Commons talk:File renaming/Archive/2011

File names ending in space

Can something be done to remove the space from the end of file names? There are many examples and they are a common source of human error when updating wikipedia articles. Gaius Cornelius (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

It probably should be trapped by the upload form. "Do your really want to have a file name ending in a blank space?" should pop up. Snowmanradio (talk) 15:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Pejorative, offensive or crude language in filenames

I added a justification for the use of file renaming: to remove pejorative, offensive or crude terminology from the filename that would be inappropriate in the file description.[1] This was prompted by a recent discussion at Commons talk:Freedom of panorama.[2] Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What is wrong with File:McMansion.jpg? Is "Mc" a bad word or is it "Mansion"? --MGA73 (talk) 09:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"McMansion" has semi-derogatory connotations, but it's a regular staple of urban planning discussions in many municipalities around the United States, so I think it would be semi-pointless to try to ban it... AnonMoos (talk) 14:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. English Wikipedia article en:McMansion... AnonMoos (talk) 14:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It is mildly pejorative as the enwiki article states in the lede. I don't think the blanket removal of mild pejoratives in filenames is justified, but the linked example was identifiable. That raised it above the threshold, in my view. Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

File:Birdy With a Muffintop.jpg is another example. It is unused, birdy is slang for a young woman that may not be understood by many, en:muffintop is a mild pejorative, and the subject is not identifiable. It is arguably covered by criterion 3. But, I don't think it merits renaming. Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of that image is at all, since her underwear does not actually seem to be showing. (Also, low-pixel-dimension photo images are somewhat suspicious in some contexts...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

So we agree that if someone uploads a file as "<person x> is a big fat pussy eater.jpg" we could rename. But not all agree that the current example is good. --MGA73 (talk) 16:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

MGA73's example works for me.[3] Walter Siegmund (talk) 21:08, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

6. harmonize file names of a set of images ...

"6. harmonize file names of a set of images (so that only one part of all names differs) to ease their usage in templates (e.g. diagram symbols, scans of pages of a book, maps)" is a source of abuse and a lot of useless work. I think that this rule can be removed.

Because file redirects work fine right now, this harmonisation can be done through redirects and don't need to rename hundreds of files because they changed their mind or template, discovered new cases, have better quality files or have to support other languages. --Foroa (talk) 16:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

•  Keep We should just be better to "spank" users that abuse that rule and remove the file mover rights if they keep doing it. As far as I know redirects are good but they make it harder to see the real usage of a file.

But you may have a point with files of better quality. But if it is a set you could just upload the better files under a new name and change the template. --MGA73 (talk) 20:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Frome time to time someone request a rename claiming that there is a naming convension on that area. I suggest we add all such convensions we can find on the page and link to it. It should also be added Commons:File naming so it is easy to see how to do it. Examples:

• Commons:Pronunciation files requests - this seems to be a firm and old naming convension.
• CoA - do we have a naming convension or is it juse some users that think "it would be nice"?
• Animals and plants - do we use latin or do we just agree to rename when the old one is wrong or says "unknown xxx"?

I think it should be a new number on the list or an adjustment to # 6 harmonize file names of a set of images. --MGA73 (talk) 10:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

No overall naming conventions for coats of arms, though there are sub-conventions (for instance, a lot of French municipal coats of arms include the two-digit department number), and some names make a lot more sense than others.

Latin binomials are used in species category names, but there's no reason to enforce them in names of individual images.... AnonMoos (talk) 12:32, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The Graphic labs use various naming conventions for specific kind of maps.

Out of this, talk about 'best practices' is actually more correct. But for convenience, both are synonyms.

For biology, the French made this complete naming convention.

Except for Biology and objects, I think there i too many and too complex conventions (maps, coats of arms, flags, etc) to include on this page. Links toward the English version of the naming convention should be enough. Yug (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Renomination of files

Recently I've come across users that will keep renominating a file for renaming despite denials of requests by myself and others, hoping they'll be able to get some other file mover to comply with the request due to some of the rules' subjective interpretations. Something to look out for. The rename request you're looking at could have been previously declined. – Adrignola talk 21:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker and File movers

User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands is growing tremendously large and warnings are appearing about too many expensive parser functions. Those functions make the page take at least a minute to edit even on a fast connection. The page has not been cleared in over two weeks. As it stands now there's a two-tier system where admins can move files and have the replacements made immediately. File movers, however, despite being granted the rights to move files by the community, cannot edit User:CommonsDelinker/commands and must deal with the delay, both in editing the talk page and with replacements not being made for a significant amount of time even for noncontroversial moves. This also causes problems when two file movers are going through Category:Media requiring renaming—the JavaScript takes so long to process that conflicts begin to be a problem.

The point of file movers would be to take the burden off administrators, yet admins must still move all the {{Universal replace}} commands after each file mover's move. And they obviously aren't doing so from the size of the page. It was suggested in the village pump to use an edit filter to restrict edits to the command page to admins and file movers. If there are concerns about category moves, ensure that the text added by file movers contains just {{Universal replace}}. Or create a second bot that only does replacements and limit edits to its commands page to file movers with an edit filter. This current system is not working. – Adrignola talk 02:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

An edit filter is now guarding User:CommonsDelinker/test. Please try to add anything malicious to the page--DieBuche (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I did my best to bypass the filter. Wasn't able to add just {{move cat|Blue|Green}} (good thing). Wasn't able to add "malicious content" after {{Universal replace}} in an edit. I did, however get "malicious content" in between two universal replaces in this edit. I couldn't slip in a {{Move cat}} between the two universal replaces, though. However, I placed {{Move cat}} at User:Adrignola/Sandbox and substituted it in between two universal replaces in this edit to extend the exploit I previously discovered. – Adrignola talk 19:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

files with same name (except capitalisation)

i propose to add an additional point to the list of renaming-reasons: from two files which names only differ in capitalisation, one should be renamed (example: File:2010-2011_Arab_world_protests.png and File:2010-2011_Arab_world_protests.PNG). --Akkakk (talk) 04:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

As the extension might eventually get split off from the filename, I'd limit that to filenames that only differ in the extension. --  Docu  at 05:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Simplify

I started to post a new topic here, but decided that Commons:File naming was a better place, so it is here. --Tony Wills (talk) 23:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

What about renaming for disambiguation?

