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See also: DR, HMS, …

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BotMultichill, BotMultichillT and Pi.1415926535

Multichill has been operating BotMultichill since 2007 and BotMultichillT since 2008. Commons:Bots/Requests/BotMultichill was only for a single task (transferring images from nlwiki); Commons:Bots/Requests/BotMultichillT was only for categorization. However, Multichill has since used them for a succession of other tasks without any new approval or even documentation. Currently they are editing SDC at an extremely high rate (>1 edit per second combined), which the community was not given any change to discuss at a bot request, and for which there is no documentation. Multichill outright refused my request to stop BotMultichill or make a request for new tasks, claiming that it doesn't need approval for new tasks because COM:BOTS did not require such approvals at the time the bot was approved in 2007. (New tasks requiring separate approvals has been part of that page since 2009, long before either bot was used for SDC tasks.)

Because Multichill refuses to stop the bots or file a request for the additional tasks they are being used for, I have blocked the bots until they have documentation and approval for all current tasks. I have no problem in principle with these bots being used to add SDC, but it is imperative that the community has a chance to discuss these tasks and how to minimize their impacts. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Even if we take Multichill's reasoning as true or factual, the BOTS version they shared contains a list of bots and, guess what, each has specific tasks, not for whatever the operator wants. Bedivere (talk) 00:37, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Both bots are approved and not malfunctioning. The bots have been functioning for nearly two decades with over 95 million edits. You don't agree with that. You blocked them to make your point. I consider this harassment and abuse of your admin privileges. Multichill (talk) 07:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

The bots were not approved for this task. They were each approved for a single task; that is not a blanket permission to use them for any possible task. I'm not sure what "point" I am making other than what COM:BOTS says: In principle, an unapproved bot may be blocked, though in practice unless the bot is doing harm the operator should normally be asked to submit a retroactive bot request. If it is noticed that a bot is being used for tasks which are significantly different from those specified in the original bot request, the bot operator should be asked to make a fresh bot request which specifies the new tasks. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

@Multichill: FWIW, BotMultichill was running really fast. I don't know how it decides what files to work on in what order, but it hit several hundred of my uploads yesterday, nearly swamping my watchlist. I was thinking of hitting you up about it. I wouldn't have used a block (I didn't even hit you up, just figured I'd wait and see if this continued for multiple days), but I can see why someone else might have. - Jmabel ! talk 20:20, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Multichill has unblocked both bots, which are now again operating without community approval for their tasks. @Multichill: I don't understand why you are escalating this, but these unblocks were highly inappropriate. Again, I have no problem in principle with these bots being used to add SDC; your claim that You don't agree with that is incorrect. If you file bot requests for these tasks, I don't foresee having any reason to object to them. I am solely concerned that the community has not had a chance to discuss these tasks and how to minimize their impacts. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I will reinstate the blocks, which were entirely appropriate, Pi. Multichill may see this as a non-issue, but in fact they should just go through the normal procedures instead of trying to get away with this. They should know better. Please don't unblock unless you are resuming already approved tasks. Bedivere (talk) 05:46, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Yesterday I was about to comment and simply ask Multichill to file a bot task request – a straightforward step and really more of a formality, though one that exists for a reason. At that stage, there was no real fault, only the absence of a proper task request. However, the decision to use the admin toolset to undo another administrator’s action (to benefit oneself) has significantly changed the situation. That move elevates the matter from a minor procedural concern to a serious one, because it is no longer just about bots, but also about the appropriate and responsible use of admin tools without prior discussion or consensus. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I can find no approvals for Krdbot, either. 75.99.166.226 16:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Please see

• Commons:Bots/Requests/Krdbot
• Commons:Bots/Requests/Krdbot 2
• Commons:Bots/Requests/Krdbot 3
• Commons:Bots/Requests/Krdbot 4
• Commons:Bots/Requests/Krdbot 6

Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Given that there appears to be no objection in principle to the work the bot does, and the length of time which it has been operating without issue, it would have been far, far better to initiate a discussion here without blocking the bots.

