasnim makes no guarantee of validity, including factual accuracy, as per the terms of the CC license. You are solemnly responsible for any damages from reusing this file.
@Pigsonthewing: for accepting files, as far as I know Commons' only restriction against a source is if they appear to be a frequent and/or deliberate violator of copyrights, or if they repeatedly fake images. As to what needs a warning notice, I don't think we have any solid agreement. In the case of the Bundesarchiv it was easy, because they already apply this warning to their own materials. If we were to form a firmer policy, I would hope that a lot of this comes down to whether we intend to preserve original captions/titles/descriptions in some form. I think it is important that captions/titles/descriptions that come from third-party sources that may have an ax to grind be identified as such; I'm much less concerned with giving a caveat about th source of an image. - Jmabel ! talk23:44, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Further remark: if the source is, itself, notable enough, even its fake images are probably in scope, but need to be identified as such. - Jmabel ! talk23:48, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
we need a Template:Original description to record the original, word for word, so it is not edited by other users. users can maintain another up-to-date description. (a bit like twitter's context feature: there's the original post and there's other users' elaboration on the original.)
commons should be spun off as a standalone site. then it can use software and infrastructure better suited to a media site (like flickr/youtube/gettyimages) or a library/archive catalogue site. trying to manage all the nuanced details of files based on mediawiki wastes so much effort on developing, maintaining and deploying templates and modules just because those essential features are still not built-in with the software.
I think (1) misses the point a bit. Being funded by a government isn't the issue here, albeit it is correlated with the issue. I'd also disagree with (3). The hard part is deciding what to do not how to do it. In general i agree with GPSLeo. Bawolff (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
as others have said, it's difficult to draw the line what is propaganda and what is not. that's a subjective assessment. how the copyright holder is funded is objective. it's the logical solution so other websites, youtube twitter facebook..., have all converged in their solutions to this same problem. if you think there's a better approach, go ahead.
what to do with perfectly ok photos and videos then? unless we ban all these authors, the logical solution is, as i said in #2 above, we supply 2 descriptions to the same file, 1 being the original; and another 1 optional, user or editor/curator generated description, if users think anything should be clarified.
now how do we do that? with the inadequate mediawiki software we are dumping all this info in raw text on the file page. we should instead have 2 com:sdc fields for the 2 descriptions with much longer length limit and possibility to display links. without adequate infrastructure, even if we do this using templates, anyone can sneakily edit the original description. of course you can then say we can prevent that using abusefilter and bots etc. but why do we have to do everything cumbersome in the first place? because we are sticking with the inadequate mediawiki. if instead the info is entered into an sdc field, you can easily control who can edit that field just by tweaking the software. with everything dumped together in raw text all such maintenance just becomes such a headache.
will sdc and other infrastructure much needed for a media site be developed? maybe. at least even basic video upload and conversion still rely on volunteer maintained tools, after all these years and given that WMF has revenue many organisations can only envy.
there're a lot of similar propaganda stuff from Category:China News Service. with the inadequate infrastructure i have long given up doing anything about such problematic descriptions even if i see something (because there're users on the other end of the political spectrum that will revert descriptions to their side). i just leave it to the re-users to discern. you can of course say i should report the users to sysops. then that becomes a time sink and endless user disputes, and worst of all, there're more users that support a certain propagandist narrative so drawing myself into those disputes will quite likely end up shooting myself in the foot, with many sysops being careless and abusive. all this applies to any language and any country.