I've noticed some renames, like [4] where the file mover moved to allow the file name to be more specific. This page does not mention about renaming files because of disambiguation, so it might be worth including it whether we should allow it or not. Another example would be "File:Pencil.jpg" -> "File:Blue Mechanical Pencil.jpg" (off the top of my head, so you can see what I mean). Also, it should be clarified whether we should allow renames of identified animals where the file name is already good enough. "File:Ape at Bronx Zoo.jpg" -> "Gorilla beringei at Bronx Zoo.jpg" (also off the top of my head). --ZooFari 15:26, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not included in the list, thus not allowed. --  Docu  at 16:18, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I see you point of view but is there a technical problems with renaiming? The delinker bot works well. In the past we had problem because renaiming had to make manually. But not now... If the file name is very disambigtious it would be useful to change it to more decriptive and specific and make a name more useful and easy to find. The rule list is not a constant one and can be change if it is reasonable and useful. Electron ツ ➧☎ 18:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

File names really aren't that important. The file name is usually only in a single language and is rather minimal anyway. What is much, much more important is to have a decent description. The description can then be translated by others into multiple languages. We do not find files by guessing at filenames and hoping the result will be a suitable file. We use categories or the search facility which will search descriptions, and hopefully find a suitable file regardless of what language was used to name the file. --Tony Wills (talk) 05:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course you a right but in my opinion it is better when file is named e.g. File:Piotr Czerniawski.jpg then only File:Czerniawski.jpg. We have a lot of Czerniawskis here in Poland, 12 are in pl-wiki, now... Electron ツ ➧☎ 13:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is nicer to have a precise name, but what do we reserve the filename "Czerniawski" for? Someone might as well have it, first come, first served :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 03:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

It's probably easier to rename a file than to write a description, but renaming creates much more overhead than just updating the file description. --  Docu  at 21:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

No need to disambiguate files because each file has to have a unique name to start with. Where a file name is already "good enough" ie the "Ape at Bronx Zoo.jpg" then there is no reason to rename is there, where its say "unid_banksia.jpg" then renaming to "Banksia_brownii.jpg" should be an acceptable rename. Renaming should only ever be done where the reason is significantly compelling because it can cause issues for end users in complying with licensing requirements. Gnangarra 00:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, my opinion is that the ape in the zoo could indeed be renamed with reference to rule 4, "meaningless bio-name -> correct binomial name" and if I am to encounter such a rename request, I'll likely respond positively to it. If you could not do better, e.g. because no ensured identification of the living being is available, then a file name in the pattern of the ape in the zoo is OK. Otherwise, we should use the scientific name, either the binomial one or at least an unambiguous common name. Again, I take the example of the ape, what is possibly depicted: Bonobo, Common chimpanzee, Mountain Gorilla (+ subspecies), Western Gorilla (+ subspecies), one of the several Guenon species, Orang-utan, a Macaque, a member of the Platyrrhini genus or even a Yeti ;-) ? And by the way: renaming for disambiguation is covered by the third rule ("misleading names into accurate ones"), I think. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Some ambiguous file names may be misleading, but I think they are usually not. "Ape at the Zoo.jpg" is not misleading if it is an image of an ape at the Zoo. If the image showed some other different and less known meaning of the word 'ape', then the name could be misleading since there is a widely known meaning of that word. Otherwise the image name is not as specific as it could have been, but it does not make people believe it shows something that it does not. /Ö 15:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there should be no reason to disambiguate file names when it is not necessary. But whatever the choice is, I think it should be mentioned since they are common move reasons. I have been putting notes on users' pages but some are contradicting them. In my opinion, hearing "but there are many types of apples so I think I did the right thing" is difficult to argue with especially when the guidelines are not clear on this. --ZooFari 22:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Since most of us presume that this is not okay (see also section below), I have boldly added this entry to the "What files should not be renamed?" section:

4. File:Pencil.jpg should not be renamed to File:Blue mechanical pencil.jpg only because the second name is less ambiguous.

It should be renamed because otherwise, someone WILL eventually upload a completely DIFFERENT image with the exact same name. It happens more often than you'd think. DS (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Renaming solves what? If we rename pencil.jpg we would sooner or later have a new file called "pencil.jpg", that would have to be renamed ... it will carry on forever. The upload form tries to dissuade people over-writing existing files, the new upload form (when implemented) may do a better job. --Tony Wills (talk) 03:10, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree to a certain point: I think that this phrasing is too vague. There could be really good reasons where renaming for disambiguation should be acceptable, namely when the filemover has to deal with a depiction of a technical thing (e.g. some kind of diode, triode, or any machine component), a scientific item (e.g. a crystallised mineral) or a living being. I will always prefer a filename that provides us with more exactitude about the depicted thing when exactitude is sensible. This is true (for me) in the area of sciences and technology, not for things of everyday's life. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

• I see no reason to rename for disambiguation. Every time we move a file we risk creating dead links somewhere on the web. Commons is not just for Wikipedia so CommonsDelinker will only correct a part of the links. It is possible to add a description and if we want to tell everything in the name it is going to be really long filenames. "File:Blue mechanical pencil taken by xxx on sunday the 14th may 2010 with a x-camera without flash and released into cc-by-sa-3.0.jpg" :-o --MGA73 (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

  You are right that Commons is not just for Wikipedia. As I know CommonsDelinker works for other Wikimedia projects, as well and doing it job well. I haven't noticed any problem. Electron ツ ➧☎ 06:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

• Another problem with excessive filename churn (besides adding to link rot on the web in general) is that the Delinker can (and should) only change references to the file that are links. Any other mention of the filename (eg on wiki pages if unlinked, in edit summaries and logs) is not changed. It makes it a real problem to follow archive discussions etc. --Tony Wills (talk) 07:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

• OK. But it is not difficulty to find a renamed file because there is always the log with the link to the actual name. Btw. As I am reading this dicussion it can seem that every renaming is a very, very... bad thing ;) ... Electron ツ ➧☎ 07:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If a page "somewhere on the web" gets enough traffic to be maintained by a webmaster, then the redirects kept after a move shall suffice for the maintenance work of the external webmaster. If a filemove causes a broken link on an orphaned page, then there are near to nil people that will see it, again with the redirect kept as backup. External media links that land on a redirect due to a filemove aren't broken at all, I think, because every human can understand the principle behind a redirect. We really shouldn't bother that much about possibly breaking links on external pages. Additionally, MGA73 seems to distort my thoughts to a certain point. I absolutely do not want to put every thing in the filename; the pencil is a thing of everyday's life, so no real need for disambiguation. But for things where international naming conventions do exist (as the scientific binomial denomination) renaming is a valid and legit option for the sake of correctness and exactitude. Please note that I said "option", not "obligation". Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 14:05, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

more specific as a reason for moving?

I saw several images moved with "more specific" as reason given. Is that a new one? So was File:Leipzig Wahren Endstelle2.jpg moved to File:Leipzig T4D-M 2176 Wahren 2.jpg (actually its not even more specific just puts an other focus), or File:Leipzig Waldplatz Strassenbahnausfall.jpg to File:Leipzig NGT12-LEI Waldplatz defekt.jpg, File:Leipzig Wahren Endstelle3.jpg to File:Leipzig T4D-M 2176 Wahren 3.jpg. ... is there a new guideline? ...Sicherlich ^Post 09:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It is not. The user who performed the move was given a warning by another person and rightfully so. Abuse of the tool by not following the guidelines will lead to removal of it. – Adrignola talk 13:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

ah okay. Thanks a lot! ...Sicherlich ^Post 09:13, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Move, or Move and Replace?

I was just given the file rename right, and have moved a small number of files using the 'Move' tab, as the instructions on this page describe. However, I notice that there is also a 'Move and Replace' option. When should this be used? When should it not be used? NotFromUtrecht (talk) 12:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Move just moves the file, and any uses of the file under the old name will continue to do so. Move and replace will tell User:CommonsDelinker to go around and correct all uses to point directly to the new name. Redirects should never be deleted, so the outcome is the same. You should normally use move and replace. If there are no uses the script won't bother putting the replace request in the queue for administrators to approve. – Adrignola talk 14:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 09:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Uncheck "leave redirect behind"

Hi!

When making universal replacements (key:move&replace ) I can not uncheck option :leave redirect behind

HOW TO DO THAT??Quahadi Añtó 12:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Only admins can perform moves without leaving redirects in place. Killiondude (talk) 16:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

It is normally the best idea to leave this redirect in place. But you could still ask for deletion by adding a deletion tag like {{Speedy}} on the redirect page, but you have to think about a good rationale, then. Asking for deletion could be valid when your move dealt with a "harming" (e.g. insulting) filename, but it's always a case-by-case thing. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Author or website names in filename

Am I correct in thinking that, on the basis of the present seven standard renaming reasons, files ought not to be renamed simply because they include either a website name (e.g. File:-) www.SaschaGrabow.com Potosi Mining.jpg) or the photographer's name (e.g. File:Plaza Central, Cusco, Photo by Sascha Grabow.jpg)? If so, is it worth adding these to the standard list of reasons not to rename a file? Bencherlite (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems right to me. We allow licenses that require even very strong attribution. This seems in that spirit, not a reason to rename a file. - Jmabel ! talk 20:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't say I'm fond of images with "by ..." in them as there's an author field in the information template for a reason. Websites in the names are also replaced by the source field in the information template. Others have proposed random names to make Commons truly multilingual because of the description field in same said template covering all languages without worry about the file name (see the thread above this one). Removing website names, however, becomes a problem when I look at the contents of Category:Images from the Geograph British Isles project—there's probably hundreds of thousands of images with geograph.org.uk in them. If there were a problem with websites in the name I'd think they'd have chosen a different naming scheme before filling the category with a million-plus images named that way. – Adrignola talk 20:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Its really separate issues and should be treated differently, Author name/User name is a good way when using automated tools like Commonist to ensure that files dont clash or get over written. With websites if its the source of a major donation is normal practice to recognise the contribution, if the image is about the site its a logical name, if it just advertising(qasi spam, actual spam) then it should be changed. Gnangarra 05:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

ACK to Gnangarra here above. I defend this point of view in the discussion on my talk page about this very subject, see here:
„I see that you are moving files with the reason "anti-spam measure". It is not a valid reason¨for renaming a file. Contributors my require attribution. Please revert. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, the uploader has got attribution, in its right place in the file description. I would not object to an uploader's name as part of a file name, since it is a fine way to get a unique one, as long as it is not prolific as in the case of Schoci, where it is obviously a part of a SEO measure - I've noted that you've read the corresponding village pump thread. I think that my moves are covered by policies: COM:SCOPE, see the quote „Examples of files that are not realistically useful for an educational purpose: [...] Advertising or self-promotion.“, furthermore clarified by Commons:What Commons is not#Commons is not a place to advertise, Commons:Watermarks also present a justificating element. Admittedly, there is no clear "go" in COM:FR, but I think that my moves constitute a legit measure against this SEO and advertising try. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 15:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

What difference is there with for example Shankbone's photos? There are other examples, I believe even some admins. There is no justification in COM:FR; file names are not that terribly important. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 16:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess that you mean User:David Shankbone. Well, for the point of putting the name of the uploader in the filename, there is no difference, see my statement from above: "I would not object to an uploader's name as part of a file name, since it is a fine way to get a unique one,[...]". But here, the aim of the fashion of the file name is clear for me: publishing the own name or the own homepage URL as often as possible for advertising purposes. The whole behaviour of the user is fitting to this: only releasing quite small images (compared to the resolution of his Nikon D80), watermarking them and even stating that he do not want to release "unprotected images"! I think that there is (maybe momentarily) no need for "bigger guns" to deal with this matter like asking for a block or something similar ("maybe momentarily" because he tried this namedropping on Wikipedias [at least EN and DE] too: adding his images in suitable articles and writing his name in the image caption), but that I am entitled on the basis of COM:SCOPE, Commons:What Commons is not and Commons:Watermarks to make use of the filemover right to counter situations that I understand as infringements of those policies. Well, that may sound a little bit pompous, I agree (I miss somewhat the feeling of the language and so the ability to express exactly what I mean in Englisch), but on the other hand: are those file moves such a big deal? While moving files, I even put the initials "SG" of "Sascha Grabow" in several filenames, when I thought that there could be possibly another image of the same name, e.g. File:Cactus Flower SG.jpg. Well, I think that I thoroughly explained my reasons for those moves by now, so, may I ask you that you'll explain to me your point of view on how severely if at all I infringed on any applicable policy? I do not see a reason to revert to the "original" file names. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 19:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You are infringing on COM:FR, you are changing file names for no other reason than "I don't like it". Compare also File:2011-02-22-modellbahn-by-RalfR-19.jpg: his name in the file name, a link to his company web site, and an extensive licensing section with restrictions. What is allowed to Shankbone and to Rolatschek must also be allowed to Grabow. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 19:40, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not aware that COM:FR is the exclusive place to get justifications for file moves, I relied upon other policies and reasons named above, so it is simply not true that "I don't like" S. Grabow's file names or that this is a reason at all. Ralf does not use his full name "Ralf Roletschek" in the file name, but only a short ("RalfR") and the URL to his own homepage is in the sole place where it is legit in my eyes: in the file description in the "Author" field. In the case of a Creative Commons license, such a URL could be considered as an "attribution party" as per §4 Section C part 1 of the legal code of the CC-By-SA 3.0, so everything is fine. Neither Ralf Roletschek or David Shankbone are so overtly abusing of Commons as advertising space and SEO environment. Of course, their works do have an advertising effect by the intrinsic quality of them, but this is more than outweighed by the same (technical) quality of the provided works (high resolution and no watermarks) in my opinion. Where do you find huge restrictions in Ralf's licensing templates? He uses the License Art Libre / Free Art License, which is something like a "cousin" to the widespread CC-By-SA, made in French and having similar requirements of attribution for a similar degree of commercial usability, in contrast to the GNU licenses. It is simply not so well known as the GDFL and the CC licenses but even possibly better suited for European users, seen that there is no provision for using "any later version, published by [...]" as in the GDFL, a provision that makes it, the GDFL without any strict version number chosen, arguably invalid as per that fact that you can't agree to a contract of which you do not know the terms... Well, I'm drifting off the subject, so... What do you think about S. Grabow's behaviour? Do you conceive that his use of his name and homepage URL in every available place looks really like SEO and advertising, advertising beyond acceptable levels (as shown by Ralf and David [and Diliff, Fir002 and Noodlesnacks with their GDFL-only files in a "teasing" small resolution])? If you do not, I would put/copy our discussion here to the village pump, as I think that more opinions could be valuable. If you do, there is not really a problem left, isn't it? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Watermarks are a problem, file names are not. Not liking Grabow's behaviour is not a reason to rename. Please remove watermarks instead. If you want to copy this somewhere, that is fine with me. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)“

File renames are a big deal because you break unknown links into the source image for other sites, renaming should only be done where there is an imperative necessity, spam, racism, vandalism, nonsense titles(eg DSC0001, WYX etc). Source/Author names are acceptable within the file name see as are spelling mistakes, language used because the need to ensure licensing continuity takes precendence. Gnangarra 11:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Pieter Kuiper and Gnangarra. Renaming files without good reason is just churn, activity for no purpose, there are plenty of things that actually *need* doing. In the case that has prompted this discussion: if someone is spamming, then address that directly, don't embark on a renaming war. As a guideline for people who want to add their name to the filename, I would prefer that they put it at the end of the name (eg "Example by XYZ.jpg"). But I think it is reasonable to accomodate the authors moral rights to the image by allowing them to name it as they see fit - a small concession that really costs us nothing, they are after all donating rights to their image to our image bank, and the rest of the universe, forever. I don't see any great need for people to add long URLs to their filename, and would discourage it, but again it doesn't actually cost us anything - if their feeble attempts to spam their website name result in us getting useful images, why worry - some sort of moral outrage on our part perhaps? :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 12:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

"Moral outrage"? Not really, but I think that the main Wikipedias and Commons have grown big enough to possibly have a point of not accepting "every coloured byte pattern" for illustration and that a contributor should know that. Watermarks, website links or advertising names, deliberated radical downsizing, I'll call that for this purpose "downside points" and just one or maybe two of them on a file won't bother me, but a combination of all of them is too much. I've clearly said that a person's name in the file name or a hyperlink in the file description (that could be an attribution party under a CC license!) is OK. But until now, I did not see a comment about my justification for the moves drawn from Commons:What Commons is not#Commons is not a place to advertise. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 16:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose is about the subject matter of the image, educational purpose has avery broad definition. Gnangarra 01:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

---

I may be inconsistent, but I really don't like the idea of URLs or website names in image names, but I have no problem with putting the individual photographer's name in the image name... AnonMoos (talk) 04:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I too am hesitant about URLs, but then what about book or publication names? If some images were first published in some book, and that's where the images came from, then it seems quite reasonable to have that in the image name eg see the series File:Extinctbirds1907 P10 Ara tricolor0301.png. So am I just so 20th century in having problems with electronic publication names (websites) as part of a filename? Would "John Gerrard Keulemans" have had his own website and published there if he lived 100 years later? --Tony Wills (talk) 08:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said URLs and Author names are separate issues and should be treated differently, where the name is spam then deal with it as spam, but where the image is of the URL then a form of the url is the appropriate name. What we can do is exclude certain characters & forms from file names ie @,"www.",".com",".org" etc which address spam but still enable recognition of source or unique identifiers. Gnangarra 10:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Grand-Duc that filenames should not be a place to advertise. What do you guys think of this[[5]] filename which takes it a step further? I came here expecting to find that this would not be allowed and I was surprised.--Taylornate (talk) 02:46, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

Given that Commons is intended for the use of humans, I propose that renaming policy be expanded to include amending file names so that they are unambiguous, informative, and not confusing. As a bonus, this will reduce the incidence of people uploading images that have the same name as previous images (thereby preventing damage to articles which use those images).

