Wikivoyage/Lounge/Archive/2021-08

WikiSP Newsletter #3 (2021-08)

WikiSP Newsletter of August 2021.

Members

Jsmura • Villalaso • Manlleus • Laura Fiorucci

Ongoing discussions

• A discussion on changes to the membership policy is underway,
• A discussion on increasing temporary seats on the Administrative Commission is underway.

Miscellaneous

• We have reached 25 members!
• Members to the Regional Committees were recently selected. Congratulations to Alexandrabello for joining the LATAM and The Caribbean Committee.
• SmallProjects starts on August 16. A synthesized version of how the project will work can be found here.

---

• • • •

20:49, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FoP related issues on commons

See voy:en:Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Time to revive WV-shared? for a little bit of context

But those of you on en and ja wikivoyage would've noticed that pagebanners were proposed to be speedily deleted, until Ikan Kekek stopped it from being speedily deleted.

Back when Wikitravel existed, there was WT-shared (I wasn't here during the times of Wikitravel) there was their own repository of images. And with commons becoming increasingly unreliable to host our images with most of them being tagged for deletion due to FoP issues far too quickly, and way too much even at the English Wikivoyage to handle, where there's about 50 active regular users calling it their home wiki or just a really significant contributor. If en.voy can't handle it, I can't imagine more of the smaller language Wikivoyages, like the French Wikivoyage.

So Ikan Kekek suggested to have something like that which is only used on Wikivoyage. Such include e.g. pagebanners, preventing commons from speedily deleting them when they don't have a clue about how an article with a missing pagebanner would look like (see voy:en:User:SHB2000/Junee for that).

I'm all up for support for that, and would other language Wikivoyage's support us here? I understand that tr.voy is quite new, and wasn't there at WT, but for some older Wikivoyage's like it or de support the revival?

Cheers, --SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 09:26, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

This is a consequence of linking banners directly, User:SHB2000, and can be avoided by linking banners through Wikidata. If you declare the banner as in your example, {{pagebanner|Paghtjsue m.jpg}}, then removing the target file breaks the template because it does not have anything to fall back to, as you already pointed out.

A more reliable way to do this is to link the banner through Wikidata, by linking it to a page banner field. In this method, declare a default ("black") banner in the article like this {{pagebanner|Pagebanner default.jpg}}. If a page banner field exists on Wikidata, it will be inserted automatically (with the added advantage that it inserts new banners to any other wikis supporting page banners, too). Should the banner file be removed from Commons, the link is broken and Wikivoyage falls back to its default "black" banner without breaking the article layout. Here is an example of a Wikidata linked page banner for Gunib (a town in Dagestan) on Wikivoyage: d:Q1025918.

I haven't had the chance to test this yet, but Wikidata allows multiple page banner entries. I'm not sure which banner is actually displayed when multiple banner files are linked, but this could be an interesting solution to banners being deleted: if one banner file is no longer available, the other is substituted automatically. ArticCynda (talk) 11:17, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

That's not the issue here. The main issue is files are just being instantly deleted due to FoP issues, on all language Wikivoyage's particularly en and ja. Our proposal is to create a brand new site unlike commons, is just for Wikivoyage photos that all language Wikivoyage's can access. SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 13:18, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I understand that's a problem, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but was Commons not explicitly designed to be a repo for media used on other wikis? Rather than starting a Commons2, it would make more sense to fix the issue with Commons because what reason of existence does it still have if it no longer suits its purpose? What I suggested above is a temporary workaround/contingency until problems with Commons are fixed. ArticCynda (talk) 14:01, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: I think you're going to step on a lot of people's toes if you attempt to found an alternative media repository. I don't see that happen under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella any time soon. ArticCynda (talk) 14:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I do agree here. But have a look at c:COM:ANU with numerous problems with A1Cafel there, to the point where someone us no longer feel contributing at commons. SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 14:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to that thread, quite annoying situation indeed. I understand it's a problem, but as long as Commons policies are not updated to reflect the needs of sister sites (for example, by allowing "fair use" media under specific conditions), it's only a matter of time before another A1Cafel shows up and starts nominating or deleting media in use on sister sites. I have the impression many Commons contributors still AGF or even support A1Cafel's actions, so clearly there is a divide. And so some of the en-voy folks are trying their usual strategy of "vandalism" accusations to get A1Cafel banned. I doubt that's going to work on Commons, and even if it does, it doesn't solve the underlying problem.

As a regular Commons contributor myself (and someone who has added numerous page banners, too) I'd much rather see Commons policies updated/fixed rather than splintering Commons into a "purist" version and a "fair use" version. It's a collaborative project, we must find a middle ground that works for everyone. ArticCynda (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

True. But except even some from Commons are against A1Cafel here. (also off topic but I took your Chernobyl image off commons for the new Stay safe expedition) SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 22:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I have yet to see any Wikivoyager suggest that A1Cafel should be banned, rather than made no longer an autopatroller on Commons and for them to stop abusing speedy deletion nominations or nominating free files from organizations like the National Weather Service for deletion (speedy deletion, yet!). Anyway, the updated proposal seems to be to use a bot to locally upload lots of photos in use at en.voy that we can assume will eventually be nominated for deletion from Commons because of freedom of panorama issues. If we do that, we want to make them available to other Wikivoyages. When we upload a file locally, is it automatically available on Wikidata, or do we have to do something for it to be available there? Or is there a way we can do this all in house, lest we risk someone deleting the files on Wikidata? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:29, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

No, if we locally upload a file, it won't be available on Wikidata. SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 10:53, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Correct, you can only link Commons files via Wikidata. I've already tried linking files that are locally uploaded to Wikipedia under their fair use provisions, and Wikidata can't find them. So likewise, files in a local media repository for Wikivoyage can't be linked as illustrations or page banners on Wikidata. Practically this means that a page banner that's local to the English Wikivoyage will not only no longer be automatically linked to other languages, but entirely unavailable to them unless they physically copy the file to their own private repositories. Which effectively splits the source tree and leads to many identical copies of the same image/banner on every Wikivoyage edition.

When I make a new banner for a Wikivoyage article that doesn't have a banner yet, I only need to link it to Wikidata once to "apply" it to any Wikivoyage language edition (unless specific Wikivoyage languages choose to override the Wikidata default banner with a specific file). Personally I find this a very elegant way of doing it, because it means I don't have to edit the Wikivoyage articles of every language individually. It saves time, less prone to errors, etc. ArticCynda (talk) 12:28, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: I saw the Stay Safe expedition yes, but haven't had the time yet to read into it. May indeed affect Chernobyl and other similar topics. Ping me on my talk page if you need input on Chernobyl, some parts may need to be redacted. Can offer advice if desired. Quite a few of my Commons images on Chernobyl are currently linked to the Chernobyl Wikivoyage article so need to check that removing them from Commons doesn't break that article on en-voy or other languages. ArticCynda (talk) 12:39, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

SHB2000, Ikan Kekek, ArticCynda: Hello, in name of WikiSP, I'd like to put this topic on discussion at the group level and get support. I answered on enwikivoyage at the moment. Regards, --Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 17:58, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for taking this issue further, Galahad, that is much appreciated! ArticCynda (talk) 11:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Several Wikivoyagers have been working with conscientious admins at Commons to improve their procedures and guidelines, and the worst offender has been blocked from nominating files for deletion or discussing deletion nominations. Notifications of nominations for deletion have slowed down. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:34, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that some kind of Wikivoyage-shared site or setup couldn't be helpful, but the discussion at en.voy stated that we'd have to get approval from Wikimedia and that that approval wouldn't be granted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC)