Upload marked for deletion

Hey, you recently marked my upload for speedy deletion here. However, the source I took it from, here, is marked "Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution alone" on the footer of every page. Perhaps I have misunderstood the copyright license, but I thought that allowed me to reproduce the image here. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 03:25, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi Ficaia. Thanks for contacting me. It's easy to see why you're confused by these seemingly contradictory licenses. Here's the situation:

• The painting was originally created for and published by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA). It was published in the journal Hesperia in 1955, and that journal article is still under copyright. The ASCSA has made the image available to the public as part of its Digital Archive, but it retains the copyright, as stated on the "Rights and Permissions" page of the ASCSA web site.
• Although it retains the copyright, the ASCSA has no objection to the use of the image for non-commercial and educational purposes, under the Fair Use doctrine of US copyright law, and it was under those provisions that David Sider, the author of the article in which you found the image, used it. (As the link in his figure caption indicates, he took the image directly from the ASCSA Digital Archive.) There is nothing wrong or unethical about that: he was free to use the image in an academic article, as is anyone else, including you and me. But the fact that he was allowed to reproduce the image under the Fair Use doctrine does not transfer the copyright on that image to him or to the publisher of his article. He does hold the copyright on the text of his article, which is his own work, but not to any illustrations, like this one, which are not his own work. So when the publisher or the author marked his article with a CC 4.0 license, what they were licensing is the text of the article. They were not licensing the image, which is not theirs to license. In that respect the CC 4.0 label is misleading. It's a confusing situation, but it's normal in archaeological and art historical publications, where the author of an article is very frequently not the creator of the illustrations.
• What all this means is that you are free to use the image if you want to in personal, educational, or non-commercial work of your own, just like anyone else. The ASCSA doesn't object to that; in fact, they encourage it. But unfortunately you cannot post it to the Commons under a CC 4.0 license, because the ASCSA still holds the copyright, and the Commons only hosts images that are free of all copyright restrictions (see Commons:Licensing). It explicitly does not allow images that are reproduced under the Fair Use doctrine (see Commons:Fair Use).

It's a great image, especially the full-color version, and a great little vase. (I've seen it in person.) Feel free to use it elsewhere for any non-commercial purpose. But please don't upload it to the Commons. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 11:46, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. It's a shame we can't keep it, but I guess we'll just have to hope someone takes their own photo of the vase and uploads it as their own work. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

BTW, I think I've made the same mistake here, here and here. So they'll probably have to go too, alas. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 12:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Ficaia: Ah, yes, I'm afraid so. Since those specific photographs are owned and copyrighted by the Greek Ephorate of Antiquities and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, they cannot be hosted by the Commons either. They're all fairly well-known vases, however, and when I have a chance, I'll look around and see if I can find any copyright-free images available online. If nothing else, I will visit the Greek galleries on my next trip to the MFA in Boston (I live in Massachusetts) and see if I can get photos of the two vases in their collection. I don't know whether they are on display, or whether they will produce good photos if they are, since reflections are often a problem with objects enclosed in glass cases. But I'll try, and if I'm successful I'll upload the images as replacements for yours. But in the meantime, yes, I'm afraid they will have to be flagged for deletion. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 13:59, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Autopatrol given

Hello. I just wanted to let you know that I have granted autopatrol rights to your account; the reason for this is that I believe you are sufficiently trustworthy and experienced to have your contributions automatically marked as "reviewed". This has no effect on your editing, it is simply intended to make it easier for users that are monitoring Recent changes or Recent uploads to find unproductive edits amidst the productive ones like yours. In addition, the Flickr upload feature and an increased number of batch-uploads in UploadWizard, uploading of freely licensed MP3 files, overwriting files uploaded by others and an increased limit for page renames per minute are now available to you. Thank you. —‍Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 00:13, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Choliamb (talk) 01:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Boston MFA

Hey, I don't know if you plan on visiting the Boston MFA again, but if you do perhaps you could look out for this piece to photograph. Commons doesn't have any ancient depictions of the marriage of Helen and Menelaus (as far as I can see), and it would be nice to fill that gap in our collection. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 04:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ficaia: I'd be happy to do it, but according to the MFA website that vase is not currently on display, so I won't be able to photograph it any time soon. Sorry. Choliamb (talk) 04:57, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

i genuinely thank you

	ankara kalesi in 1993
	i genuinely thank you because you uploaded bunch of relatively old photos of ankara castle. you had bring light to our knowledge. ----modern_primat ඞඞඞ TALK 19:08, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@Modern primat: Thanks. I'm glad you find them useful. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 22:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The Propylaea of Athens

Hello Choliamb

On File:Propilei - Pomardi Simone - 1820.jpg, why did you remove "Category:The Propylaea in 1820". In my opinion, it's a usefull information to know the story of that building. When I think of it, it's probably because this drawing was made a few years earlier and published in 1820.