The new upload form will more strenuously discourage overwriting --Tony Wills (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

It's true that filenames don't have to be a full paragraph of detail. But nor are we using Windows 3.1; filenames can (and should) be longer than 8 characters, and they should comply with the principle of least surprise. DS (talk) 16:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Would seem to be a generally good idea but I'm not sure that setting a hard lower limit should be included.Geni (talk) 17:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

 Oppose File name is just a key, the description counts. --Foroa (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but this "key" is the lone element visible when e.g. someone is browsing categories. So I'll say that the filename is a key for usability of a file and counts, too. Grand-Duc (talk) 18:08, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Someone browsing categories is already looking at the subject they want to images about rendering the file of little consequence to the viewer immediate need, once they choose an image the file name nothing more than a unique identifier whic cold be just as easily be any random set of characters. Gnangarra 08:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

As if our category structure is either complete or easily comprehensible. DS (talk) 13:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Think of categories as search engine optimization, concentrate on multilingual descriptions. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Current rule states that file names can be in any language and that the original language must be maintained. Delinker works not always, creates a lot of hassle. I might as well resubmit this proposal. --Foroa (talk) 18:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Languages could be translated into other languages, either manually or with a software (the latter at least to a level where the reader could get a sense out of it), so human understandable filenames are way better than randomised character suites. Grand-Duc (talk) 03:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting some sort of automated translation of filenames!? Or maybe a redirect in every language (arghhh ... runs away screaming :-(). Forget filenames, if you could pull that off for file descriptions I would be really happy :-)

 Support Filenames appear not just in categories but also in article wikitext, in HTML of linking websites, and many other important places, and having a clear title is important. I don't think the flakiness of the Delinker is a realistic concern, since the images will continue to work until they are updated due to the image redirects. I don't think the disruption of the Delinker is a concern either, since most pages contain only a small number of images, and so the number of updates over all time will be pretty small. However, I think the proposal is overbroad and will not gain consensus for that reason; I recommend limiting this to cases where the filename is especially likely to be accidentally overwritten by a new upload, due to being short or a common name or word. Dcoetzee (talk) 02:44, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

In that case just implement the new upload wizard instead. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

•  Oppose unnecessarily argumentative, what is a descriptive file name who decides. For one what might be may not be for another because they focus on some other aspect. Also such a rule change would result in such a significant number of names changes to already existing files that it'd become extremely disruptive to not only Foundation projects but the many other places that use Commons as a resource. Gnangarra 08:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I've got a long list of hideously non-descriptive names, if you're interested. And remember, it's also about ambiguity, and -- ultimately -- about making Commons more usable by humans. I support humans. DS (talk) 13:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Usability is also dependent on Commons not breaking links, not just for the end users but also for the authors. I frequently use the file name to locate where its been outside of projects changing the file name causes issue to me in doing that. That said obviously I dont upload with nonsense name like DSC99999.jpg. I'd be interested to review this hideously long list before commenting further... Gnangarra 01:54, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

response left on my talk page Well, you can start looking here...User:DragonflySixtyseven/Short filenames 1then proceed to here - User:DragonflySixtyseven/Short filenames 2then here - User:DragonflySixtyseven/Short filenames 3...and keep going until you hit User:DragonflySixtyseven/Short filenames 50. And these 50 pages are just the ones that are six characters or less, and that were uploaded prior to February 2011. I'll admit that some of them actually are descriptive. But consider "Burn.jpg", "Burned.jpg", and "Burnt.jpg" - one is ethnic Akha showing how they were beaten and burned by the army, one is burnt vegetation after a fire, one is a cartoon of a man in a doctor's office. BV.jpg is a building belonging to a business whose initials are BV, Tvd.jpg is a man whose initials are TVD. Before they were renamed, Devon.jpg was a picturesque valley and Devon.JPG was a sausage (unless it was the other way around). Look at C.jpg, for instance - or C1.jpg. Compare that to C1.JPG. Now, which one has a more descriptive name? Trick question: all three names are garbage! What do you think Front.JPG is, or Front View.JPG or Front Profile.JPG or Front before.jpg or Front after.jpg? DS (talk) 15:28, 14 May 2011 (UTC) in short see valid reason 2 change from completely meaningless names into suitable names, according to what the image displays first pass through 95% fell under this without issue. The theres things File:3ADWLA.jpg which is a rider of 3rd Armoured Division on a harley davidson WLA for clarity reason 3 could be applied though equally if it was tagged under point 2 I doubt if any admins would not process it anyway. These horendously long list can be dealt with under the current reasons feel free to choose new names for them. Gnangarra 03:23, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

"I doubt if any admins would not process it anyway" - you'd be surprised at what some people will claim is not permissible by policy. DS (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

•  Support Per Dcoetzee, above. Additionally, I don't think this proposal is necessarily English-oriented. As long as file names are clear in *any* language that should suffice (we have users covering almost all languages here, and there are also online translators, etc.) Killiondude (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
•  Comment As can be seen from the above two sections and my own observations of requested renames, many file movers already believe that "more descriptive" is a legitimate reason to rename a file. – Adrignola talk 18:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
•  Oppose per above (#What about renaming for disambiguation?). Commons if for humans but not just for the humans that are wikipedians. Files can also be used outside wikipedia and CommonsDelinker does not replace that usage. We use categories and filedescriptions to make it possible to find the files. It makes it possible to translate into 100 languages - we can not have filenames that says it all in 100 languages. If we WANT filenames to tell everything then we will get very long filenames and they should all be in english. If I name a file "Lilla blomst" I bet not many users will know what that means and someone will say "It is not informative!". In my opinion that rule will also be the end of "6. harmonize file names of a set of images (so that only one part of all names differs) to ease their usage in templates (e.g. diagram symbols, scans of pages of a book, maps)" I mean who can actually say that "File:BSicon_BHF.svg" is informative and not confusing? --MGA73 (talk) 20:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

   Comment There are redirects after a "standard" filemove, enough for humans not engaged in Wikipedian activity on external sites. Additionally, we should have a common sense that makes clear that this proposal is in no way against COM:FR rule 6 and that very long filenames should be avoided, too... By the way, reading Adrignola's posting above, I think that a hassle free way to get a solution is to say e.g. on a non archived section on this talk page that the lived practice of filemoves to names being "more descriptive" is normally okay but should always take the circumstances in consideration. Grand-Duc (talk) 06:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes there may be redirects but often redirects are deleted if the file is not used in a Wikipedia project. And then we are back where we started. Also it is also possible to make filenames more discriptive so we may end moving the files over and over and ...--MGA73 (talk) 15:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Redirects do not work when files are hotlinked. (And yes, we do allow, if not encourage, hotlinking, cf. COM:HOTLINK). Jean-Fred (talk) 16:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

