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I will respond to comments here.

How in the world are you tracking down images that have their (c) expired to undelete?  :)

Also I'd welcome your thoughts on m:Copyright expiry acceleration. – SJ + 18:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: happy PD Day to you! I start by searching FFD, PUF, and fair use images (some of my methods are listed at User:Wikiacc/Public Domain Day) but it's mostly luck. It just so happened that the Nepenthaceae images were uploaded in two large batches, the bulk of which were still around as fair use, so I checked the deleted contributions for those uploaders.

I'll take a look at that page! There are certainly synergies among the various efforts to find and retag 1923-63 PD files, especially the deleted ones. Deletions of old images tagged as fair use can be hard to track down, including F5, PROD, and FFD nominations that don't mention years. Wikiacc (¶) 19:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we can change Commons policy to keep file pages for all files deleted on (c) concerns, and categorize them by estimated year-of-expiry – SJ + 20:08, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Iraq public domain images indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikiacc..I think it's better to upload full-size public domain images to Commons rather than Wikipedia! Maher27777 (talk) 13:12, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Maher27777: For new uploads, absolutely! But when the full-size image is already in the Wikipedia file history, I find it easiest to restore the full-size version first, and then move to Commons via established tools. Do you agree? Wikiacc (¶) 21:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, when checking the copyrights for non-us works published in 1928 or before what should be the guideline for let's say a movie poster. Is it based on the death of the director or something else? In best regards, Wiiformii (talk) 20:54, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Wiiformii: it's complicated. Honestly, most of the time I just tag {{PD-US-expired-abroad}} and move on.

Many movie posters from that era were made by artists. In that case, the source country copyright is based on the death of the artist. For example, posters by Josef Fenneker are in copyright in Germany until 2027 because Fenneker died in 1956 (per c:Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Germany). But it's often hard to tell who the artist is. The artist's signature may be present but hard to read.

If the poster is a still image from the movie, with no other artistic elements, you are probably safe using the death of the director. But you have to look carefully. Wikiacc (¶) 23:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, especially with these older works the information behind their creation starts to deteriorate. Thanks again, Wiiformii (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you have been doing lots of work in Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons with hidden file revisions. Do you know if there's a similar category for {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} with hidden revisions? For example File:The Girl from the Provinces.jpg. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:54, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other examples are File:Kri-Kri, the Duchess of Tarabac.jpg and (presumably, although it says unknown date in the FUR) File:Incest (film).jpg. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:05, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Stefan2: I'm not aware of such a category. If there aren't too many such files, bulk nominations at WP:REFUND are an option. You certainly could create the category -- for tips on auto-populating it, reading Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MDanielsBot 9 and/or talking to Mdaniels5757 might be helpful. Wikiacc (¶) 00:15, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Stefan2 Looks like there are 160 files with hidden revisions currently: https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/89751. If you think it would be useful, I'd be happy to file a BRFA to add a category* to those files. All I'd need is the name of the category to add (Category:PD-US-expired-abroad with hidden file revisions?)

* Probably actually a template that includes the category, for the reason in that BRFA. — Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what the category should be named. There are also other templates such as {{PD-ineligible-USonly}} and {{FoP-USonly}} which we might wish to catch.

There are some files in the report which are also in the public domain in the source country, for example the first one (File:Lily Flagg.jpg).

I created quarry:query/58367 to find files with {{mtc}} with missing revisions and found that there were 30 of those. As there were not too many, I added Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons with hidden file revisions to those. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:10, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I find lots of additional {{PD-1923}} and {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} with old deleted revisions when going through quarry:query/89760 (an attempt to find files published in 1929 which are tagged as unfree by looking at the names of the categories of the articles where the files are used). --Stefan2 (talk) 11:41, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please be careful with films as the copyright rules are very complex and confusing. See c:COM:VPC#Composers for silent films for a discussion, although there is not a lot of clarity. For single German screenshots, it seems that you should use the death year of the cameraman, not the death year of the director.