There is no damage to the project which needs a block to prevent it, and unneceeasssary drama could have been avoided. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:22, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree - the bots perform useful work, and blocking seems a bit too overboard. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 14:32, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I am not an administrator and therefore have no insight into these processes. Since I miss the bot, I finally looked into this thread. I take a lot of care to ensure that all available information is included in my contributions. The bot has been a great help to me in maintaining the SDC, which is unfortunately somewhat cumbersome with the other options available. I am sure we would have benefited more if this had not been escalated. Bureaucracy aside, if it detracts from the benefits, it makes no sense. --Syntaxys (talk) 03:46, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Temporary accounts postponed

For everyone not looking at the Pharicator tasks or the project page: The plan to deploy the temporary accounts on Commons this week was cancelled. The next deployment will be on enwiki on October 21 and Commons will be after this date. The WMF team said they will make an announcement two weeks before the deployment when there is the final date. GPSLeo (talk) 13:55, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

File apparently deleted unintentionally while deleting a file from a different deletion listing

When I closed Commons:Deletion requests/File:Photographic silhouette of a man and a woman against a sunset.jpg by deleting the file, the files in a different deletion request Commons:Deletion requests/File:Oficjalny Portret Prezydenta Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Karola Nawrockiego.jpg were apparently also deleted, with the automatic edit summary saying they were deleted because of the previous deletion request. I don't know how this happened. Has any other admin had a similar issue? See also discussion on my talk page, how I became aware of this at User talk:Infrogmation#File:Oficjalny Portret Prezydenta Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Karola Nawrockiego.jpg. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it has something to do with the missing header in the second DR? I noticed from the page history of Commons:Deletion requests/2025/08/06, that the second DR is directly below the first DR. I don’t how deletion works, but maybe the missing header in the second DR caused the gadget to mistakenly consider the second DR as part of the first DR, and then it was mistakenly deleted along with the first DR. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 19:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. (looks at deletion request history). Ah ha! Apparently this edit by @Artur Andrzej: removing the header was responsible. I have restored the header to that listing. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• ResolvedIssue appears resolved.
  -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Heraldry and OptimusPrimeBot

Hello,

The OptimusPrimeBot found similar images in my production.

But, this is coat of arms of families. Yes, in theory, the arms must be unique, but in fact, there are a lot of identical usage of the same coat of arms.

A coat of arms is not simply an image. It is an identifier for a entity (human or group). So same image is not same owner. It is not right to attribute another person's arms to someone just because the image is identical.

In my case, the images are identical because used by two different family branches not in same time.

I try to remove the template inserted by the bot, but it revoqued my correction. Is it possible to avoid usage of this bot in heraldry? It is not relevant.

If there is a template that prevents the bot from acting on images that are incorrectly flagged as duplicates, I am willing to use it.

Jpgibert (talk) 07:54, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Jpgibert can you please point me to a particular problematic image? I'll see how to make the bot smarter. vip (talk) 08:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi vip

I currently see this file

More generally, file names & descriptions are showing different purposes, examples among others: ex. #1 - ex. #2 - ex. #3

Kontributor 2K (talk) 09:46, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

edit: sorry, "this file" is actually an exact duplicate, so nothing abnormal. Kontributor 2K (talk) 09:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes File:Blason famille ie Bourke de Brittas.svg and File:Blason famille ie Bourke de Castleconnell.svg have the same visual aspect and the same code, but in heraldry it is not the same coat of arms, the armiger is different. Jpgibert (talk) 10:10, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok, the file is deleted without discussion. Have a nice day. Jpgibert (talk) 10:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I've ignored files in Category:With insignia, it should do the trick. vip (talk) 11:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Anyhow, if a file is actually an "exact duplicate" - per source code (hashing) - it will be tagged as such upon upload, and then automatically deleted/redirected by admins. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 11:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

UploadWizard does this? I added this feature in my bot to detect and delete the tenths of thousands exact duplicate files imported through flickr2commons. vip (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

It does - Wizard or not; you may try with any file, you'll be warned first and if you upload it anyway, it will be tagged as "exact duplicate", which will be displayed aside the "File usage on Commons" section of the file page description.

I'm not aware of flickr2commons uploads though. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 14:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but this feature is not enough to actually find all the duplicated files, the Template:Duplicate is needed for that. My bot adds this template on files reported every three days on Special:ListDuplicatedFiles, which only returns 5000 files at most. vip (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I see, the feature only adds the file in Special:ListDuplicatedFiles.

Anyway, ignoring files in ‘Category:With insignia’, or any category, could lead to miss genuine duplicates, when all a contributor needs to do is modify one bit in the source code of a file with the same design/content than an existing one, but intended for different uses, so that it's not identified as an exact duplicate. --Kontributor 2K (talk) 19:08, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Edit: Not to mention that not all CoA files use {{insignia}}

--Kontributor 2K (talk) 19:18, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

In future, I will add a 0 to the coordinate of a point to change the file hashcode.