I think (perhaps reading between the lines) it is not that the files may be biased (lots of files are biased), but that commons might be being used as part of an explicit information warfare strategy, which kind of makes commons complicit in it. There is a difference between collecting propaganda and being a part of the propaganda machine, so to speak. What to do about that, I don't know. I dont think there are good answers, and the best compromise is to contextualize files in the description. I appreciate lots of websites go with gov funded but i really think it misses the mark. That applies equally to say NASA images as it does to images intentionally made to mislead, and its not like being misleading is limited to governments. I agree with people that said that propaganda is often very important from an educational context - i think some of the WW2 propaganda on commons is some of its most interesting content; its a window into a different world. I don't think banning "propaganda" is a viable solution. To your other point - it seems like your main complaint here is people reverting you, not technical limitations. I fail to see how different software would prevent that so long as we continue to allow anyone to edit. Bawolff (talk) 14:12, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
"how different software would prevent that"
with the raw text mediawiki, even if someone has applied a "potentially biased" tag and clarified why, anyone can just delete that afterwards. how are you preventing that? abusefilter? bots? keeping every file i edited on my watchlist and monitor every edit after me?
with better software, the website operator can control who gets to edit the specific data entries and which users might be a bit more trustworthy.
I think we do sort of do that for license review already, although i do see your point that that might be easier in a non-freetext environment. However, philosophically i would be surprised if commons would go for that, and i maintain that the primary blocker for something like that is social not technical. Bawolff (talk) 14:53, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Only terrorist organisation wikipedia gave leeway too and allowed all their lies and propaganda to be posted here is IDF, we talked about it over a year back but no one in commons had the balls to blacklist their website which has posted multiple false propaganda news and images about Palestinians and Hamas. The sites you listed have had a free license for ever and has never pushed agenda, looking at your userpage, It seems like its people like you doing that with fake rhetoric, have seen enough of these on social media, do not bring your bullshit to wikimedia as well. I have personally gone through those websites long before the Oct 7th attacks and none of them are propaganda, if anything, its the english wikipedia that has been pushing propaganda for the zionists during the Iranian protests even adding fake AI generated images, some of which i nominated for deletion myself, notice how the article there has minimal pictures of the protests cause non-iranian based people were adding fake images of the protests here claiming to be in Iran and yet wikipedia have not posted a single image from the devastation caused by these so called "peaceful protests"... wikipedia is supposed to be 'neutral' not biased.. if enwiki had balls, they would ban news from zionists owned propaganda trash like the Guardian and CBS who falsified about everything happening in Iran last month..There are already a few users here posting propaganda for the actual terrorists behind the unrest and we are not going to change a template to push more propaganda for the serial genociders who have themselves been claiming in their own Country and social media that they sent Mossad to start the unrest and kill Iranian civilians multiple times.. Stemoc03:06, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The difference between these cases and other government-funded media is straightforward: the IRGC is officially designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and several other countries. That is not a personal view or a political opinion. It is a legal and factual designation backed by many reliable sources. Saying "we cannot decide what kind of propaganda we host" ignores that this case is not unclear. There is no doubt about the ownership or control here. These media organizations are directly connected to a designated terrorist organization, and their role in spreading its messaging is widely documented. Treating this as a normal question about state-funded media does not match the facts. This is not about banning material. It is about scale, context, and responsibility. Uploading very large numbers of files from the media arms of a designated terrorist organization without clear and consistent labeling creates real problems. It misleads people who use these files, causes confusion for readers, and damages Wikimedia's reputation, especially among communities that have been directly harmed by that organization. I will not engage with Stemoc, who is indefinitely blocked on enwiki for the same nonsense seen here. false accusations, conspiracy theories, and attacks on other contributors do not help resolve the issue and do not change the facts or policies. ARASH PT talk 08:07, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I should also note that some files from Tasnim and Fars have been modified or altered using AI to show events or details that did not actually exist. These are not minor edits for quality or clarity. The content is changed in a way that serves a propaganda purpose. This is done without any