User talk:Michael D. Turnbull

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Michael D. Turnbull!

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 10:14, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Please contact me at my main Talk Page here. as you are more likely to get my speedy response. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 15:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Categories

Hi Michael D. Turnbull, I noticed that you have uploaded a number of Australia-related photos by Ed Gold. Just as a hint, all those could probably go into a Category:Photographs by Ed Gold, similar to, for example, Category:Photographs by Frank Hurley. This would allow anybody coming across from the English Wikipedia article for Ed Gold to Commons to see all his images in one place. Just a little suggestion for you, no requirement to follow, but it seems to be common practice for images from professional photographers on Commons. I have set up the category for you to use, if you wish to do so. Calistemon (talk) 01:51, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Calistemon Magic! That was just my thought but I lacked the confidence to do it without messing [insert stronger word] up. I've just had an e-mail from Alfred Neumann:

Dear Mike Turnbull, Dear Ed Gold, it is indeed difficult to follow the correspondence. We are processing worldwide request for several Wikipedia projects and have an average processing time of less than a minute for each e-mail in order to keep up with the backlog. To now speed this issue up and find the best fitting procedure, please advise: Approximately how many images of the same kind, i.e. "photographs by Ed Gold", are you intending to upload in the foreseeable future? Yours sincerely, Alfred Neumann

My thought is that if I were to be given the correct user rights on Commons, I could add the OTRS codes myself, saving Alfred and colleagues a heap of time and effort. Do you know if this is something that the community here would be willing to let me do? The answer to Alfred's question is "I don't know - it will be up to Ed, as copyright holder but possibly 1000+ over the next year."

Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 11:17, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I noticed the discussion on the images but can offer no opinion as I would be out of my depth there. I do hope the images stay, as I think the images in Category:Yuendumu, Northern Territory you uploaded offer a rich inside in life in a remote NT community. With improved categorisation, like I attempted on File:Yuendumu Gold 01.jpg, they would also become more accessible to users in search for an image for a specific topic, e.g., somebody looking for an image of an Aboriginal Australian with traditional body paint. I don't stray much out of Western Australian topics on Commons but I would like to do a bit more on the categories on these images as I sometimes help out a little on the Northern Territory subjects.

In regards to my username, no coincidence here. The Callistemon is may favorite plant. I think, I intentionally misspelled it also, given my very average spelling skills, it could have been unintentionally as well, not sure anymore. Calistemon (talk) 23:06, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

As of today, all the licensing issues regarding Mr Gold's pictures are resolved and they can be used throughout Wikipedia. Your idea of further categorising them is a good one but I'm aware that there is a confusion (in my head, perhaps not in yours) as to how best to do this. To take one of our mutual favourite pictures, Yuendumu Gold 01.jpg as an example. On upload I categorised it as being "Yuendumu, Northern Territory" because that category already existed and was one I could apply to all the pictures in the batch I was doing. At that point, I couldn't also add it to "photographs by Ed Gold" because I wasn't confident about creating that category, as I've already said. Instead, I tagged the image as "man", "boomerang", "cave" and "art" in the part of the upload process where one is offered the chance of saying what "items are portrayed in this file". This becomes what Commons calls structured data: you can see it if you go to the page for the image and instead of having the tab "File information" open: which lets you see "Otto Jungarryi Sims sitting inside a cave near Yuendumu, Australia" try instead the tab "structured data".

So, my point is: how is Commons supposed to work? Given that the image has the correct structured data for "boomerang", is there really a need for it to be categorised as "Boomerangs", and even, as I now note, as "January 2018 in the Northern Territory". It seems to me (and I have a fair amount of experience with database search — for chemicals) that there is danger here of over-categorisation. "People sitting on rocks" seems like a pretty unlikely category for someone to seek out!

