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Administrators: Please make a note if a report is dealt with, to avoid unnecessary responses by other admins.

purge Admin backlog

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Copyright:

• Copyright violations: ~150
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• Duplicates: ~243
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See also: DR, HMS, …

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TimedText:Anthem of the Soviet Union (rare instrumental version).ogg.en.srt

Hi, please delete this TimedText as there is no corresponding video. Thanks in advance. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 21:44, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done MorganKevinJ^(talk) 01:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Help requested with URAA nominations

Dear collegues, as an admin I am working on old deletion requests. I think it is a good thing to remove copyright violations from Commons and I want to protect authors as well as reusers. However, as an art lover I am in personal trouble with some URAA requests. For instance, a painting which is in PD in the whole of Europe, must apparently be deleted due to the URAA restoration. This has been discussed many times, and I do not want to discuss the principles again. I need help however with such deletion requests, currently with File:1937 Leblan Landschaft anagoria.JPG. The rather unknown painter died in 1940. Which admin is willing to help and close these DR's on an incidental basis? Thanks, Ellywa (talk) 09:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Ellywa: URAA should not be the only reason to delete.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 09:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Jeff G., thanks, has that been written somewhere in the guidelines on Commons? Ellywa (talk) 09:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

With the help of Google and some browsing I found this statement of the WMF: So WMF does not see a reason to delete content simply because of general concern about the URAA. Assuming this has not been revoked, I can use that argument to keep such images. source. Is this a correct way to move on, or do you think there are other guidelines? Ellywa (talk) 10:06, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Ellywa: Our current guidance at COM:URAA states "A mere allegation that the URAA applies to a file cannot be the sole reason for deletion. If the end result of copyright evaluation is that there is significant doubt about the freedom of a file under U.S. or local law, the file must be deleted in line with the precautionary principle." Yann kept at Commons:Deletion requests/File:1937 Leblan Landschaft anagoria.JPG, I was going to  Weak delete per pcp.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 10:36, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: . Thanks for your help and link. I think I will act as Yann in future situations such as this one. I think that is in line with the intention of the legal dept. Ellywa (talk) 15:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Basically, you will find contradictory information. While the WMF seems not happy about the URAA still protecting works in the US that are free in their country of origin and most other states, they apparently feel (understandably) that they have to comply with US law, so you'll find only carefully worded statements from them. They'll leave the actual decisions whether to delete or not to the Commons community however and will only step in and delete something themselves by an Office Action if forced to do so by an official legal request. That brings us to the Commons community, where many admins, especially those from Europe, don't want to delete European works that are free in Europe but still protected in the US. Which lead to the statement that URAA should not be the sole reason for deletion, while our official guidelines state that files must comply with US law. That's the status quo, and apparently (almost) nobody is interested in changing it (let sleeping dogs lie and so on), which I found out a couple of years ago when I tried to resolve the situation. --Rosenzweig τ 16:09, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Rosenzweig: A similar situation exists with illegal graffiti. Officially, per COM:PCP, non-free graffiti is not allowed without permission of the artist. Yet in practice, if we look at DR results, non-free graffiti is allowed; in fact there is even a template {{Non-free graffiti}} to tag such images. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• This is at the admin's whim. So they can then hold it over an uploader in the future, "Stop disagreeing with me, or else I'll go through all of your uploads (clearly UK PD book scans) and then delete them, just because I can." Andy Dingley (talk) 16:22, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: Perhaps you are referring to something from the past, I certainly will not act like that. English language books will be especially difficult to assess, because perhaps available/published in US. And thank you @Rosenzweig: it certainly is contradictory and legalists cannot avoid this if a ruling appears difficult to understand such as this case. URAA feels very strange. I can buy very cheap books from painters from my country like Piet Mondriaan and the lesser known Leo Gestel (born in the town where I happen to live), because the copyright is expired. It would feel strange to delete these images from Commons. No heirs - all far above 70 years of age by now - would ever think of getting more money from royalties. They have had enough imho. And I do not think a procedure in the USA will yield anything. Ellywa (talk) 17:15, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

No heirs would ever think of getting more money from royalties? There are several examples of suits about European works in the US; for example, the Arthur Conan Doyle estate in Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate or their suit against Netflix were after all of ACD's works were PD in the UK. Likewise, the Anne Frank estate sent Wikimedia a URAA notice when the work left copyright in Europe and the Dutch Wikisource started to transcribe it. I'm quite sure that whoever owns the Orwell estate would sue over 1984 in a heartbeat. I'm not so sure that Piet Mondriaan wouldn't sue us, but Leo Gestel probably wouldn't. Then again, I'm pretty sure I could upload photos of local murals painted in the 90s by an artist who died in 2000, and WMF wouldn't hear a word from the artist's estate. "Won't sue us" has never been a winning argument at Wikimedia.