Sincerly. Io Herodotus (talk) 09:54, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Io Herodotus. I hope you don't mind that I moved your question here to my main user talk page, where I think you intended to put it, rather than on the talk page of my cheatsheet of Institution templates, where I almost overlooked it.

As for your question: yes, the explanation you suggested is precisely the reason I removed the 1820 date. Pomardi accompanied Edward Dodwell to to Greece in 1804–1806, and all of the original drawings and watercolors that formed the basis for the illustrations in Dodwell's publications and in Pomardi's own book were made during that trip. So while the date of the engraving itself is 1820, it's not quite true to describe it as a view of the Propylaea in 1820. I see you've moved it to the 1800's (i.e., 1800–1810), which is more accurate, and is what I probably should have done, rather than just removing the category. My apologies for that.

But if you want to assign it a more precise date, I think you can. The original drawings made by Dodwell and Pomardi on that trip were the subject of an exhibition at the British Museum in 2013. Looking through the book that was published in conjunction with that exhibition, I see that all of the drawings of buildings on the Athenian Acropolis were made in 1805, including one of the Propylaea from the same angle as this (much simplified) Pomardi engraving. So I think it would be mostly accurate to describe this as a view of the Propylaea in 1805 (even if Pomardi did make some changes, like the addition of the cannons at the top of the facade, when adapting it for the 1820 publication).

Personally, however, I'm not sure that these individual year categories, which usually contain only one or two images, are very helpful to users. Certainly I find them a little annoying, since when I go looking for a view of the Propylaea in the 19th century I have to keep clicking on every single subcategory, over and over, just to see what's available. And it easily leads to the separation of related files: so, for example, one copy of James Robertson's photograph of the Propylaea in 1857 (File:A ruined temple, Greece.jpg) is placed in Category:The Propylaea in the 1850s, while another version of the same photograph (File:James Robertson, The Propylae on the Acropolis, 1857, NGA 155347.jpg) is placed in Category:The Propylaea in 1857, without any way for a casual user who sees one of them to know that the other exists. It would be more useful, in my opinion, to group such images together in larger categories like "Historical views of the Propylaea" or "19th century views of the Propylaea", or "Views of the Propylaea before the Greek war of independence." Anyone who wants to know the precise year of a given image can read the description. I think this is more consistent with the way that most people use the Commons. But again, that's just my opinion, and I understand if you feel differently. I'm certainly not going to start nominating such categories for deletion.

Best wishes, Choliamb (talk) 13:01, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Bronze head of a woman (Boston MFA 96.712)

Hi Mark,

Just wanted to let you know that I used your lovely image of a bronze head of a woman (Boston MFA 96.712) in my latest post on Substack. Feel free to check it out if you are curious how it turned out.

Thank you so much for making your photos free to use. I really appreciate it! 37.63.98.211 17:58, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to leave a note! It's always a pleasure to hear that someone has found a photo useful. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 13:43, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Corinth Turkish fountain of Mourat Aga 01 and 02

Hi Mark, Just wanted to let you know that I used your lovely photos of a never photographed fountain in Corinth, Greece in a voluntary project to create an interactive cultural inventory. Feel free to chech it out. Alicembasli (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