Is there policy set out for Commons somewhere? We editors could spend hours and hours creating new categories and applying them to our favourite images: for example I would categorise Otto into "Dreaming in art" or "Dreamtime" in the sense of "Aboriginal dreaming" but the latter is not yet set up as a recognised category. I'd be grateful if you could suggest where to raise this issue more widely, Calistemon. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 10:00, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

There is Commons:Categories as the official policy. Some categories may indeed seem silly and also quite vague but they can be broken down further, if required. Category Boomerangs may seem quite vague but you, or any other user, could create Category:Aboriginal Australians with boomerangs and there is probably a realistic need for such images. I once uploaded an image of a red back spider having caught a lizard in its net and it became a favourite for pest control companies and even made it into a National Geographic publication. You just can't tell what sort of image people require for their needs but, within reason, the more categories it is in, the more likely it is to be noticed and used. I used one of the images for the Witchetty grub article today because I found you had put it there, as an example. The year-month category for the NT may seem pointless from a current point of view but, in 50 or 100 years time, when somebody looks at this images, it gives it a historical context, just like looking at images of that age now do. See it as a long term investment. Structured data I have given up on. I received notifications in the beginning but it had many flaws that weren't addressed so I walked away from it. Calistemon (talk) 13:32, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That's very helpful Calistemon. I'll bear your comments in mind when uploading in future. It's a shame that regular editors like you don't find the structured data very useful: perhaps someone should suggest giving up on that information altogether — or at least allow user preferences for the Upload Wizard to "always skip" that bit of the process. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 13:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Question

How long does a block last? ———Muhammad 05:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

It can vary from hours to "forever". In your case, I note that you have been blocked indefinitely on the main Wikipedia because your account was a sockpuppet of Contributer1234 (also blocked). The only way to become unblocked is to admit in detail what you have been doing with these multiple accounts by posting on one of their Talk Pages. It is quite insufficient to say (as you did) that "I edit in accordance with Wikipedia:5 pillars" since that is irrelevant if you have been using multiple accounts to evade earlier blocks, totally in contravention of Wikipedia policy. So: own up, apologise and ask to be given one more chance to contribute productively and DO NOT create any more accounts in the meantime. Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 10:40, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Defence brand portal uploads

Hi, I noticed your two posts in December 2021 in Village Pump and on the Administrators' noticeboard - Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2021/12#Royal Regiment of Scotland cap badge and Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive_87#Multiple copyvios - regarding the Defence brand portal uploads by Coldstreamer20. I was surprised that they were not a copyright violation as well. I found there is a Ministry of Defence Illustration Licence available for the Defence Brand Portal after reading the Ministry of Defence copyright licensing information guidance. There isn't a licence tag for this licence on Commons. Coldstreamer20 might be the first to have uploaded from there. I suggested to Coldstreamer20 to create a licence tag on their talk - User talk:Coldstreamer20#Defence brand portal uploads and Ministry of Defence Illustration Licence.--Melbguy05 (talk) 07:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that MoD webpage is very relevant and I think it may be new as I tried to find such information when I was making my posts about the cap-badges. The webpage says People are free to use MOD insignia for illustration purposes. For example, to include a regimental badge in a website such as Wikipedia for the purposes of describing in their own words what that regiment does. so it is specifically using Wikipedia (Commons?) as an example. Maybe we need to confirm whether that text implies some sort of "fair use" only, possibly limited to use within articles on the regiment in question. For example, the license terms in Annex C say [not] j) for any commercial purpose, so they are a type of CC BY SA NC license. Normally this would not be OK for hosting on Commons. What is the best venue to discuss all this, Melbguy05? I didn't get any answers at all to my previous query! Michael D. Turnbull (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Coldstreamer20 attempted to create a licence tag for the Ministry of Defence Illustration Licence for Defence brand portal Template:MoD (UK) and received advice at Commons:Help desk here [1]--Melbguy05 (talk) 02:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

File:AIR Synthetase.svg

Hi! Thank you for pointing out the mistake, I corrected the graph and I think it turned out quite well. I'll keep an eye on it, just in case you notice any other errors. A big hug and see you.J3D3 (talk) 19:19, 8 February 2022 (UTC)