I understand; many of the works that make up the shared Anglo-American culture are limited not because they are illegal for me or the WMF to use, but because they're copyrighted in Europe. The early works of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and A. A. Milne are passing into the public domain in the US but may not be uploaded to Commons.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:12, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

 Comment Not only works from Europe, but basically anywhere else. The countries were the law is the most permissive are the most affected. It was also pointed out in some DR that in the case of URAA, the procedure is reversed: we assume that URAA doesn't apply unless proved otherwise. Yann (talk) 08:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Lossy compression reversion

Hi. Phreneticc has been reducing the file size of various images by reducing their quality. I already asked them to stop a few minutes ago. Now I wonder whether it's necessary to revert all of those overwrites. And if so, maybe you admins have a tool that is more convenient than reverting manually? Thank you! TilmannR (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Notice given. Glrx (talk) 18:39, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@TilmannR: If it helps, I refer to COM:HR frequently, but it's not a guideline yet (perhaps it should be?).   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 18:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Phreneticc and TilmannR:

Phreneticc (talk · contribs) is continuing the campaign. I see no merit in these edits because they are making changes without correcting or improving the image. See COM:OVERWRITE. The SVG edits are removing spaces and metadata. The Help:SVG guidelines discourage edits without a visual change ("If a file renders correctly it is generally undesired to reupload it without visible changes."). I do not know what the JPEG edits are doing. Image loss? Does EXIF survive? The user should stop "reducing the weight" of files. A mass revert seems appropriate. Glrx (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Unusual file license situation, uploaded by an editor with a COI issue

On 19 May, English Wikipedia User:Clafuria uploaded four files for use on an English Wikipedia article, Pennsylvania Western University (The files: File:PennWest Lockup California FINAL SM.svg, File:PennWest Lockup Clarion FINAL SM.svg, File:PennWest Lockup Edinboro FINAL SM.svg, File:PennWest Lockup Global Online FINAL SM.svg). I received a file deletion notice on 22 May, as these files were used to replace three files I uploaded under a fair use of a copyrighted logo. When I looked at the files that were uploaded, I noticed all four were uploaded under 'Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International' with the source being "Own work". I was familiar with the university, and knew the logos were in fact the work of the university, so I left a message on their talk page on the English Wikipedia, on 22 May, directly challenging the license choice and claim of own work.

On May 23, User:Clafuria responded with the following:

Hello Navigators! I work at PennWest University in the marketing department, and I sat down with the designer of the logos and uploaded them together. Please let me know how you'd like me to verify this. Only the marketing staff has access to the SM logos. Clafuria (talk) 12:00, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
— User:Clafuria

That's a fairly obvious conflict of interest, and they made no mention of the affiliation until that point. I responded on 24 May, by informing them of Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy, and then left links to both the main article on it and the 'plain and simple' guide. I then pointed out the license choice seemed ill-advised from their standpoint, for an organizations logos, breaking down what CC BY SA 4.0 license allows people to do, linking to the Creative Commons page on that license and also Commons:Licensing, as an effort to make sure they understood what that license does.

As of today, May 26, I haven't heard anything and there's been no further edits of any kind by the account, per the User contributions list. I'm looking for some advice as to how the handle the situation.