•  Oppose Strange as it may sound, file renaming and naming are two rather different animals. Yes, there are many good ideas for how to name a file, but once it is here it should only be renamed in a very small number of cases. (The point about overwriting files should be dealt with by the new upload form, when implemented). Renaming files just tends to disrupt references to the file from all sorts of sources. eg:

1. references to the file by name that aren't wiki-linked (eg in logs or discussions)
2. the uploader's watchlist
3. wiki links to the file from previous versions of articles or discussions (wiki history)
4. all manner of external references

Redirects, as noted above, do not solve all disconnection problems (eg hot linking from external sites). But the main problem with relying on redirects is the necessity to maintain them, or should I say continually defend them. For exactly the reason that the file was renamed (ambiguous, bad spelling, whatever) people want to delete the redirect as well. Sooner or later the redirect is speedy deleted as 'unused', 'unneeded' or whatever as a maintenance issue (being tidy) without even a deletion discussion.

I think a lot of naming/renaming discussion is predicated on the assumption that everybody should be able to read the filename and thereby know the contents. Which really can't happen, at best the filename is a clue to the contents, normally it is no more than a mnemonic to remind us of the contents after having seen the file. Of course in a multilingual project this breaks rather easily:

1. File:Александр Первый литография.JPG
2. File:ɿʅʮʯȶȡȵᴀᴇ.gif
3. File:简体中文.jpg
4. File:القوة والإزاحة في البثق.PNG
5. File:お湯とお茶.jpg
6. File:Přechovice - kříž.jpg

I have no 'handle' with which to remember the characters, let alone the names of these files. As for their contents, there is an easy way to find out (and it doesn't even involve translation).

I know of no other (I expect someone will educate me ;-) picture/photo repository that has gone down the road of 'descriptive' filenames, perhaps that shows a bit of experience and wisdom on their part ;-)

A bit long for a vote rationale, but no real discussion happened before people started voting. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Imagine a photo of a horse with a complex saddle arrangement, called "Olga.jpg" because the photo was taken by someone named "Olga". Imagine a photo of a politician called "Mom.jpg" because the politician was the photographer's mother. Imagine a photo of several human penises called "Degree.jpg", because it illustrates "degrees of rigidity". These are all 'descriptive', and I am not making any of these up. DS (talk) 22:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Your examples fall under Reason 3, « Misleading names ». Jean-Fred (talk) 22:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I was about to say the same thing... --ZooFari 22:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

What is misleading? I have no problem with any of those names, what did you expect to find under those names? If I see the name again, I will likely remember the contents probably because of, not despite, the random connection with the contents. I think that my concluding point is that I dispute that file naming guidelines should dictate when a file should be renamed, they should simply guide how to rename when it is essential. --Tony Wills (talk) 23:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

When new images get uploaded with old names and people aren't paying attention, articles on multiple wikipedias - and people who hotlink - suffer. It took me twenty minutes to clean up the mess caused when a stupidly-named photo of a Polish countryside was overwritten with a stupidly-named photo of a Russian fighter pilot, for instance. And I've dealt with complaints from people who don't realize that (X).jpg and (X).JPG can be two completely different images (especially if the names are too simple). DS (talk) 23:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

These are not really naming/renaming policy issues. The new upload form will help stop overwriting by inexperienced uploaders (they won't get the choice). The case sensitivity of the software is a problem, but I don't think renaming all lower case extensions to uppercase (or vice versa) is a good use of resources, what is your point here? --Tony Wills (talk) 23:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not talking about renaming file extensions. I'm talking about preventing scenarios when, for instance, "Tony Wills.jpg" is your self-portrait, but "Tony Wills.JPG" is a photo of notorious 1920s serial killer Tony Wills on the courthouse steps, and the wrong one gets used in the article about him and as a result people think that you, Tony Wills, are a brutal serial killer. DS (talk) 00:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

If that error occurred, I would expect the editor involved in adding the image, to notice immediately when they did a "Show preview" or when they viewed their handy work after saving it. If they were inexperienced enough that they couldn't work out what the problem is, surely they would undo the edit until they worked it out. It doesn't take editors long to realise that they need to cut and paste filenames as there can be any number of variations with accented characters, upper/lower case, different character sets, un-noticed spaces etc etc. As I have often said, a filename on Commons is just a handle for grabbing the file, it doesn't need to be a precise description or anything else, these are not in any way equivalent to wikipedia article names. DragonflySixtyseven.jpg, DragonflySixtySeven.JPG, DragónflySixtySeven.jpg, YusufçukAltmışyedi.jpeg, Стрекоза шестьдесят семь.JPG are all different filenames and may or may not have a picture of someone on the courthouse steps, and there is only one way to find out and it doesn't involve guessing. --Tony Wills (talk) 00:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

You mean "sending panicky e-mails to OTRS asking what went wrong", yes? I spent time on OTRS; this sort of thing happened more often than I would have liked. People do not necessarily look at the links they have added to articles -- they should, but they don't. Just like how they should upload files with names more distinctive than "Daddy.jpg" (it's the photographer's father!) or "TVD.JPG" (someone whose initials are TVD!), or "BACK.jpg" or "FRONT.jpg" (neither of which seems to be the back or front of anything?) but don't. Those are real examples, by the way. And it's also just like how all Commons images should be properly categorized and easy to find, but aren't. DS (talk) 14:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

So if there are two persons who has the same name you are suggesting to call the file names "Tony Willis the Wikipedian and not the serial killer from the 1920's.jpg"?

Off topic: If avoiding confusions is so important should we allow users to have another signature than their username? User:DS is not registered so what should we do if some users register with that name? Now we will have two users calling themselves "DS"? My point is that it is impossible to avoid confusions.

Personally I think that users should upload with good names but once a file is uploaded someone can always say the name is not good enough. Even af file with the name File:Bill Clinton.jpg could be improved because his name was not "Bill" but "William". And as I said somewhere else even "William Jefferson Clinton.jpg" could be improved because we have a lot of pictures of him so users can not know which photo to expect if they click on it. So should we use filenames like File:William Jefferson Clinton at the Parliament in London, United Kingdom, November 29 1995, the photo where he is smiling and not the photo where he looks sad.jpg?