disclosure on the file pages, which directly affects the reliability and appropriate use of this material on Commons. This practice has been documented by reliable sources (one example), and some of the alterations are clearly visible in the files themselves. ARASH PT talk 08:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Given the documented record of manipulated, staged, and AI-altered media published by IRGC-affiliated outlets such as Tasnim and Fars, bulk uploads from these sources (especially those related to protests) are fundamentally problematic. Under Wikimedia Commons policies, the responsibility for accuracy, proper description, and disclosure of alterations lies entirely with the uploader (Commons:Licensing, Commons:PS). Each file must be individually reviewed and described by the uploader, including disclosure of significant editing or AI involvement. Bulk uploads without file by file verification violate this principle and shift an unreasonable burden onto the community. As stated explicitly in the policy, "the burden of proof lies on the uploader". Furthermore, Commons policy requires that files hosted on the platform fall within its "educational" and documentary scope and be presented in a neutral manner (Commons:PS, Commons:NPOV). This requirement is particularly critical for politically sensitive content such as protest imagery, where selective presentation or undisclosed modification can affect how events are understood. For these reasons, bulk uploads from IRGC-affiliated media should not be accepted without strict, individual verification by the uploader. Additionally, previously uploaded files from these sources (particularly those related to protests) should be reviewed for deletion where the uploader has not met the required burden of proof. ARASH PT talk 14:49, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
and yet the IDF, that have been recorded targetting and murdering children is NOT designated a terrorist organisation?, If the world's biggest terrorist nation deems the army of a country that has not been proven to attack another country a terrorist organisation, then I will refuse to take their word for it, Everytime the White House makes a post, their posts are deemed dangerous as well, should we tag all images posted from the Whitehouse as "Factually inaccurate and Government propaganda" too? cause literally everything Donald Trump posts as the President of the US is always factually wrong and a lie. Unless these countries you mention, i.e the US and the EU countries deems the IDF/IOF a terrorist organisation, any organisation they deem as a terrorist organisation is not a terrorist organisation. Remember one of the EU countries, the UK deemed the Palestine Action Group, a peaceful group standing against the Genocide of the Gazans a terrorist organisation..We don't decide who the terrorist groups are, we decide if the information they provided is credible and thus far, all of those news media organisation have been proven to be credible. Neither you nor Amir live in Iran but both claim to be iranians is hysterical, I don't even live in that hemisphere and even i know whats happening, I have more faith in the Iranians then you two do and I saw all the videos from both sides and i read articles from both sides and and its disgusting the lies that have been promoted by some of these evil people.
Do a bit of historical reading cause the US can designate any country they want to destroy as a terrorist nation and its people such as you that enable them but believing in their lies and propaganda...History truly does repeat itself...and regarding wikipedia, I gave up on that site a long time ago, its been run like some fascist government and trust me, eventually anyone who contributes to enwiki, actually contributed by creating articles gets banned there by people who contribute nothing to the project and only police it...As it stands, the Iranian news sites, even if its government owned has provided us with more images and credible data in the last 19 years i have been on wikimedia than any other news sources in that region under a creative commons licencing , we are not going to disqualify a valid reliable source for wikimedia based on the personal bias of contributors from ANOTHER project.. Stemoc08:49, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
that only works if WMF sites openly declare to stand on a certain side (the usa/eu side). otherwise...
iran also designated european armies as terrorist organisations...
this approach just begs the question. it goes back to requiring WMF or us the user base to decide which ones are propaganda/terrorist/"bad country", which ones are good, and therefore we should only follow the laws of the "good countries". even if you could argue that some cases are clear-cut for the majority (let's say for example North Korea), then what about murky cases like lese majeste laws in thailand/turkey, blasphemy laws...? many countries like to call their critics/opponents terrorists. how sure can you be before there's concrete evidence that someone has done actual physical harm? and even if some members of a party or organisation did commit crimes, does that automatically extend to every single member of that organisation, and even to other people that voice support for those organisations? RoyZuo (talk) 13:51, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
i think it's fine to host files from any organisations or individuals. what we need is an time/manpower-effective solution to identify and label them (being potentially propagandist).
with current mediawiki infrastructure the "time/manpower-effective solution" is not possible.