@Alicembasli: Hi Ali. Thanks for the note. The inventory looks very interesting, and I'm delighted to know that you found the photos useful. One small note: there doesn't seem to be a photo credit on the page that you linked. You may use the images free of charge for any purpose you like, but the terms of the Creative Commons license do have one restriction: you must give credit to the photographer. You can do that either by adding a short credit line (e.g., "Photos: Mark Landon - Wikimedia Commons") or by linking the thumbnail images back to the original photo pages here on the Commons, where the attribution and the license are listed. Thanks for understanding, and best of luck with the project. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 20:11, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mark, thank you for the note. To view the page to which each photo is linked, you can click on the "Kaynak" text in the image caption when you click on the photo. Photo captions also indicate the person who took the photo and the date the photo was taken. But I also added your name and page to the references. Thank you for your understanding. Cheers. Alicembasli (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@Alicembasli: Ah, yes, I see. I didn't look closely enough, and I had javascript turned off when I first looked at the page, so the captions didn't appear. Sorry about that, and thanks for the clarification. It's certainly not necessary to list me in the references on the main page as long as the credit appears in the caption, so feel free to remove that if you prefer. In looking through the other Corinthian entries in the inventory, I noticed that the only image you have for the fountain house above the village of Anaploga on the northwest slope of Acrocorinth (Anaploga Çeşmesi) is a YouTube video. I have a few photographs of that one too, also taken in the 1990s, if they're of any use to you. You can find them in Category:Turkish fountain house above Anaploga (Corinth). Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 21:33, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello again, Mark. I added these photos to the mentioned fountain entry, citing the same way. Thank you very much for sharing these wonderful photographs of these structures, whose photographs are difficult to obtain. Cheers, Cem. Alicembasli (talk) 13:50, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

File:Ayia Photini, Mantineia (1994).jpg

File:Ayia Photini, Mantineia (1994).jpg has been nominated for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ayia Photini, Mantineia (1994).jpg This is a deletion request for the community to discuss whether the nominated page should be kept or deleted. Please voice your opinion in the linked request above. Thank you very much! If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you! Afrikaans ∙ العربية ∙ беларуская ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ български ∙ ပအိုဝ်ႏဘာႏသာႏ ∙ বাংলা ∙ bosanski ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ Deutsch (Sie-Form) ∙ Zazaki ∙ ދިވެހިބަސް ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ English ∙ Esperanto ∙ español ∙ eesti ∙ فارسی ∙ suomi ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ עברית ∙ hrvatski ∙ magyar ∙ հայերեն ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ íslenska ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ 조선말 ∙ кыргызча ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Bahasa Melayu ∙ မြန်မာဘာသာ ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk nynorsk ∙ norsk ∙ occitan ∙ polski ∙ پښتو ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ română ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ shqip ∙ српски / srpski ∙ svenska ∙ ไทย ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

🏺ⲈⲨⲐⲨⲘⲈⲚⲎⲊ🏛️ ^{ⲱⲑⲏⲥⲁⲧⲉ} 15:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Athanasios Rhousopoulos

Hi Choliamb, you've added Category:Antiquities sold by Athanasios Rhousopoulos to Category:Pyxis, British Museum, Reg.Nr. 1873,0111.7. Just out of curiosity, do you have any source, that supports the sale of this item to the BM by Athanasios Rhousopoulos. I'm asking because the entry in the BM database (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1873-0111-7) says, that the Pyxis was sold to the BM by Charles Merlin (Acquisition name Purchased from: Charles Merlin) and not Athanasios Rhousopoulos. Kind regards Agentjoerg (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi Agentjoerg. Both of those things are true. Rhousopoulos didn't sell it to the BM directly; he sold it to Merlin, who passed it on to the BM. My source is an article by Yannis Galanakis, who has done a lot of research on the 19th-century antiquities trade in general, and on Charles Merlin and his role as an agent for the BM in particular: see "On Her Majesty’s Service: C. L. W. Merlin and the Sourcing of Greek Antiquities for the British Museum", which is cited in the enwiki article on Merlin, where this pyxis appears as an illustration. If you're interested in Merlin, the Galanakis article is well worth a read: he went through Merlin's correspondence with Charles Newton (the keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities at the BM) and put together a detailed account of Merlin's activities as a middleman between the museum and the antiquities dealers in Athens. (For that pyxis in particular, see the caption to figure 7). Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 11:44, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Choliamb, the article "On Her Majesty’s Service ..." is really interesting. I'll put a note in the category about Charles Merlin being the middleman. Cheers. --Agentjoerg (talk) 13:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Ancient Roman exhibits in the Afyonkarahisar Archaeological Museum

