Has there ever been any discussion of using Wikimedia Commons?

Question

Wikimedia commons is easy to link to and has an enormous amount of images which are free for use. I notice the Wikitree blog uses it already. Could be very useful for historical people.

Comments

I don't know if it's a discussion per se, but recently I saw a convo around here about crediting sources info for images we use.

 

That aside, I do use Wikimedia commons but it's important to read the copyright on the Wikipedia file:name page. Not all of them are public domain, CC, or Wikimedia Commons. But generally speaking... Wikimedia Commons is one of the best things to happen to the Web.

 

I also recommend Morgue File. They have free for commerical use images. I use them for graphic design (backgrounds, posters, etc...)

---

Thanks for that reply, but I guess my question is more about whether we can use wiki mark-up to link directly. I presume you are talking about actually downloading from there and then uploading again to here? (If you link directly, crediting is also pretty easy.) I guess I should have experimented first to see if that aspect of wiki mark-up works here, but I have not yet.

---

Are you talking talking about embedding a photo here ...but hosted on Wikimedia?

---

Yes. This is already done on many/most wikis, and indeed many/most blogs and even media outlets.

---

This, for example, is done using html, not wiki mark-up. It is Sir Hugh de Hastings (Hastings-275). I suppose html can be used on wikitree also, but handier if we could use wiki mark-up?

Answer 1

I wish we could, but the capability to embed multimedia is disabled. 

 

You can read more about this here.

Comments

I wonder why. If, as you say, people are actually downloading those files and then uploading them anyway, it is hard to see why that would be. Were people adding too many pictures?

---

I've only been a member since last year, but from the looks of the previous thread ... it's a security measure.

 

While I can't speak for the technical team or WikiTree, based on my own experience ... smart forensics is usually 'better safe than sorry.' Waiting to find out is a sign of poor quality control. So IMO ... it's probably the right move.

---

There's a special way to embed Wikimedia Commons images in MediaWiki wikis, called InstantCommons. It perhaps mitigates some of the security concerns with embedding arbitrary images from any place on the web.

---

I would just like to link to files, not embed them, from Wikimedia commons. My grandpa took some photos during World War II, while he was in the Navy. This one for example:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Saipan_-_Japanese_beach_defense_GAG02.jpg

I'd like to add the link as a source in his bio. I'd like the citation to include the link, not the image. But the code provided by wikimedia commons doesn't seems to support citations as is.

I'd like to avoid uploading the photos via the image uploader on his wikitree profile, and save that just for photos of him and source documents. I feel like his images page would get too cluttered if I uploaded photos he took.

I guess nothing is really stopping me from adding the commons link as a source, I just need to make sure the citation is properly formatted. Does the citation need to include the license info (that's already included on the page that I'd be linking to)?

---

@Andy: to cite that image, or any photo from Commons, you can just construct it as you would any other citation from anywhere. For example:

<ref>Groeschl, George. [https://commons.wikimedia
.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Saipan_
-_Japanese_beach_defense_GAG02.jpg File
:Battle of Saipan - Japanese beach
defense GAG02.jpg], 1944. Accessed
12 August 2023.</ref>

(By the way, you should probably change the author and date of that photo on Commons, at the moment it says it was taken in 2019 by User:GravityIsForSuckers.)

A link to the Commons image doesn't have to include the license, as it's not a re-use of the image, but it doesn't hurt to add it.

I'd recommend uploading all his photos to a category on Commons, and then linking that category from his page here on Wikitree (perhaps with one or two images uploaded here and included in a gallery, but as you say not all of them).

---

Thanks! Those all sound like good suggestions. I didn't think about creating a gallery. I don't know how to do that, but I'll probably look into it tomorrow.

I'll try changing the author too. I think it says that because when I uploaded them I had to affirm I had the rights or that I own them. Technically I do, since I inherited them, but if I can make it more clear who actually *took* the photo, that would be so much better.

---

Oh, good point. You probably need to the cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs template in that case, if the photo is still copyright (like because your grandfather was from a place with 70 p.m.a. rules of copyright expiration). But yeah, you can edit the date and author after uploading to match whatever is correct.

---

Thanks, Sam. I edited the files on Commons, created a user gallery page, and then made this change to my grandpa's bio here on wikitree.