I have multiple times said that the propaganda material per se is not the problem (we could show them as examples of propaganda by Iran). Iunderstand we host propaganda material from Nazi Germany, so saying Iran is "too bad to be hosted here" is moot. The problem I have is that most of these materials are not educational and therefore not in SCOPE of Commons. I randomly went through a couple of images in the categories (first or second page only). There is for example this image which sure, you can have a couple of pictures of people participating in pro-Iranian government demos but hundreds of them? Thousands of them? There are many images that provide no educational value and practically they are no different than selfies we get. I can give you many examples. e.g. what value this image is bringing to the movement?, or this image, or this and many many more. You might say: oh then nominate them for deletion then. But how can I possibly check +100,000 images to make sure they are educational or not? Another way I see this as a problem is the "undue weight" to the Iranian narrative. There are many many documented cases of people taking pictures that didn't fit the narrative getting arrested or had forced disappearance (for example, the person who took a picture of w:Mahsa Amini in the hospital). So now you have one side (which is officially designated as terrorist organization by good chunk of the planet) pumping literally hundreds of thousands of images to Commons and the other side that can barely get an image out here or there risking their lives. Regardless of what are commons current policies are, this is harmful to our neutral POV Amir (talk) 14:14, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
i think the answer is simple: editors/curators, who are dedicated/full-time/paid, are needed for those roles.
commons/wikipedia is not that, and will not become that with their philosophy.
i certainly want to throw out lots of those files. but anyone who can do that is basically given a power over other users, which is incompatible with wikimedia's ideas that every user has equal right to edit and make decisions.
with wikimedia's ideas, it is impossible to curate. coz everything has to go thru a discussion process (deletion request for files), and if there's any debate, it becomes a time sink, and often leads to nowhere or conclusions that leave some users unhappy.
which is why i said, commons should be spun off. then it could become more similar to getty/afp (in terms of journalistic photo stock) and libraries/archives, and have a different user structure whereby some users will have editorial discretion to throw out junk. RoyZuo (talk) 14:41, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
A compromise could be that we delete all of these files that are not used in any projects. If anyone needs any of those to use on articles/wikipedia/other projects, we can simply undelete them (they are not going anywhere :D). That allows me to actually check the remaining images for copyright violation, manipulation, use of AI to distort images and so on. Amir (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
That is not the core problem. The problem is that we would have to maintain a list of bad sources. We would have to discuss every entry on that list. And how to make decisions if there is not consensus? Do we want to vote if Iran, Russia, USA, Israel or Hungary are enough problematic to limit government funded media from them? I do not want to moderate such a discussion and I think no Admin on Commons wants to moderate something like this. GPSLeo (talk) 17:16, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comparing IRGC-affiliated media to outlets in the United States or Hungary is a false equivalence. The issue here is not nationality or political bias, but documented institutional control by a designated terrorist organization and a repeated record of staged, manipulated, and undisclosed altered media in sensitive political contexts (check my other comments and related sources). That combination does not apply to independent or even state funded media in democratic systems, where legal accountability, editorial separation, and corrective mechanisms exist. ARASH PT talk 18:22, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
And how do you want to define what Trump has to do that we put him on the same list as Iran and Russia? We are a media archive not an editorial group that discusses the democracy status of countries. What is the damage hosting a file manipulated by the Iranian government, as long as we say the source is the Iranian government? Everyone knows that such a file is not trustworthy. We do not need to protect someone from being manipulated. GPSLeo (talk) 19:15, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