Short version: On articles it is easy becaus we only have one article about each topic and we only have one language version per wiki. But we can have 1.000 images of the same topic and we can have the files named in 50 different languages. So it is impossible to have names for the files that makes it possible for the users to find the excact picture they are looking for without the use of categories, descriptions or looking at the photos. --MGA73 (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

•  Support as a general principle. It should be like disambiguation on Wikipedia: as few words as possible, but it should be a clear indicator of what the picture is about. For instance, a picture of a carrot can just be "carrot;" it doesn't have to be "Orange carrot on a wooden table while Liza Minelli sings the National Anthem," but "Obama" for President Obama delivering the commencement address at George Washington University is just too vague. I trust that best practices have evolved over time and will continue to evolve. Harej (talk) 18:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • File:Obama.jpg does exist it is of Obama, its used on commons in a gallery plus three other Foundation projects in three different languages, but none of the uses are about Obama yet editors had no problem in finding the image and including it elsewhere. One wonders how they can do that given that it was sourced from flickr where its called "ant_on_shak" obviously its not the file name had no bearing on its reuse the factor that enabled re-use was tags, categories, galleries etc Gnangarra 02:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

And don't forget those multilingual free form text descriptions :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 02:52, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Here's another problem: the servers can be slow. It took over 2 minutes for for "1263097742 ba7588e9fd.jpg to finish loading, for instance. If you get the wrong image name and have to start guessing, it can take several minutes. I am not proposing blanket top-down image renames. I am proposing that common sense and human intelligence be added to the rename guidelines. DS (talk) 15:00, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support because some of the opposes are, quite frankly, absurd. Files with ambiguous names should be discouraged as much as possible. They are used globally, so they should be given descriptive names. I will continue to rename files that fit this category regardless, because it's more about common sense than anything. PeterSymonds (talk) 19:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it is ok to support a change of a rule or policy. You are also allowed to think that some of the opposes are absurd just as well as I can think that some of the supports are absurd. But I do not think it is ok to say "I do not care about rules I will do as I like". --MGA73 (talk) 21:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

•  Support There are several file names that, as others have pointed out, may remotely describe the files but are highly ambiguous anyway. This policy definitely would make sense for file naming on Commons. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 00:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
•  Oppose In my opinion, this proposal is not a good use of resources and may occasionally engender conflict. --Walter Siegmund (talk)
•  Oppose Most of the problem cases mentioned or linked to can be handled under the existing rules. If there are many filenames that are highly ambiguous without being misleading or completely meaningless, I would prefer to slightly expand rule 3 (e.g. from "misleading" to "misleading or very ambiguous") rather than create a new rule. The "informative" part of the proposal also seems overbroad; file descriptions should fulfil this role. --Avenue (talk) 01:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
  • You'd be surprised by how some otherwise intelligent people can behave, and by what messes have occurred due to inadequate filenames. DS (talk) 17:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Examples? --Tony Wills (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

•  Comment A file "File:Bob.jpg is technically an acceptable name. It's descriptive, although barely so, and it meets the requirements set for image names. However it would be more useful to people if it was "File:Robert Example.jpg" because that is closer to what people looking for images of Mr. Example would search for. I think that on a case by case basis, images should be renamed for clarity, inclusing acronyms where multiple organizations use the same letters. A case can be made for renaming "File:BHS.jpg", while the same could not be said for "File:QWXETU.jpg". I don't know Commons well enough to know if it has an IAR policy, but seriously folks, use common sense here and stop getting caught up on the rules. Commons can be impenetrable enough for outsiders, there's no reason not to make an effort to make it easier to find things. Sven Manguard (talk) 02:12, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Why does changing the name make it easier to find? How do you go about finding a file? Normally I use the search facility (which looks at the whole description page, not just the filename which is usually only in a single language) or browse galleries or categories looking at the images. The only time I use the filename is to cut&paste it into an article. --Tony Wills (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

•  Support and I'd like to raise the issue of English being the most commonly understand language. So if we want our images to have descriptive names, they should be describe names in English. I am saying this as a non-native English speaker. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is about file renaming not file naming. Are you proposing that all files should be renamed to English descriptions? --Tony Wills (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm suggesting that they be given names which are not so brief as to be ambiguous which causes other people to upload images over them which leads to articles being fucked up and people getting upset, which happens a lot. I am advocating thathuman intelligence be used. I am advocating that, whenever possible, the original description provided by the uploader be used as the basis for the new filename, so that at the very least there will be enough to put into Google Translate ('oh, that's Polish/Albanian/Japanese/whatever'). DS (talk) 20:37, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

•  Oppose renaming files is already done too often. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
•  Support File redirects must be left in place, but I don't see any reason to prohibit renaming files to be ... better. The wiki way is to allow for changes like this. Keeping file names static when they're ambiguous, uninformative, or confusing makes no sense. The ability to rename files is a relatively new feature, but it really isn't that scary. Honestly, the "movefile" permission ought to be given to every registered user (that's the wiki way!), but that's a different discussion for a different time. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:50, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
•  Support Per PeterSymonds. This is a common sense issue, if you are looking at a list of file names and want to know easily which file which will be the most appropriate to use, then a descriptive enough file name not description is one that you should use. If people argue that those who look on images on Commons do so in gallery view, then they are not thinking about the fact that commons was created as project to allow images to be easily used globally. If you were a native English speaker or a non-native English speaker, you should still easily be able to know what the contents of a file is, without having to open multiple similar file names to find which one is most appropriate by looking at the image or the description. Let's take for example, File:Salt.png, which is an image of salt crystals. If you were to see the file name, File:SALT.jpg, then you might also believe that these were salt crystals - perhaps a user left their caps lock key on, or that's there preferred way of naming. In fact, this in an image of The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). I'm not saying we need to have a "File:SALT - The Southern African Large Telescope, SALT, South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland, South Africa.jpg" as a file name, but one that explains any acronyms would be better. If a new user saw that SALT stood for the telescope, they may have also uploaded an image for en:File:Salt film theatrical poster.jpg under a similar, less descriptive name. In my opinion, we need to think about global usage of images so that any new user can see the standard that has been adopted, and ensure that their File names are sufficiently descriptive so that from a first glance you can understand what the image is, but not excessively long either - keep it concise! :) The Helpful One 20:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