Hello Choliamb,

I thanked you for correcting two mistakes I made regarding this category. I created it in haste, intending to add "Byzantine... " etcetera later, but in one or two days. Then I saw you added items about which I was unsure to the category, so I think it has value. I have well over 100 pictures from a 2012 visit that I intend to add, but am unsure about the categories several might fit in. If possible I will create some, but if you feel up to it adding descriptions or categories to some that would be helpful. I do this categorising a lot and it is getting easier as museum provide more information. But in particular older pictures cause me lots of trouble. And of some museums other people provide good information, of others it is just the name of the museum. On a site of my own I had some assistance of specialists, but I often simply am not sure. Could you take a look at AfyonkarahisarMuseum (41).JPG ? You moved it to Ancient Roman statues in the Afyonkarahisar Archaeological Museum, but it still is also in Ancient Greek statues of sphinxes in Turkey (with three others that also have a double categorisation. I thought the two were mutually exclusive, or aren't they? Kindest regards. Dosseman (talk) 18:05, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Dosseman. The sphinx in File:AfyonkarahisarMuseum (41).JPG is certainly a very odd piece of sculpture, and if someone told me that it was modern rather than ancient, I wouldn't be surprised. But if it is ancient, it is no earlier than the Roman imperial period, to judge from the style of the carving. It's often difficult to decide how best to describe works of art created during the Roman empire. Is a statue by a Greek sculptor working in Roman Italy in the 1st century CE a Greek work or a Roman work? And in central Asia Minor, where there are native Anatolians as well as Greeks and Romans in the mix, it becomes even harder. The problem is that these words are used in more than one way, and it's not always clear whether a given source is using "Roman" or "Greek" as a description of ethnicity, or chronology, or geography, or simply style. For this reason, "Greek" and "Roman" categories are not always mutually exclusive. This inscription honoring Septimius Severus, for example, is written in Greek, but it is Roman in date and it honors a Roman emperor, so both of the categories currently applied to it ("Ancient Roman exhibits in the Afyonkarahisar Archaeological Museum" and "Ancient Greek inscriptions in Turkey") are accurate: the first describes the date and the political and historical context, the second describes the language. The case of the sphinx, however, is rather different: I see nothing Greek about this sculpture, and in my opinion it should not be in the category "Ancient Greek statues of sphinxes in Turkey". The other photos currently in that category (the sphinxes in the Side museum) should not be there either, because they are Roman, not Greek, in both date and sculptural style. If you want to create a category for Roman sphinxes in Turkey, you can move all four of those images there instead. When I think of sphinxes in Turkey that are certainly Greek, not Roman (i.e., created in Greek cities by Greek sculptors before the Roman period), the ones that come to mind are mostly Archaic works from the Ionian colonies on the Aegean coast, like those along the sacred way between Miletos and Didyma. For examples of these, see your photo File:Miletus Museum Sphinxes on sacred road in 2015 3392.jpg and my photo File:Didyma sphinx from the Sacred Way (S 165).jpg. Neither of these photos is currently in the "Ancient Greek statues of sphinxes in Turkey" category, but both of them could appropriately be added in place of the sphinxes from Afyon and Side. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 19:38, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Question about Funerary Altar

Hello, @Choliamb: in this edit, did you mean to remove the category saying that the piece is in Gallery 162? The Met web site still lists it as being displayed there. ManuelKomnenos (talk) 20:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Hi ManuelKomnenos. No, that was not intentional. I must have accidentally hit the change button instead of the add button in HotCat when I added it to the category for Roman funerary altars, which I did for several altars in the Met. I've restored the gallery category. Thanks for catching the error. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 21:06, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! ManuelKomnenos (talk) 23:29, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Archaeological museum in Brindisi

Great work for the archaeological museum in Brindisi. Fabrizio Garrisi (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

@Fabrizio Garrisi: Thanks! The feeling is mutual: I've noticed and admired your excellent photos of antiquities in Taranto, Lecce, and elsewhere. You have obviously given a lot of thought to the categorizing of the collections in other museums, especially Taranto, so if you're going to add more photos of material in Brindisi, please feel free to adjust my categories as you see fit.