@GPSLeo One rather easy approach to tackle this is similar to the perennial sources in enwiki. In enwiki, if there are many documented cases of falsehoods by a source then it's considered unreliable and using it in articles is not allowed (and there are degrees of that). There are many documented cases of image manipulation or using AI maliciously on images published by RT and Tasnim and co (as Arash named a couple). As such IMHO, it shouldn't be allowed except if the image is really useful and we are sure it's not manipulated maliciously or violating copyright. Amir (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Amir is not suggesting deleting files that are in use. The proposal only concerns unused files. We are not talking about a normal media set, but over 200,000 files from terrorist IRGC-affiliated outlets, many of which are duplicated, edited, AI-assisted, fake, or unreliable (documented in many sources. check my other comments). Temporarily deleting unused files (from these sources), with easy undeletion if needed, is a practical way to enable proper review without spreading problematic content. remember that "the burden of proof lies on the uploader". As I mentioned before bulk uploads without file by file verification from these terrorist-related propaganda sources violate our principle and shift an unreasonable burden onto the community. ARASH PT talk 18:36, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
here is for example this image which sure, you can have a couple of pictures of people participating in pro-Iranian government demos but hundreds of them? Thing is we have hundreds of images of Nazi propaganda, and we have hundreds or thousands of images of Nazis killing Jewish people. And yes we have hardly any images of people protecting or saving Jewish people in WW2. Which means our image collection about the Holocaust is clearly skewed towards the Nazis. And yet we're not doing anything to balance that out in any way by deleting images of pro-Nazi demonstrations, or Nazi propaganda, or Nazis killing Jews. All those images are in Commons scope even if most of them are not used in any project article. The fact that they are propaganda images and that they are numerous does not necessarily make them out of scope. Even their inaccuracy is probably not enough reason to delete them: Nazi propaganda wasn't accurate either. And most of the Nazi images we have don't have any disclaimer that informs the viewer about said inaccuracies either. Nakonana (talk) 17:57, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The WMF will probably eventually need to respond since this deceptively named-channel and site NPOV is clearly part of a coordinated effort to damage the reputation of English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. It does raise questions though if we should start restricting Voice of America uploads or IDF uploads if there is also consensus to restrict uploads of Iranian state-funded organizations since we shouldn't cherry-pick what is defined as propaganda. Abzeronow (talk) 01:34, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
exactly what i was thinking, we can't target one and ignore the other, I feel like 90% of images added from IDF sources also should be deleted for being Israeli propaganda as we know they lied about a lot of things since then but we haven't done that, so why one standard for Israel and another for Iran, we are suppose to be neutral, what gets added to Wikimedia should follow the licencing requirement of the project and what gets used on individual wikis is totally the choice of the contributors of those wikis, not us... Stemoc05:01, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The propaganda video Ladsgroup brought up has 204 views. Two things strike me as odd. First, the interview with Ngo has 1.9K views while the others have a fraction of that. That's a rather large discrepancy. Second, why are Ngo, Ridley, and Sanger talking to someone whose videos barely outperform those of a pet bunny? - Alexis Jazzping plz05:05, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
we both know whats happening here, first they come for the news media and then social media, then sites like ours, Wikipedia actually is a great threat to terrorists cause the first search for anything is always wikipedia and the AI bots "they" are training sources majority of its information from Wikipedia first and they do not like it when it reveals their intentions and lies.. If we bow down to the pressure of these state terrorists flaunting their money and buying off people to make them propaganda videos, then we are no better than them..i'm very active on Reddit as it has already begun there so yeah wikipedia is very likely their next destination to force us to comply with their propaganda....I remember when Elon Musk tried to buy wikipedia for a billion dollars, imagine if that came to fruition.. Stemoc06:26, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
As a Jew (and not, for the record, at all a supporter of the current government of Israel), I find the semi-hidden link to en:Hasbara in the above rather offensive. - Jmabel ! talk20:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Problems, causes and potential solutions
Maybe I could try identifying the problems and make a summary, since I think many users actually agree with each other for many things.
Problems:
There are disproportionately a lot more files from Iranian propaganda agencies than other freely-licensed media.
When some organisations license their files freely while most do not, of course Commons is gonna end up with disproportionate over-representation of them.
Some of these countries or topics are restricted so there is just no free press or wikimedia users who could rival these well funded organisations. Examples: Iran, China... You can go to jail if you take photos without permission in such places, whereas the government mouthpiece workers have the freedom and keep pumping out thousands of pictures.