There appears to be an article about the film on German Wikipedia, de:Melodie der Welt (1929), where the infobox lists four cameramen: de:Reimar Kuntze (died more than 70 years ago), de:Paul Holzki (died less than 70 years ago), Wilhelm Lehne (death year unknown) and Rudolph Rathmann (death year unknown). I don't know which cameraman's death year we should use. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Stefan2: Thanks. I didn't realize it was so complex. Perhaps we need a subtemplate/subcategory of {{PD-US-expired-abroad}} for films. Perhaps we should also be subcatting Category:Screenshots of films by source country. Wikiacc (¶) 00:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Films are way too complex. If everyone involved in the creation of the film has been dead for at least 70 years, then it's in the public domain. If no one has been dead for at least 70 years, then it's non-free. In all other cases, it's safer to just add {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} with no expiration year as the list of people whose death years you should check varies depending on the country of the film. It seems that Germany thinks that single frames from a film aren't part of the cinematographic work but that they are separately copyrighted photographs taken by the cameraman and so they seem to follow the cameraman's death year, but I don't know if this is true in other countries. --Stefan2 (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).

Administrator changes

• Arcticocean
• Wugapodes

Euryalus

CheckUser changes

• Firefly
• L235

Oversighter changes

• Firefly
• Guerillero
• L235
• Moneytrees

Technical news

• Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
• A 'Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).

Administrator changes

• Jarry1250
• Lethe

CheckUser changes

• AmandaNP
• Drmies

Oversighter changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
• A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
• A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.

Technical news

• A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
• Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378

Miscellaneous

• The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2025).

Administrator changes

• Giraffer
• Goldsztajn

Dennis Brown

• Cyclonebiskit
• Nohat
• Someguy1221

Bureaucrat changes

Barkeep49

CheckUser changes

0xDeadbeef

Oversighter changes

GB fan

Moneytrees

Miscellaneous

• Sign up for The Core Contest, a competition running from 15 April to 31 May to improve vital articles.

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Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2025).

Administrator changes

Rusalkii

NaomiAmethyst (overlooked last month)

• Master Jay
• Orderinchaos
• Roger Davies
• Tinucherian

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, administrator elections were permanently authorized on a five-month schedule. The next election will be scheduled soon; see Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections for more information. This is an alternate process to the RfA process and does not replace the latter.
• An RfC was closed with consensus to allow editors to opt-out of seeing "sticky decorative elements". Such elements should now be wrapped in {{sticky decoration wrapper}}. Editors who wish to opt out can follow the instructions at WP:STICKYDECO.
• An RfC has resulted in a broad prohibition on the use of AI-generated images in articles. A few common-sense exceptions are recognized.

Miscellaneous

• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to determine whether the English Wikipedia community should adopt a position on AI development by the WMF and its affiliates.

Technical news

• A new feature called Multiblocks will be deployed on English Wikipedia on the week of June 2. See the relevant announcement on the administrators' noticeboard.
• History merges performed using the mergehistory special page are now logged at both the source and destination, rather than just the source as previously, after this RFC and the resolution of T118132.

Arbitration

• An arbitration case named Indian military history has been opened. Evidence submissions for this case close on 8 June.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 17 June 2025. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!
• An Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in June 2025, with over 1,600 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in June 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Hello. You're invited to participate in The World Destubathon. We're aiming to destub a lot of articles and also improve longer stale articles. It commenced yesterday on Monday June 16 and will run until Sunday July 13. There is over $3300 going into it, with $500 the top prize and $300 top prize for doing articles on populated places and geography. If you are interested in winning something to save you money in buying books for future content, or just see it as a good editathon opportunity to see a lot of articles improved for subjects which interest you, sign up on the page in the participants section if interested. Even if you can only manage a few articles they would be very much appreciated and help make the content produced as diverse and broad as possible! Feel free to invite others who you think might want to contribute.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:38, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2025).

Administrator changes

NuclearWarfare

Interface administrator changes

L235

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, speedy deletion criterion G13 has been amended to remove "Userspace with no content except the article wizard placeholder text."
• WP:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts was upgraded to a guideline following a RfC discussion.

Miscellaneous

• The 2025 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
• Administrator elections will take place this month. Administrator elections are an alternative to RFA that is a gentler process for candidates due to secret voting and multiple people running together. The call for candidates is July 9–15, the discussion phase is July 18–22, and the voting phase is July 23–29. Get ready to submit your candidacy, or (with their consent) to nominate a talented candidate!