I'm not very happy with the quality of my photos of the bronzes from Punta del Serrone. The lighting in that gallery created very strong contrasts and made it difficult for me to get a good balance of light and shadow without losing detail in the dark areas or blowing out the bright areas. Most of the photos are mediocre, and I only uploaded so many because it's an important group of sculptures and I was surprised to find almost no images of them at all in the Commons. You're a better photographer than I am and you have better equipment (I'm still using a little Sony RX100, which is very good for a compact pocket camera but can't compare with a DSLR), so if you have better photos of some of bronzes please do upload them. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 00:23, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Although I often visit Puglia, my homeland, I had never been to the Museum of Brindisi. It is less well known than those in Taranto and Lecce. That's why there were no images of its exhibits on Commons. Inspired by your photos on Commons, I went there for the first time two weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised. I photographed the bronzes from Punta del Serrone, combating the reflections from the display cases with a polarising filter. However, none of my photos turned out better than yours, which are not bad as you said, but on the contrary are very well done. So I limited myself to uploading those of artefacts for which there were no other images. Now there are hundreds of images of the museum uploaded to Commons, so I have organised them by cultural origin (the different “antiquities”), by type of object and by place of discovery. If you have any suggestions or errors to report, especially regarding English terms, I would be grateful. And please excuse my poor English, for which I resort to Google Translate (which I blame when I say stupid things). Good night. Fabrizio Garrisi (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@Choliamb: Dear Choliamb, you are doing a splendid job.

@Fabrizio Garrisi: Thanks, Fabrizio. And thank you for the additional photos and for your careful categorization of the collection. I have now finished uploading all of my photographs from Brindisi, so I won't be adding anything more there, but I do have photos from other museums taken during the same trip to Puglia last October, and I hope to upload some of them over the next few months. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Categorising issues

Dear Choliamb, I occasionally come across your work but not knowing all aliases I then check “who was this person” and again read “Grumpy archaeologist.” I am not even an archaeologist, but grumpy I can be. Like you I often publish pictures taken in (mainly Turkish) museums, that I then try to group somewhat usefully in existing or maybe newly created categories. Doing so I often come across categories with one picture that could more easily be fitted in larger existing categories. I was about to publish pictures of: Ancient Roman steles in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums“. And immediately saw a sub-category “Gravestone of Severius Acceptus“. It had one picture. On a site of my own this object is unnamed but next to a similar one of another soldier. And them being next to each other I saw similarities in iconography. That insight would get lost of I published it in a category of its own, as the Severius Acceptus one. I checked who created that category, saw it was a “Agentjoerg“, a new star at the Wiki firmament to me, so I looked at his talk page as I often do to get the feel of some contributor. I found you are partner in lengthy exchanges of opinion about categorisation. And decided to write to you that 1. I think you are the level-headed one, 2. Agentjoerg should re-evaluate his opinions, which I think are wrong. I thought of giving him my five cents, but as to me he is just one of many people I know who will not rest until each object has a category of its own (he wrote “I thought, it would be beneficial to have a category for every object”). Like you I let it depend on the number of pictures, the number of objects in the main category and similar practical elements. I often return to add objects later and find someone has cut it up in tens of sub-categories, and cross-categorised, sorting along size, posture, material, appliances in view and other nonsense. Often those cross-categories would make sense if they supplied all objects described in the name, but instead people create them for a few objects, then leave it to others to fill their categories. It can be maddening. I wanted this off my chest, blowing off Agentjoerg-generated steam and expressing my support for your sensible attitude. Now back to “Ancient Roman steles in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums”. I confess I immediately see room for some sub-category of my own, with say 6 or more pictures. By the way, I sometimes create “galleries” if a subject has too many sub-categories, with one good example per object. That makes it easier to locate them in their sub-category but takes a lot of work. I wish that could be automated (and feel in future that might be a job for AI).