  Thank you for the SALT example! That was an archetypical case for what this proposal is about. Grand-Duc (talk) 02:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

•  Support When you have 10 million+ files, a sensible renaming policy that allows for changing things to be more detailed is extremely useful. This seems like simple common sense to me. To keep filenames just for the sake of keeping filenames is bureaucratic nonsense of the worst kind. Steven Walling 22:04, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
•  Oppose I see no striking reason to change our rules. Renames DO create hassle. I wanted to write the same as Jean-Fred (Diskussion) 16:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC) did before: Hotlinking - links are broken after a rename! Also action links like http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:AMO.jpg&action=history are broken after a move. Renames only when it is really needed. --Saibo (Δ) 00:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

  Hotlinks are not broken - in your example, the user may land on the history of the redirect page, and it's not hard to understand the principle of redirects. And for uses outside of the Wikimedia world, I eagerly repeat my reasoning written down somewhere on this page: sites of sufficient interest and traffic are maintained so that the webmaster could fix his media links using redirect information. If there is no site maintenance, then a media link landing on a redirect page will not be noticed by a significant amount of people, here again, redirects help in pointing any random visitor to the content he's looking after. Regartds, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

  Hotlinks can be links to thumbs of image or the full res like here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/06/29/commons-picture-year-winners-2011/ They do not work anymore if you move: Example: old link is dead - completely (renamed to File:TESTrenamed3 Turm am Thurn-und-Taxis-Platz 2010-02-08-2.png). I would like to see a webmaster who is not totally pissed if a link does not work anymore because we decide to more files around because of a bit better name. And the john average website visitor will not be able to find the new file here.

  The link to the history does only work half - you need another click. That is not really working.

  Another point: if you look at derivative images, click on the source image link and are suddenly at a differently named file it is confusing. Have I clicked the wrong link?

  Oh, by the way: Who does all the replacement work in the articles which use all the renamed images? The Delinker commands talk page is AFAIK frequently backlogged and it needs admin work to work on this backlog. --Saibo (Δ) 02:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

•  Support - It just makes sense. Per Lilyu. Addihockey10 (talk) 00:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
•  Support I'm tired of seeing stuff like File:DESC1001.jpg everywhere. Makes it a pain. Wizardman 03:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Please read Commons:Rename#What_files_should_be_renamed.3F before you voice your opinion. ;) Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 01:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
•  Oppose This proposal is worded too broadly for me to support. "Unambiguous" is an almost impossible standard. Everything is ambiguous if you think about it for long enough. As an extreme example: I don't want someone coming through and renaming all my uploads because I haven't made the time of day clear in the filename. --99of9 (talk) 04:31, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

File renames affect templates

I have recently moved a file that has caused a redlinking of files in userboxes but not articlespace. See this old diff [6]. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 08:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Please avoid renaming files. Files moves are limited to reasons acceptable per Commons:File_renaming#What_files_should_be_renamed.3F. --  Docu  at 11:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Autoreviewer is now known as Autopatrolled on many wikis. While not explicitly listed as an acceptable move reason, I figured that a move would be mostly harmless and in keeping with the rule's underlying principles. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 14:40, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is strange that file displayed in the template was not able to follow the redirect. --Jarekt (talk) 14:05, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Rename whatever files need to be renamed, in accordance with human intelligence and common sense. Make sure to clean up your mess afterward. DS (talk) 20:29, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Moving back impossible?

(Sorry if that was asked before, but I didn't find anything here or in the archives)

Concerning the independency of South Sudan there was done a lot of editing of existing maps. For working around the annoying "cache bug" someone moved File:LocationSouthernSudan.svg to File:Location Southern Sudan.svg, after multiple different file versions had been uploaded. However I reverted that to the very first version, because of the map of File:Location South Sudan.svg, depicting the actual situation since 9 July, does exist since early May and we still need a map depicting a secessing-in-process South Soudan. (My rational was the using of the map in two German wikinews articles.) However, still the bad version shows up in those articles. So I thought moving back on the former place would work as it obviously worked before but I wasn't able to move the file back to it's former location? If moving back is possible only for admins it should be noted on the front side somewhere. TIA for replying. --Matthiasb (talk) 07:56, 11 July 2011 (UTC) PS: Moving back would make use of the more standard version of those kind of maps w/o the spaces as well, though both pattern seem to exist.

Maybe this helps: Commons:OVERWRITE. --  Docu  at 17:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Its because for moving it back you must delete the redirect. I will move it back to its old name now, also because File:LocationSouthernSudan.svg is an existing naming shema used in Locator maps of countries of Africa for all other countries. --Martin H. (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Just made the same mistake as others: This is not south sudan but southern sudan. But ok, it is on its old position now, it was not required to rename it in the first place. --Martin H. (talk) 21:53, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Renaming of botanical images

There seems to be a push on to rename images of plants that use botanical names of long standing, in some cases where there is not necessarily general acceptance of a newer name. Worse, people will rename only one file out of a dozen, maybe or maybe not create a new gallery / category, and not update the WP articles mentioning the species. Oh yeah, and the file description is edited, not considering that perhaps the original name was transcribed from a name plate at a botanical garden, and by deleting the original name from the description, that important detail is lost. (As an example of the madness, check out the now-three-different names for File:Camissonia californica 2.jpg.) This seems like it's borderline abuse of the renaming guidelines, since the older names are not actually incorrect, they are just considered synonyms, and when next year's monograph is published, they may become the preferred name again. Stan Shebs (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree, there is a lot of abuse in the renames, especially if we want to retain the original, local or common names. --Foroa (talk) 18:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Do I need to always make a universal replce request?

When I move a file manually (e.g my own files) and the file is not in use in any projects, do I need to make a universal replace request on User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands? What about edit conflicts on User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands? Sometimes while moving a file by clicking the green "Move file and replace all usage" button, an edit conflict occurs on User talk:CommonsDelinker/commands, Is it necessary to make a universal replace request manually? AMERICOPHILE 21:30, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that the pivotal point is if the file is somewhere in use. If yes, then the Delinker command should be mandatory, if not, the Delinker is dispensable. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)