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, G15, has been enacted. It applies to pages generated by a large language model (LLM) without human review.
• Following a request for comment, there is a new policy outlining the granting of permissions to view the IP addresses of temporary accounts. Temporary account deployment on the English Wikipedia is currently scheduled for September 2025, and editors can request access to the permission ahead of time. Admins are encouraged to keep an eye on the request page; there will likely be a flood of editors requesting the permission when they realize they can no longer see IP addresses.

Technical news

• Administrators can now restrict the "Add a Link" feature to newcomers. The "Add a Link" Structured Task helps new account holders get started with editing. Administrators can configure this setting in the Community Configuration page.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Indian military history has been closed.
  • South Asia (WP:CT/SA) is designated a contentious topic. The topic area is specifically defined as All pages related to the region of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups.
  • The contentious topic designations for Sri Lanka (SL) and India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (IPA) are folded into this new contentious topic.
  • The community-authorized general sanctions regarding South Asian social groups (GS/CASTE) are rescinded and folded into this new contentious topic.
• The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 31 July.
• The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 11 August.

Miscellaneous

• Wikimania 2025 is happening in Nairobi, Kenya, and online from August 6 to August 9. This year marks 20 years of Wikimania. Interested users can join the online event. Registration for the virtual event is free and will remain open throughout Wikimania. You can register here now.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open on whether use of emojis with no encyclopedic value in mainspace and draftspace (e.g., at the start of paragraphs or in place of bullet points) should be added as a criterion under G15.

Technical news

• Administrators can now access the Special:BlockedExternalDomains page from the Special:CommunityConfiguration list page. This makes it easier to find. T393240

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been closed.
• An RfC is in progress to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2025).

Administrator changes

• Billinghurst
• Crisco 1492
• DarkFalls
• Spike Wilbury
• Valereee
• Ergo Sum

CheckUser changes

Vanamonde93

Arbitration

• After a motion, arbitration enforcement page protections no longer need to be logged in the AELOG. A bot now automatically posts protections at WP:AELOG/P. To facilitate this bot, protection summaries must include a link to the relevant CT page (e.g. [[WP:CT/BLP]]), and you will receive talk page reminders if you forget to specify the contentious topic but otherwise indicate it is an AE action.

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Hello, Wikiacc. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

• When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
• All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
• A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
• As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
  • There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
  • There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

• Administrators may grant the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right to non-administrators who meet the criteria for granting. Importantly, an editor must make an explicit request for the permission (e.g. at WP:PERM/TAIV)—administrators are not permitted to assign the right without a request.
• Administrators will automatically be able to see temporary account IP information once they have accepted the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy via Special:Preferences or via the onboarding dialog which comes up after temporary accounts are deployed.

Impact for administrators

• It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
• It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
• Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

• Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
• Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
• See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

• It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card
  • This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
• Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
• Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
• The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

• How to use Special:IPContributions
• How automatic IP reveal works
• How to use IP Info
• How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

• For more information and discussion regarding this change, please see the announcement from the Wikimedia Foundation at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) § Temporary accounts rollout.

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2025).

Administrator changes

Toadspike

• Elahrairah
• Juliancolton
• Magnus Manske

CheckUser changes

asilvering

Guideline and policy news

• The speedy deletion criteria U5 has been repealed, with U6 and U7 replacing it. See the FAQ for more clarifications.
• Community-designated contentious topics may now be enforced and appealed at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (AE) as a result of an RfC.

Technical news

• You can enable a handy user info card next to usernames, which when clicked displays edit count, blocks, thanks, and other information. To enable this feature, visit Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been closed
  • Uninvolved administrators may impose an AE participation restriction on any thread at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2025).

Administrator changes

• Chaotic Enby
• Rjjiii

Valereee

• Fathoms Below
• Tamzin

CheckUser changes

Spicy

Technical news

• Starting on November 4, the IP addresses of logged-out editors are no longer being publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account associated with their edits.
• Administrators will now find that Special:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start). T382958

Miscellaneous

• The December 2025 administrator elections are scheduled from Nov 25 – Dec 15.
• An Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in December 2025, with over 1,000 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

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