(Which is why some of those linked articles above complain about lack of non-government photos of the Iranian protests. Duh? Dont they know there is internet blackout so no one could upload? Not to mention the risks of getting shot in the streets trying to cover those events, prison and execution afterwards, etc.)
Some users massively upload files from those propaganda agencies. So massive that those users are not selective enough or at all.
Solutions:
There is only one way to counter the imbalance, that is, more people (on the other side of the politics) need to freely license their works.
I have had an idea of a news/photo agency that works like Reuters/AFP/Getty/VOA/BBC but is crowd funded like WMF.
Or, we wait until copyright expires. You can imagine there will be a perfect balance 100 years from now, when all the stuff we cant upload now become free. But this is pointless for the current point of time we live in.
Users should be more selective when they do massive uploads. Consequences if they do not do so.
Maybe some users can be given higher editorial discretion to quickly deal with (by "delete"?) the massive uploads.
Better still, maybe instead of "upload first delete later", we should only upload if necessary.
Suppress the ranking of files from propaganda sources so they appear lower in search results.
It takes seconds or minutes to upload batches of hundreds of images, but it takes hours to months to categorise them or debate in deletion requests. "upload first delete later" cannot effectively manage this.
But, S4 and S5 are, I believe, unfeasible with our current "consensus building" processes. S3 doesnt solve the real problem. Past experiences show that users often dont agree on how selective is adequate. To reach a conclusion fast in those assessments, we will end up with S4 and S5, that some users need to have discretion to decide how selective. S6 only works if we have non-propaganda files.
As I am writing this, I realise, probably no solution can solve these problems. Imagine if we decide to ban all files from an organisation. Then after that, their employees set up personal wikimedia accounts and upload the files here first, then those websites claim that they are re-using those files from wikimedia. We have no way to prove whether those wikimedia accounts are employed by them. We would still end up with this imbalance of material. Therefore, the only meaningful controls are editors rejecting files before they become public on Commons, and funding non-propaganda media to rival them.--RoyZuo (talk) 19:34, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
My main concern here is the legal exposure. Even though the Berman Amendment allows for exchanging "informational materials," there is a massive difference between simply hosting content and providing infrastructure services. By hosting over 200,000 high quality files, we are essentially acting as a free CDN for the media wing of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Major platforms like Google and Meta nuked these accounts specifically to avoid the "service provision" risk under precedents like Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. It makes no sense for Wikimedia Commons to shoulder legal and reputational risks that even big tech avoids.
There is also a serious issue with the chain of title. We can't blindly trust CC licenses from sources with a known history of scraping photos from citizens, slapping a watermark on them, and claiming ownership. Since we can't manually audit thousands of images, the burden of proof has to be on the uploader and they haven't met it. We are almost certainly hosting mass copyright violations disguised as free content.
Beyond that, these uploads are flagrant violations of our naming and neutrality policies. We're seeing file descriptions that reframe state rallies as "People's Protests" or label victims of violence as "terrorists." This isn't accidental bias; it's disinformation uploaded to game the system and mislead a global audience.
Finally, Commons isn't an unlimited cloud backup for a news agency's raw output. Uploading dozens of nearly identical shots from a single ceremony is just a data dump, not educational content. It creates "Authorship Dominance," where a state actor with unlimited resources drowns out other narratives especially when the other side can't upload safely. This isn't about politics; it's about stopping Commons from being exploited as a tool for information warfare. I support deleting the unused files and restricting these mass uploads.ah (talk) 19:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The problem is still how we define the restricted sources. Do we say we do not host content published by countries they block our project for their citizens? Then what do we do when this changes? GPSLeo (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is a straw man argument. I never suggested restricting sources based on whether a country blocks Wikipedia. That would indeed be political retaliation, which I oppose.