But it will be better to create a template to flag a file as "yes it is identical, but it is ok for x reason". This template could be detected by the tool adding the files to the ListDuplicatedFiles to ignore it instead of ignoring all files in a category?

Jpgibert (talk) 07:43, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jpgibert: note that you are free to add to the description of any given file representing a coat of arms that it has more than one family for which it has been used, or whatever else will accurately describe its use. - Jmabel ! talk 04:15, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel, thanks for your remark, but it is not a good thing to link a file to several armiger (owner of coat of arms).

If someone change the file to fix an issue for a family (for example, change the tongue of a lion color), it will impact all other armiger without reason and induce several errors to fix only one. It is important to understand that coat of arms is not an image. An image is one representation possible of a blazon (technical heraldic description). If several armiger have the same blazon, the representations are the same when done by the same illustrator (me in this case).

What is important is the owner of the arms, not the representation. Two different owners must have two different coat of arms representations even if they are visually identical.

However, it is possible for simple coat of arms like gules a cross argent to create only one image with the blazon as file name (and not the armiger's name). In this case, we can associate several armigers to the same representation (in fact, the same blazon). @Kontributor 2K does this kind of thing regularly. But it is possible only for simple coat of arms.

Jpgibert (talk) 07:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jpgibert: when you write someone change[s] the file to fix an issue for a family, are you saying that the previous version was accurate for one family but inaccurate for the other? Or what? - Jmabel ! talk`

@Jmabel: if an image is associated to 3 families, if a contributor discovers that for one of these families the image is not correct, he/she can estimate that is a good thing to fix the error. But for the other families the correct image will become an error. To be clean, the user should duplicate the file and correct the new one. But it is highly likely that the person will not pay attention to the fact that the image is being shared. I've been through this before.

With one image for each armiger, no side effect possible.

Jpgibert (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jpgibert: Relative to the number of cases where we have the same coat of arms for two entities, how frequent is it that we have a change like this that would be a correction for one, but the introduction of an error for another? If it is actually quite frequent, then you are correct. Otherwise, yes, this would call for splitting.

Of course, another way to do this (especially when quite a few entities are using identical files for their coat of arms) is a file whose name is based solely on the blazon, with multiple redirects targeting that file, any one of which can be changed to point elsewhere. - Jmabel ! talk 14:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

File:Riley Williams.png

This is a driver's license photo from the state of Pennsylvania. Since there is no evidence that works by the state of Pennsylvania is ineligible for copyright could someone please delete it as copyvio? Trade (talk) 08:08, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

 Not done. Regular deletion process is going, situation is not urgent. Taivo (talk) 12:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Can't upload a new version of a file, although I am autopatrolled.

See File:Flag of the United States.svg; I have made an improvement to the SVG that will save space. Please allow me to upload it. JPxG (talk) 04:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

It's an 823-byte file. What possible value could there be in making it smaller? We have probably spent more time having this exchange here than all of the time that could possibly save in the entire future of the Internet. - Jmabel ! talk 04:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

It'd be 821 bytes if you let me upload it :( JPxG (talk) 04:39, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

So there is virtually no common Internet packet size where this would make an iota of difference. - Jmabel ! talk 12:10, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

2 bytes less? Is this a joke?  Not done Bedivere (talk) 13:08, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

https://files.catbox.moe/afonlp.svg 688 bytes just in svgo  $999$REAL 💬 ⬆   19:07, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Are "Sum of all paintings" project galleries welcome on wiki commons?

Hi to all, I'll try to keep as concise as possible a relatively complex matter regarding gallery pages belonging to the Sum of all paintings project.

The project contains around a thousand pages, which are wikidata-backed automated lists (edited by Listeriabot) acting as galleries for paintings either made by specific artists or belonging to a certain museum. Having recently created two pages of that sort, I was informed by @Jameslwoodward that this kind of gallery shouldn't be present on wiki commons, as they do not conform to COM:Galleries, since they do not use <gallery></gallery> tags and a simple caption, and that they would better be placed on WP. The persistence of the other pages was in fact due to them having being created by autopatrolled users, whose edits would typically not be scrutinized, and it is my own lower count of edits that brought my creations to the attention @Jameslwoodward. By his suggestion I then bring the matter of what is to be done to a more public debate. The (unintended) current situation thus far being all creations of pages of the sort being forbidden unless they were done by autopatrolled users, its obvious unfairness could be solved by, in my eye, only two options: allowing or forbidding their creation globally.