Normally I'd propose deletion over an incorrect license, but I think they're telling the truth about being with PennWest University marketing. Vector forms of that logo aren't floating around, as that branding isn't scheduled to start use for another month and a half. I only had the logos I uploaded due to a right to know request I'd filed a few months earlier, and mine didn't have the Service Mark attached as they were from a presentation to select their new logo. Additionally the only real non-logo edit they did really reads like something a marketing person would write. If staff of the university upload their logo, I don't view it as our job to decide they used the wrong license for their materials. I've pointed out that it seems like a odd choice and they've made no efforts to change it, contact me or anyone else for further information or request the files be deleted. (I brought this to the Commons, as the files were uploaded/moved to here, so it seemed more in the Commons wheelhouse. I can take the COI issue with the English Wikipedia, though I suspect it may be moot.)--The Navigators (talk) 02:02, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

We just need a verification of the licenses to COM:VRT and everything is fine. We do not have a policy to disclose paid contributions (see COM:PAID). --GPSLeo (talk) 06:49, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, today I learned that's a policy here... Thanks for the correction on that. I'll try reaching out again with that information. Naturally, we're going into a long weekend, and the earliest I'll get time to make a new message will be after business hours.--The Navigators (talk) 07:08, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@The Navigators and GPSLeo: I left them this stern warning on enwiki.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 09:46, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

What do you all need from me? The Navigators? I am not finding any policy or directive of what I need to do. Those logos are our official marketing branded SM files. I don't know what other info you're seeking. Clafuria (talk) 13:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

You have to go through the procedure described at COM:VRT. There is also a generator for the e-mail text. Commons:Wikimedia VRT release generator --GPSLeo (talk) 14:13, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Move

Please move Category:China (region) to Category:China. Another user's haphazard moves resulted in the loss of page history. I will clean up after moving. Also, we dont need a page at Category:China (region), so please move without redirect or delete it. Thx. Roy17 (talk) 10:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Cross-wiki sockpuppetry and User:Rajesh56om

As noted at , there has been cross-wiki sockpuppetry involving enWiki and Wikimedia commons relating to images and articles of Rajesh Kumar Ram (also known as "devilraj"). The individual is some sort of musical artist and there is a recurring problem where promotional drafts of the artist are being repeatedly re-created on enWiki, many of which are using images that sockpuppet accounts have uploaded to commons. Results of a checkuser are available at the enWiki sockpuppet investigation casepage and it appears that many of those accounts have abused commons by uploading images for promotional purposes:

The sockmaster, Rajesh56om, has an account on commons but does not appear to have uploaded any images. Socks that have uploaded images or otherwise have commons accounts are as follows:

• Tanmaydalayi has made one image upload to commons: a photograph of Rajesh Kumar Ram. The photo was a cross-wiki upload to commons made while creating a promotional draft on the English Wikipedia
• Hirooxx has made one image upload to commons: a photograph of Rajesh Kumar Ram that was immediately used in a promotional draft on enWiki created by that editor.
• Ofcl_devilraj has made several uploads to commons that appear to be of Rajesh Kumar Ram (a.k.a. Devilraj).
• OfficialDevilraj has made several edits to commons, though all appear to be deleted.
• Bruhking56om has made two uploads to commons, all of which appear to be related to Rajesh Kumar Ram (a.k.a. Devilraj).

The sockmaster, after being blocked repeatedly on enwiki, has made multiple accounts in order to evade scrutiny across multiple wikis. I believe that these accounts should be indefinitely blocked for abusing multiple accounts, based off of the Checkuser evidence available on enWiki as well as the behavioral evidence described on above. Mhawk10 (talk) 18:50, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I am using "rockmaster" and "rockpuppetry" because it allows me to get around the edit filter that had been blocking my ability to submit this. I think everybody here understands what I mean by those. Mhawk10 (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I patched the report for Mhawk10.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 22:31, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Deletion request

I uploaded a file I thought had no audio on it but I was wrong. It was reuploaded but need to delete the original copy to remove the original with the copyrighted music. File:Searls_Station_rail_cars_filled_with_Basalt_by_D_Ramey_Logan.webm --Don (talk) 16:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done MorganKevinJ^(talk) 00:23, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Debjyoti Gorai

Debjyoti Gorai (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information) (assign permissions) Hi, Can someone take appropriate action regarding this user, especially about this. See also ANU. Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:33, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The personal attack is certainly inappropriate, thankyou for reacting calmly. But I think the user has improved, they interacted constructively with me at ANU and they haven't uploaded any more copyvios since then. I had cautioned them about their inappropriate comments and had informed them about COM:CIVIL. So IMHO no action is required right now, after all blocks are preventative not punitive. Thanks! -- CptViraj (talk) 11:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)