Hi Dosseman. Yes, as you've seen, there are aspects of AJ's approach to categories that I don't agree with, especially the creation of an individual category for every object, even if that category contains only a single image. I see that he hasn't contributed many photos to the Commons (only 20 files, back in 2017), but he has created thousands of categories, which shows that the act of categorization has become an end in itself for him. There's nothing wrong with that, but as with many such users, the urge to devise a consistent scheme that satisfies his own desire for order seems more important than thinking about the way in which categories are actually used both by contributors and by visitors to the site. Nevertheless, for good or ill, this is a collaborative project: no one is in charge, which makes it hard to stop users with their own ideas about how things should be, unless they become actively disruptive. At the English Wikipedia, there are strict rules for categorization, and a system of enforcement mechanisms for those who do not follow them, but here at the Commons it's more like the wild wild West. I've seen many discussions about categorization at the Village Pump, and I am certain that most users do not approve of categories with only a single image in them, but such discussions almost always end with no action. If you feel strongly about it, there's nothing wrong with leaving a polite note on his talk page and asking him not to create single-image categories. You can, of course, also bring the matter up for discussion at the Village Pump, but as I mentioned above, it seems to be very hard to get a consensus for action there. Your only other alternative is to shake your head and just accept it. This is what I do. I have a limited amount of time to spend on the Commons, and I don't want to spend it arguing with people. I still have thousands of photos to upload, and I'd rather do that. Keep in mind that, in the end, any system of categorization is temporary, since it's hard to imagine Commons existing in anything like its present form 50 years from now. But once they have been uploaded, the images themselves will remain available for people to use, one way or another. That's the important thing. Choliamb (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello Choliamb,

Thanks for your answer, I think we think alike. I did not mention that I appeared as guest speaker on a Wikipedia Conference for Turkish Language Wiki’s in Istanbul in 2023. There I expressed several issues I had, amongst them categorization. I had the feeling some people attending might be (over)doing that themselves and hoped they’d accept my point of view. But I know a few hard nuts by alias and one of the people annoying me most has been harassing me years ago to an extent I avoided publishing on Turkey for a while. Like you I have thousands of pictures I want to publish and indeed “shake my head and just accept it”. I uploaded so many pictures by now that pigeonholing them may be beyond the time available to people who love inventing categories. On that matter I asked advise of a high-ranking Wikipedian I once consulted who also explained I might get involved in edit wars I would loose. I essentially wanted to thank you for your lengthy correspondence on the subject and express my agreement, hoping some people might read it and come to their senses. And indeed a major reason I work on commons now is that I am 77, my pictures will outlive me and have a chance to be used in a future far ahead. Dosseman (talk) 08:01, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thank you for your contribution. George E. Koronaios (talk) 03:25, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Could you advise?

I've been categorizing coins because I wanted to learn more about ancient coins. I don't use a bot or anything because that would defeat my purpose in doing this as a mode of study. I don't really like to engage in administrative or technical discussions at Commons; my interest is content — historical and art historical. But I'm unclear what's happening at Category:Coins from Gallica by name.

It looks as if the contributor is using a bot to categorize coins from Gallica by the first two words of the file name, and has placed the resulting categories under this "by name" category. Some coins do have nicknames, but these aren't coin names in that sense. They're just the first two words or so of the file name. I don't see how this is a valid approach to diffusion or categorization, and it creates redundancies and potential confusion. For example, Category:Litra exists; what purpose does it serve to have Category:Monnaie - Litra? Nor does it create a useful working category, since if someone wishes to find uncategorized litra at Gallica, they just need to search monnaie litra needing as keywords. This has occurred with hemidrachm, tetradrachm, and other coin terms that already exist as categories.

I haven't nominated a category for discussion before, and to be honest I don't want to spend time on figuring out how. If this is harmless, I'll just avert my gaze as long as they don't start deleting Category:Coins from Gallica needing categories. I hope it isn't burdensome that I'm asking for your advice on whether or how I should proceed. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:15, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi Cynwolfe. Just to be clear, I'm not an administrator, and like you, I prefer to work on content and not get involved in disputes over technical or administrative issues. I certainly disagree with the approaches to categorization taken by some other users, and have said as much to some of them, but I have a limited amount of time to spend on the Commons and I'd rather spend it uploading my own photos for future use by teachers and others in the field than arguing with people over the best way to organize them. So I usually just grit my teeth and ignore what I consider to be misleading or unhelpful categorization. As I said to another user higher up on this page, the categories are transient, and ultimately unimportant, since it's hard to imagine Commons existing in anything like its present form a few decades from now. The freely-licensed images themselves, however, and the information associated with them on the file description pages, are of permanent value, and will (I hope) continue to be useful long after the internet as we know it has been transformed into something different and unrecognizable. So I concentrate on uploading and annotating photos, and trusting that end users will find them by searching, one way or another.