We don't need to invent a new global policy today to deal with a specific, massive violation happening right now. We can address this specific case based on its own overwhelming evidence of abuse. Waiting for a perfect, universal rule before stopping an active fire is bureaucratic paralysis. Let's deal with these specific compromised sources now; we can discuss broader policy implications in a dedicated RFC later. ah (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
This was a question what your suggestion of a policy is. You suggest that we discuss every case here on the Village pump without any guidelines if someone complains about some source? Keeping original file names and not labeling original descriptions as such can already be against the existing guidelines. Please report such cases on the admin board. GPSLeo (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Reporting 200,000 individual files to the admin's noticeboard is not a viable solution. Asking volunteers to manually patrol and report thousands of files that are being uploaded via automated tools is an asymmetry that favors the abuser.
I am not asking to rewrite global policy right this second. I am supporting the proposal already made by Ladsgroup above: Delete unused files from these specific compromised sources and restrict further mass uploads.
This is a standard remediation for mass copyright/scope violations. When a source is proven to be systematically unreliable (broken chain of title, mass propaganda, fake descriptions), we don't fix it file by file. we safeguard the project by removing the mass uploaded content that isn't actively being used. This cleans up the bulk of the violation immediately while preserving files that might have encyclopedic use. ah (talk) 20:24, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
The only instances I've witnessed of such mass deletion were ones of mass copyright violations and uploads by LTA (note: the latter was/is being challenged). The given case is neither of those. I have not seen any (mass) deletions for propaganda. Nakonana (talk) 21:35, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
@ah could you please link to examples of "sources with a known history of scraping photos from citizens, slapping a watermark on them, and claiming ownership"?
Regarding the terrorism stuff, I would agree that anything that legally jeopardizes Commons should be removed. However, whether hosting otherwise innocuous photos produced by something like Tasnim constitutes "material support" is questionable. We may host their images, but, as far as I know, they do not delete the photos on their servers and start using us as their host to save money. I do not believe hosting a photo of a soccer team by Tasnim seriously advances the political agenda of the Iranian government.
Everything else, though, I think is ultimately misfocused. Images by license laundering terrorist organizations should be dealt with through our policies on dealing with license laundering in general. Users repeatedly using policy-violating names for images produced by terrorist organizations should be dealt with through our policies on dealing with bad users in general. Mass deletion may be permissible. However, overly focusing on the terrorist aspect leads us down a garden path that ends in "oh god is everyone evil?" which is not a question we should answer on a media archive. Based5290 (talk) 05:37, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
If an account has been known to upload thousands of images that are known propaganda from terrorists, specially from Tasnim news which is a known IRGC propaganda toll, then mass deletion of uploads and restriction on that user should be justified. We are not talking about a few pictures here, user 999real has uploaded almost 1.5m images in span of 2 years, most being propaganda with a clear agenda. We should not allow this to take place as then wikipedia will become a tool to spread misinformation and propaganda for such Regimes. DrtheHistorian (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
DrtheHistorian, most being propaganda with a clear agenda. Did you even look? What does it matter if something is propaganda if it's in scope? Sporting events, snowfall, Gaza and EV taxis - what's the problem here? Even files that are more propagandistic in nature like military equipment/exercise are very much in scope. Shocker: Wikipedia has articles for military equipment! If anything needs to be done at all, bring a scalpel. Not sledgehammer. - Alexis Jazzping plz19:08, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Key word "most". Thats a very nice cheery picking from the vast majority of posts that are a clear propaganda for the Regime.
This 500 alone shown is just pure propaganda images. Even the most recent photos uploaded are images of the Regime.