As you guessed I am in favour of adding an exception to the gallery rules enabling the format of the lists created for the Sum of all paintings project to survive and be expanded, for the few following reasons:

• Similar lists on WP are entirely user-made, the commons lists are based on wikidata entries, and are thus completely different (compare this to this, 90 vs around 360 entries). Even copypasting the commons lists to WP would require scrutiny of a thousand lists of different artists in tens of different languages, to check that every entry unique to each project has properly been added to the final WP list.
• The commons lists are in fact duplicates of similar lists found on wikidata (compare here to here). The commons lists are however, due to the structure of commons, much easier to find, as they are properly placed in each painter's Paintings category. By comparison the wikidata lists are only accessible through this category and nowhere else, which is impossible to reach if one is not aware of the existence of the Sum of all paintings project. I must stress that this ListeriaBot automated list is actually one of its kind on the entirety on the Internet: there's basically no other website that present such a detailed global catalogue of paintings, which is much better ordered than the Paintings category, and much more complete than the lists present on WP, as it is wikidata-backed. I think it is in the interest of the scope of the project to make this list as easy to find as possible, which will not be the case if it can be found only on wikidata.
• It would save me the personal embarrassment of having caused the downfall of the entire Sum of all paintings project on wiki commons, as its survival seems to have been due thus far to its secrecy.

I am thus arguing for the preservation of a useful project by adding an exception to the Commons:Galleries rules, thank you for having read my arguments. Ostrea (talk) 17:12, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I don't see any reason why we could not have these pages on Commons. If the rules do not fit the project, do not change the project, change the rules. Yann (talk) 17:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand why Commons should host pages that belong on WP -- there are many pages very similar to these on WP, so why should these be here rather than there? We are a repository for images and other media. We explicitly reject anything that looks like encyclopedic content, so allowing these pages will require not only a change to COM:Galleries, but also to Commons:Project scope. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 19:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Are you saying that these galleries should not be on Commons: Paintings by Paul Cézanne, Mohandas K. Gandhi, John Ruskin? Yann (talk) 20:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I think these are perfectly legitimately on Commons, and that Commons is the most appropriate place for them. At least one of the examples given in our guideline Commons:Galleries (Pronunciation of Dutch municipality names) does not make any use of the <gallery> tag at all. - Jmabel ! talk 02:26, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I am also in favour of keeping the "SOAP" lists (they are not galleries, but lists!) here on Commons. I've explained my reasoning on Ostrea (talk · contribs)'s talk page, where my opinion was implicitly sollicited, and it boils down to this: the purpose of those lists is not to serve as Wikidata duplicates, but to give Commons users who have no idea what Wikidata is and how it works the opportunity to check at one glance which paintings are already on Commons. This is quite useful for Commons in order to avoid duplicates on Commons. Edelseider (talk) 08:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Agree with @Yann and I'm supportive of adding an exception to the Galleries guideline. I'm acutally also supportive to consider these Galleries and thus would also support a broadening of the scope of that guidance. However, I fail to see how this is an admin related topic. It should be discussed on VP instead, or better Commons:Village pump/Proposals --Schlurcher (talk) 11:14, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

My apologies if the place is inadequate, I first thought that this was a matter of personal disagreement between me and Jameslwoodward, as I was under the impression that only my creations were deleted, which is why I announced him that I would bring the matter to the noticeboard if we couldn't solve it, which would have been fitting under these circumstances. He then clarified my misunderstanding by telling me that this was in fact a policy matter, and that he would be glad to discuss it further on this noticeboard, and I then followed suit. I don't know if the entire written discussion can be somehow just moved from the noticeboard to the village pump, but if it cannot I'll write a sum up there, with a link to this section of the noticeboard for further details. Ostrea (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Rename request

Can an admin take a look at File:Sunuwar Letter Utth.png? Two files need their names switched apparently. Thanks. Geoffroi 22:47, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Here's another rename request with the same situation: File:Charles Green Balloonist.jpg. Geoffroi 23:08, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Geoffroi,  Done Kadı Message 09:16, 11 October 2025 (UTC)