That said, it's clear that the coin categories you've pointed out are problems in the short term, and that they are making the work of people like you, who are slowly but surely categorizing these images according to appropriate numismatic criteria, harder rather than easier. I doubt they're being performed by a bot; more likely this is just a user who has only recently discovered the Cat-a-lot tool (see User talk:Eskivor#Mass category diffusion) and is trying, in a well-meaning but unhelpful way, to make a dent in some of the gigantic unsorted categories of Gallica images. It's clear that they have little or no knowledge of ancient coins, and some of their categories are obviously nonsensical (all of the ones with names based on digits, for example). So the first step is to ask them to stop, to prevent the creation of more problem categories on top of those that already exist. I'm going to do that now, and then I'll come back here and suggest a couple of steps you might take to try to put things back in place. Choliamb (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

OK, I've asked them to stop. I hope that will be enough to limit the problem to what has already been done. (There are certainly enough other Gallica images to keep them busy even without the coins!) If they don't stop, the next step is to go to one of the noticeboards. Personally, I don't want to do that, because ugh. But if you feel strongly enough about it, you could ask politely at the Village Pump how best to handle the situation. A message like the one you left for me above, coupled with the fuller explanation that I left on the user's talk page, would probably make the problems clear to uninvolved editors, who might be able to give you some useful advice. The Village Pump here is much more of a general discussion board than the more highly subdivided and regimented VP at Wikipedia, and if you phrase your comment as a question rather than an accusation, it will seem less confrontational than a report to the AN/U (user problems) board. I don't think the editor in question is making a mess of things willfully or heedlessly; I think they are probably trying to help, in an area that badly needs help, and just don't realize that some knowledge of numismatics is necessary to avoid making a hash of things.

As for ameliorating the damage already done: you write I'll just avert my gaze as long as they don't start deleting Category:Coins from Gallica needing categories. Sadly, I'm afraid that ship has sailed. In my spot checks of several images in their new categories, it looks as if the user has removed the files from the "needing categories" maintenance category when assigning them to the new ones. This will require some work on your part to reverse, although probably less than you fear:

• You say you're unfamiliar with the "categories for discussion" process, but that is not the only way to deal with problem categories. That process is for changes to categories that might be contested by other editors and therefore require discussion. If, on the other hand, the category in question is clearly inaccurate or a duplicate or problematic in some other obvious way (as many of this user's categories are), it's within your rights as an editor to unilaterally redirect it, on the assumption that if anyone strongly objects, they'll revert you or otherwise let you know that they disagree. I've done this several times when the circumstances seemed to warrant it, because (as you know) it's not at all uncommon for editors who are unfamiliar with classical antiquity to misunderstand the sources and fail to realize that A is just another name for B, or that there are a couple of dozen different cities named Herakleia that need to be carefully distinguished. You can do the redirecting yourself very easily using Template:Category redirect. So, for example, if you wanted to redirect Category:Monnaie - Litra to Category:Litra, you would put this at the top of the "Monnaie - Litra" page {{Category redirect |1=Litra |reason=duplicate category}}. Using this template retains a page for the incorrect name, but adds a notice pointing anyone who lands there to the correct category. In the case of many of these categories, however, especially the nonsense categories with numbers instead of names, I think you could ask for them to be speedy deleted instead; for that, use Template:Badname.

• Either way, whether you redirect a category or mark it for speedy deletion, you need to empty it out first. It's easy enough to move the images en masse, using Cat-a-lot. (You do use Cat-a-lot, don't you? If not, run, don't walk, to your user preferences and check the Cat-a-Lot box in the Gadgets tab to activate it.) But the question is, move to where? You could move all of the files from Category:Monnaie - Litra to Category:Litra, but is that what you want? It would dump a big bunch of otherwise undifferentiated files into the Litra category. There's probably little harm in this, because all of the Gallica coins with filenames beginning in "Litra" probably are litrai. But that's clearly not the case with the user's "numerical" categories ("Monnaie - 1", "Monnaie 1-4", etc.), which combine many different kinds of coins that cannot be mass-moved back to a single location. Since these numerical categories have meaningless names, the coins are effectively uncategorized, and I think you'd probably want to move the contents back to the maintenance category Category:Coins from Gallica needing categories. In some cases, you might want to do both: move them to a general denomination category, like Hemiobol or Dupondius, but also add the maintenance category to ensure that you don't overlook them when you are adding other relevant categories, like city of issue or whatever.

