User talk:W.carter

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I'm currently experiencing health issues that may affect my ability to work and carry out my usual activities on Commons. I've been diagnosed with heart failure and I grow tired easily, and I may not answer posts here as quickly as before. Your patience is appreciated.

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Ur Photografiskt Album för år 1861 öfver fångar förvarade å Landskrona fästning - NMA.0056768 (2).jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Ur Photografiskt Album för år 1861 öfver fångar förvarade å Landskrona fästning - NMA.0056768 (2).jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:01, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Drilling rig at a construction site in Tuntorp.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Drilling rig at a construction site in Tuntorp.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/Aristeas-test (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Meadowsweet by Lysekil Line in Brastad 7.jpg

Do you have this photo where it is not "cropped" at the top? I'm appreciating looking at all the details in the photograph. I'd like to see the full flower at the top right. - ERcheck (talk) 02:56, 2 June 2025 (UTC)::

ERcheck: Sorry no, not of this plant. They are really tricky to photograph well. The flowers of these plants grow in tiers (with the lower tiers blooming first) and to include the top, the photo would have to be more than twice as high and a nightmare to get all in focus. The top tier is almost always buds or blooms and I wanted both sharp in the photo. No 4 in the series is as close to your request I could get, and still have both buds and blooms. But that doesn't have the focus, or the nice light you get shooting the lower tiers. Best, --Cart (talk) 16:26, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing "No 4". It's a beautiful plant - one that I've not seen before. - ERcheck (talk) 21:41, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

ERcheck: Thank you, it's a very useful plant that grow all over the place here and is the essence of summer. It's used for flavoring mead and ale, and it's also the origin of aspirin (name derived from its German name). It smells sweet and lovely. --Cart (talk) 22:16, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Tolkien Society images

Dear Cart,

I have seen some fantastic images from you of early Tolkien Society events. We are trying to build up our digital archives and unfortunately many photos taken during that early era have been lost, although thankfully Charles Noad left many to the Society before his sad passing. I'm getting in touch to ask if there are any more photos of Society gatherings you may have? I shall check back here to check for a response or you can email me at [firstname].[surname]@tolkiensociety[dot]org. Thank you so much. --Shaun Gunner. 2A00:23C6:BA8B:A101:D130:683:29AB:CD71 14:39, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi Shaun, nice to hear that some of my photos are of use to you. Unfortunately, I don't have any more from events held by the British Tolkien Society, only a few from events held by the Swedish societies with Brits like Vera Chapman attending (those might be of interest to you). I'm planning on uploading some of them here later this year or so. I'm not really active in the Tolkien sphere these days, but you might want to try getting hold of my ex-husband, Leif Eurén (and if that fails try his friend Anders Blixt who might have a larger online footprint). With a name like that, he's not hard to find online and he is still very active in the fantasy community. He was the one taking photos when we were active and travelling to events in the UK. He's also still in touch with other photographers from that time and might be able to help you. The best and most active Swedish photographer from those days, Olle Sahlin has sadly died, but I'm sure Leif can put you in touch with his relatives and friends. Best, --Cart (talk) 14:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

FPCBot’s usage of Template:FPArchiveChrono

Dear Cart,

whenever FPCBot creates a new monthly overview page (like Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/January 2025), it adds the template {{FPArchiveChrono}} as kind of a header. But it does this using template substitution: {{subst:FPArchiveChrono}}, hence effectively copies the contents of the template again and again to every monthly overview page. I can’t see any reason for substitution here, because the template has no parameters, variable elements, etc. AFAICR all other FP gallery page templates are used without substitution. Therefore I think we can make the bot just use the template as a template, I mean like {{FPArchiveChrono}}; this keeps the code of the pages short and clear. Do you see any reason against this? Just asking to avoid that I miss the obvious ;–).

Best, – Aristeas (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Aristeas, I don't know of any reason to not keep the code and the page as simple as possible. I know that the early code writers that created some of the automation on FP-related stuff were very keen on using the subst: feature. Maybe they were just so used to it they did it more than necessary, or it might have held some kind of function in the past. Might be best to check with KTC though, since she is the main caretaker of the 'Chronological' archives. --Cart (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Cart, thank you very much for your input and for the reminder! If I may use your talk page for this (in order to keep the discussion in one place): Dear KTC, are you aware of any special reason to use the {{FPArchiveChrono}} template with the subst: feature, or can I just change this in the bot code so that the template is used as a normal template on the ‘Chronological’ archives? IMHO the code of the archive pages would be simpler and clearer if the bot would just use {{FPArchiveChrono}} instead of copying the contents of the template again and again. Thank you very much and all the best, – Aristeas (talk) 16:31, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Please do. Mi casa e su casa.:) --Cart (talk) 17:11, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't know of any reason why it was done that way all the way back in time, or any reasons requiring it to be substituted. Once upon a time, the message was hardcoded on Commons:Featured pictures/chronological/current month where the bot would continuously add entries. Every month, I and occasionally others, manually removed old entries and copy and pasted what was removed onto its own individual page after that month ended. Then Eatcha added code to FPCBot so that it places new entries onto the correct month's page automatically and created some templates to go with it. No idea why this particular one was substituted. If the change doesn't break the bot, go ahead Aristeas, the bot is the only one that actually uses that template. -- KTC (talk) 20:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Dear KTC, thank you very much for your answer, the helpful retrospective look and for your approval! I have tested it (no problems) and removed the subst: with this commit. All the best and many thanks to both of you, – Aristeas (talk) 07:26, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Dear Cart and KTC, while we are on the subject of the ‘Chronological’ archives, I have two more small questions and would very much appreciate your opinion. I am currently rewriting that part of the code to improve its clearness and stability, and there are two points in the output I would like to change.

