Commons talk:Project scope

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

I've seen a number of instances where users incorrectly interpreted files as in use because they were used in a user page, talk page, or sandbox in a non-English project (making the nature of the pages not immediately recognizable). This is a particularly common issue for non-Latin projects, as many users on Commons can't read those scripts.

Is there any convenient glossary page (e.g. on Meta) which lists the localized names of:

• the words "user" and "talk" as used in page namespaces (e.g. in Spanish: "usuario", "discusión")
• the localized term for "sandbox" (e.g. Spanish: "taller" - literally "workshop")

And, if so, can we add a link to it from the COM:INUSE section? Omphalographer (talk) 22:23, 2 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

I don't think there is such a page; it would be a good idea. I wonder if we could draw on data that is somehow available at https://translatewiki.net/, even if not normally exposed for a "fishing expedition" query, rather than having to start from zero. Another way we might get a quick first draft would be to go through the lists of names for Wikidata items like user (Q278368). They might not all get us right away to the correct term. Sadly, items like Wikimedia talk page (Q87358148) do not seem to be widely translated. - Jmabel ! talk 02:27, 3 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

I think it's more useful to use the Wikidata items for the guideline pages, since these contains a lot more translations for the terms needed. For example: Help:Talk pages (Q4592157), Project:User pages (Q4592334) and Project:Sandbox (Q3938). Tvpuppy (talk) 02:50, 3 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

At least the first two of those seem to have a mix of singular and plural forms. - Jmabel ! talk 04:23, 3 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

Hmm. I may have been thinking of the table on meta:Wikimedia projects, but it doesn't look like that extends to more specific translations. Unfortunate. Omphalographer (talk) 04:41, 3 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

At least for namespace names, I think an automatically generated list would be better than a manual one – the translated namespace names are available in phab:source/mediawiki/browse/master/languages/messages/MessagesEn.php and other files in that directory, and it’s also available via the API, we should use either of them. Maybe there could be a gadget that prints the canonical (English) namespace name next to each page name on Special:GlobalUsage. (The gadget should pay attention to handle gendered namespaces, e.g. flag both Usuario: and Usuaria: as user pages on Spanish projects.)

It couldn’t help with "sandbox", but neither do I think we can help here: the exact wording of the policy is "inactive sandbox and draft pages"; I interpret it so that the name of the page does not matter (I could start a draft of the John Doe article at User:Tacsipacsi/John Doe, User:Tacsipacsi/sandbox, User:Tacsipacsi/draft or User:Tacsipacsi/storage4, the effect would be the same with regards to this policy – if I’m actively working on it, files used by it are in scope, if I’ve abandoned it, then the page doesn’t make them in-scope). —Tacsipacsi (talk) 08:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

In the section on excluded content, should we mention that original academic papers may be submitted to Wikiversity:WikiJournal of Humanities? Pinging @Bluerasberry for his thoughts. - Jmabel ! talk 02:41, 12 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

Probably not. Judging by v:WikiJournal Preprints#Articles currently in review (which includes some unacknowledged submissions as much as five or six years old), the project is largely inactive, and directing users there would not be helpful. Omphalographer (talk) 03:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

@Omphalographer and Jmabel: Despite the unprocessed older submissions the project is active and considering incoming submissions.

@Marshallsumter and OhanaUnited: can you speak more about WikiJournal? How much capacity is there to review incoming preprint submissions? Bluerasberry (talk) 03:20, 12 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

Regarding specifically the WikiJournal of Science, the capacity is small but close to the submission rate. For example, the latest is Diffeology and I am currently looking for reviewers. --Marshallsumter (talk) 08:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

should we mention that original academic papers may be submitted to Wikiversity:WikiJournal of Humanities? No, I don't think so. Those are just very few files and this makes this page unnecessarily long and more complicated. It doesn't matter if users submit say 5 such PDF files per year to Commons or not and even not if they also submitted it to or were better to submit it to the WikiJournal of Humanities. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

Thanks for the ping. I would say it's not necessary at the current stage to explicitly state it in the Commons scope. Our current preprint processing instructs authors of original academic papers to create preprint page directly on the wiki or submit by email. OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 20:44, 13 November 2025 (UTC) Reply

This is confusing: "Certain content is excluded from Commons ... Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text. Purely textual material such as plain-text versions of recipes, lists of instructions, poetry, fiction, quotations, dictionary definitions, lesson plans or classroom material, and the like are better hosted elsewhere, for example at Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikiversity or Wikisource." We are required to host the original document at Commons to be used in the other projects, so why are we saying they must be deleted? It sounds like newspaper articles, books without illustrations, must be deleted, because they are raw text. RAN (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2025 (UTC) Reply

Not sure how to word it better, and it might be made clearer that there are certain exceptions (copies of legitimately published books or peer-reviewed academic papers, for example). It's basically meant to say, "No, you don't get to use Commons as a way to publish your original writing just because it is arguably educational," and "No, you don't get to write your own divergent version of a Wikipedia article and publish it here," etc. - Jmabel ! talk 04:42, 9 December 2025 (UTC) Reply

Source documents may be in scope; content created by Wikimedia users is generally not. The overall intent is that Commons uploads shouldn't be used to bypass the wiki editing process (e.g. writing an encyclopedia article and publishing it to Commons as a PDF), or as a back-door way means publishing content which would otherwise not be in scope on any Wikimedia project (like works of fiction). We adjusted this wording a few years ago at /Archive 2#Proposed change in wording.; if you can come up with a better way to explain the distinction, we'd be interested to hear it. Omphalographer (talk) 04:55, 9 December 2025 (UTC) Reply

I'd like to point out a potential conflict between current COM:INUSE rules and the proposed COM:AIP guideline. Specifically, certain images that are currently 'in use' on other projects may fail to meet the criteria set forth in the COM:AIP proposal, creating a contradiction in our deletion process.

Therefore, I propose appending the following rule to the COM:INUSE section to exclude those images once that guideline is ratified.

• Images of people created by Generative AI that do not comply with the relevant guideline.

0x0a (talk) 09:51, 29 December 2025 (UTC) Reply

Is scope the right place or should that note be on COM:DIGNITY? GPSLeo (talk) 10:47, 29 December 2025 (UTC) Reply

Yes, of course, this revision is intended to patch the "INUSE", and in fact we have been patching it. 0x0a (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2026 (UTC) Reply

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk:Project_scope&oldid=1140977139"