I'm not an expert on either ancient coins or Commons policies, but in my opinion, these categories are clearly problematic enough that they fall under the umbrella of things that any editor may reasonably correct without putting them up for community discussion. If I'm wrong about that, someone will object, and then we can discuss it further. Nothing is irrevocable, and so long as everyone acts in good faith, it doesn't have to be an adversarial process. That's my diobol's worth, anyway. Cheers, Choliamb (talk) 16:18, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so very much for responding with this excellent advice. I preferred to ask someone who seemed interested in content, and I appreciate what you say about the future of Commons.

That is depressing news about the "needing" category. Your proposed remedy is what I would want.

I'm having some computer issues at present and may not be on Commons much till I get them sorted. Also, the Gallica catalogue at BnF is migrating and has been inaccessible the last couple of days, which affects another issue I'm trying to solve to do with files mysteriously misnamed during importation into Commons. If you see me about, I'll probably be puttering with some small thing that I find soothing until I can turn my fuller attention. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:48, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Just so I can manifest my technical ignorance for all to see, where do I find the Gadgets tab? I didn't immediately see it under Tools or in the Main Menu sidebar.

During my computer-mandated break, I was reading a physical book on numismatic topics sold by some poor soul who apparently didn't realize that you can charge exorbitant prices on used books to do with coins because of coin collectors, lest idly curious folk like me get hold of them and divulge the arcana, I guess; though this was not a catalogue. Anyway, there's a little topic I want to sort out for my own pleasure first, now that the BnF links are functional again, but I'll try to be a good soldier and work on these divagating cats as discussed when I can. I work on an area till I get sidetracked, but a motivating thing about numismatics is how it circles back, like provincial issues under the Roman Empire that revive local iconography.

One thing I just noticed is that the otiose categories were added even if the coin was already categorized, replacing Category:Coins from Gallica. In the first several months of working on coins, I hadn't deleted that category because I didn't know it was for maintenance; I thought it was wanted as a main bough of the tree simply to identify where the image came from, since Category:Coins from Gallica needing categories was named clearly as the maintenance category. It may be that at least some of the time, the contributor was replacing Category:Coins from Gallica rather than the "needing" category, which I leave standing if I'm categorizing only for a design motif or broadly by denomination and haven't assigned an issuing city or authority, because that's often the tricky part that can take some research, especially to corral from French and German sources too. Once a coin image gets into a "Coins of" category, like "Coins of Nero" or "Coins of Corinth", I figure that someone interested in that body of coinage can take it from there if I don't, and any keywords will show up in a search anyway. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

The Gadgets tab is in the Preferences for your user account; there should be a "Preferences" link in the upper right corner of your screen when you're logged in, either always visible or hidden behind the drop-down menu, depending on which skin you're using. Once you've checked the box to activate Cat-a-lot, you'll see a tiny link for it nestled in the lower right corner of your screen every time you open a category page (but not when you're on a file page or a talk page). If you click on the link, it pops up the Cat-a-lot box. When the box is open, you can select any number of files on the category page by clicking on the file name (not on the thumbnail, which takes you to the file description page as usual). The Cat-a-lot box will be preloaded with a bunch of category names that are already in use on those files, and you can add others to the list by typing them in the "Enter category name" box. To perform an action on the files you've selected, choose a category and click on one of the three icons to the right of the category name (minus, arrow, or plus). The minus button removes that category from the selected files and the plus button adds it, without making any other changes. The arrow button "moves" the file from the category you're currently in to the new category. It doesn't actually move anything, of course, it just adds and removes the relevant categories: so, for example, if you're looking at files in the "Coins of Corinth" category, and you use the arrow button to "move" ten of them to "Coins of Argos", what it actually does is remove the Corinth category and add the Argos category to each of those files, in a single operation. It does what you would do by hand, but much faster and easier, especially if you have a whole group of files to recategorize. It sounds complicated but in fact you'll get the hang of it in 30 seconds or so; the interface is pretty clear. Try it out on a small group of files first and check the results so that you understand how it works. One thing to keep in mind is that there's no undo option; if, say, you accidentally add a misspelled category name, you'll have to select those files again, remove the incorrect name, and add the correct one. Give me a holler if you run into problems or have any further questions. Choliamb (talk) 18:45, 28 June 2026 (UTC)