A. When the result of a set nomination is added to the chronological archive page, the entry reads like this:

66 'Mergansers' - a set of 3 files
uploaded by …, nominated by …,
 7,  2,  0

The name of the set (here “Mergansers”) is emphasized to set it apart, but it looks a bit odd, because the code emphasizes the set name as bold text and then inserts it into the phrase “… – a set of x files” which is already bold. So the wikitext looks like this: ''''''Mergansers''' - a set of 3 files'''. The 6 '''''' are interpreted as 1. a single typewriter-like quotation mark (neither bold nor italic), 2. bold text, 3. italics; the 3 ''' after “Mergansers” are interpreted as 1. a single typewriter-like quotation mark, 2. end of italics. So we have two typewriter-like quotation marks with different formatting. IMHO this looks odd and ugly, and we can change this very easily. There are several possible solutions:

1. 66 Mergansers – a set of 3 files – i.e. bold italics for the name of the set
2. 66 ‘Mergansers’ – a set of 3 files – i.e. single (British) quotation marks
3. 66 “Mergansers” – a set of 3 files – i.e. double (American) quotation marks

Have you a preference, or would you suggest another solution? I would just go with 1. (italics), but I am open for everything you prefer.

B. The entries mention the uploader and the nominator. Most often this is one and the same person, and it looks a bit mechanical that we mention the same person twice:

81 Sachsenheim - Ochsenbach - Dorfstraße 20 - Ansicht von Osten (1)
uploaded by Aristeas, nominated by Aristeas,
 16,  0,  0

We can easily combine the two names if they are the same, like in:

81 Sachsenheim - Ochsenbach - Dorfstraße 20 - Ansicht von Osten (1)
uploaded and nominated by Aristeas,
 16,  0,  0

Do you see any problems with this or should I combine the names?

Sorry to bother you with theses minutiae. While the more important improvements to the code are done ‘under the hood’, these aspects are visible; IMHO they belong to the polishing any respectable software (including bots ;–) requires and deserves. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 13:19, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Aristeas and KTC, for me I've always felt that sets are a bit hard to find in the chrono archives because of the present way it is written. To me it would be clearer if the text for sets were (if possible):

66 Set: Mergansers - 3 files

Solving this with all those ' and " seems to just complicate things. The way sets are written now is dangerously close to how some file names are written, like the example above Sachsenheim - Ochsenbach - Dorfstraße 20 - Ansicht von Osten (1), with hyphens and numbers in the file name. A file name can never include the : so that makes writing sets with that stand out better in searches.

As for combining uploaded and nominated: No, it makes it harder to single out items when you are looking for statistics like how many FP nominations did Xxx do, or how many FP uploads have Xxx made. It may look clunky, but it's a clear way of keeping the tally running in the FP records and it's consistent through all the years, changing it now would make statistics even harder. --Cart (talk) 13:51, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Cart, thank you for your answer. Just starting the caption with ‘Set:’ is indeed both simple and clear (and very easy to implement), so this is a very convincing idea. – Aristeas (talk) 16:14, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

And you are certainly right that FP statistics are difficult enough. So we can just keep the current plain “uploaded by x, nominated by y” formula, even if x and y are identical. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 19:24, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Copyright questions

The FP candidate image from Emmett Till funeral motivated me to look at other images from the funeral. I found the copyright situation confusing. Would you please help me to sort this out?

Does {{PD-US-no renewal}} apply for the Emmett Till related images at https://emmetttillexhibit.org/audio-describe.html? I notice that Getty Images has a number of the images. For example, Getty has designated the well-known photo of his mother at the coffin] as coming from the Chicago History Museum, with "License type:Rights-managed" and "Release info: Not released." What rights does Getty have to the photo? What license applies? - ERcheck (talk) 15:54, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

ERcheck: I know that Getty and similar stock photo sites, besides the usual photos they provide for photographers around the world, also offer photos that are free of copyright, but they charge for them anyway. I think their way of justifying selling things that are free, is that they sort of save people the trouble of finding the photos themselves in archives. Sometimes Getty is not so transparent about how they obtained some photos, so it's a bit of a viper's nest. They are simply a greedy bunch.

As for what licenses apply, I'm not at all an expert on US licenses. I think it would be best if we invited Adam Cuerden, to see if he can shed some light on this. What he doesn't know about old photo archives and licenses, isn't worth knowing. ;-) --Cart (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2025 (UTC)