Images named "hmbstgy mly" which literally translates into "National solidarity" showing Pro-Regime supporters after the same Regime massacred more than 30,000 people, that is literally mocking the protestors. You do need a sledgehammer for such mass amount of uploads, as it is extremely time consuming to remove one by one. User has shown they are a propaganda tool, that should not be tolerated on WP. DrtheHistorian (talk) 19:40, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have not uploaded anywhere near 1.5 million images and I uploaded all those files with their original description because they show the claims that was made and tactics used by the government during these times for archival and historical purposes especially because of the possibility of further internet censorship in Iran and I never claimed these images or descriptions are correct or tried to insert them in Wikipedia articles
just pure propaganda images (according to DrtheHistorian)just pure propaganda imagesjust pure propaganda imagesDrtheHistorian, This 500 alone shown is just pure propaganda images. Now who's cherry-picking? And you're not even right, see thumbnails. From your link. If you actually go over 999real's contributions, you'll find loads of images of sporting events. Whether a majority of images is propaganda depends on your definition of propaganda. User has shown they are a propaganda tool, that should not be tolerated on WP. We're not on Wikipedia, and you just violated Commons:No personal attacks. - Alexis Jazzping plz22:54, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
How can the state media images being uploaded in mass showing "solidarity" towards the regime specially after the atrocities they committed be ignored?
Showing bunch of other types of images would not change the fact that many of state propaganda images have been uploaded. The Regime media clearly has an agenda and is using those images to rub salt on the protestors wounds.
Thank you, @Nakonana for informing me on my wrong doing, that was inappropriate, my apologies. I have crossed that out.
DrtheHistorian, I am not ignoring propaganda, nor do I claim propaganda images don't exist. So adding a thumbnail with a "not propaganda?" caption isn't refuting any argument I made. You claimed the list of 500 files you linked was "just pure propaganda images", I added some thumbnails to dispute the purity of that list. I agree with Yann at User talk:999real (Diff ~1159540735) but any form of blanket deletion is a non-starter for me. - Alexis Jazzping plz02:00, 5 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I apologize for uploading files with bad file names I did upload many in a hurry bcause for example from when the internet censorship in Iran started I was not able to access Mehr website till 29 January and I thought it might go down again anytime
Comment I informed 999real, which nobody formally did until now. I think that individual deletion requests with a rationale of propaganda, as some people did, are useless and disrupting. A global solution should be found. Thanks, Yann (talk) 20:09, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think you would do better to replace this with a template or note saying to verify the license against the file from which it has been cropped, then a human editor can do that once they have actually checked. - Jmabel ! talk23:57, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Jmabel, we don't have such a template. License review is for files from external sources. We don't do license reviews for crops of files that originate here, why would we change that for imported files? Should crops also be vetted by VRT if the original has a VRT ticket attached? What about crops of files from Flickr that were reviewed by a bot? License review has 82K backlogged files. At the current rate, copyright may well expire before the license gets reviewed. - Alexis Jazzping plz05:25, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Alexis Jazz: why would we change that for imported files? I guess it's a matter of what we consider to be the purpose the license review tag. If we view it entirely in terms of managing our own processes then, no, it does not need to be carried in any way into the derivative work. If we view it as a caution to possible reusers of the file then, yes, it does. - Jmabel ! talk06:13, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Jmabel, to the best of my knowledge it's part anti-linkrot (can't verify the license if the source vanishes), part anti-license-laundering, part verifying if the license at the source is valid (sometimes there's a license but it only applies to text, or they forgot the CC version number, etc) and part derivative work detection (e.g. freely licensed video with protected music that may require muting). This is all to ensure files comply with COM:L. If it was about protection of re-users we'd look the other way when there's no CC version number or even if the license is non-commercial, and we'd start requiring (something akin to) license reviews for cross-wiki uploads. Which would almost be a good idea if it didn't require a paid workforce of at least a dozen people to deal with the volume. - Alexis Jazzping plz14:23, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 hours ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello. For those who have contacts or are living in the Switzerland area, can anyone contact Sebastian W. Bauer, the photographer/uploader contributing at the now-defunct Panoramio media hosting site? This is to try convince him to change the restrictive license of w:en:File:San Fernando Toll Plaza (circa 1999-2001).jpg to {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}. In this way, this image can be hosted here and be used in all Wikipedias. The shutdown of Panoramio should hopefully convince him that it is better to share images with a wider audience. Regards, JWilz12345(Talk|Contributions)01:25, 5 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
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