Tutorial is not set in British and Canadian English

Hi, I've mentioned this several months back but the discussion ended up short and unresolved.

When I set my language to British English or Canadian English, I get the following message when I use Special:UploadWizard:

Sorry, we could not find a tutorial in your language. The English one is shown instead. Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 22:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) can you help me open a ticket for this? Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 21:02, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Glitch with categories

In the past two or three days UW refuses to accept perfectly valid category names. After verifying that the typed name exists, instead of accepting it, UW throws out a list of subcategories. Bug or novelty? Most undesirable and uncomfortable. Please revert or make it optional. Retired electrician (talk) 05:30, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree 100%. I've been trying to upload some files and I typed in the category name I want and instead of getting it, I have to chase either above or below to find the category I knew I wanted from a list. I like to categorise things thoroughly so I do a lot of categories (when, where, what, source institution etc) but forcing all these extra "where is it on the screen, click it, click it" is really inefficient and frustrating. By all means, display some related categories, but let me keep on at the keyboard (as if they had not been displayed) and assume if I don't click any suggestions, then I didn't want them. Or give me a way to click a button to turn it on if I really do want to see more options but don't impose it on me (as a default setting). I upload a lot of photos and I also categorise a lot of uncategorised/under-categorised files of Queensland content more generally and the constant increase in workload in doing these things is really slowing it down -- make things too hard and people will stop doing it. The uploads all take a lot longer with ever longer forms, again requiring a lot of scrolling (the first one starting with the question "This work was created by me" takes 3 screens on my laptop, then Next to do even more screenfulls). I understand new users may need more verbose questions but can we have an alternative smaller form with abbreviated questions for the rest of us to make uploading fast and efficient (which we can choose as a preference or something -- not yet another screen each time asking which form you prefer for each photo upload!) Kerry Raymond (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

@Retired electrician When you select a category that has subcategories, it will indeed expand its list of subcategories. It is still possible to actually select that main category, though: the list of subcategories will begin with an arrow to go back up the three, then the 2nd option will be the original category (marked "PARENT CATEGORY"), and you can actually select it here. -- Mmullie (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

It is possible, yes but quite inconvenient. Unnecessary switching from keyboard to mouse. My fingers aren't as nimble as they were half a century ago Retired electrician (talk) 09:33, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Likewise not a fan of the new implementation as it is at present. A single press of the Enter key to select the category you've started typing has now been replaced by two mouse clicks (with a mouse move required between them). I can see the benefit of the subcats appearing, but the interface as implemented isn't very intuitive and has slowed down the upload process. Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Ditto to the above comment. The possibility to check subcategories in the UW is nice, but with the way it works now, most of the time I have to click two times to select a category, and it's not ideal. -- Syrio posso aiutare? 19:41, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. We acknowledge that the new category selection system has somewhat slowed down your upload schema, but we did this improvement to expose more clearly the category structure, and to help newbies in choosing the right category (which most of the time could be a subcategory), instead of choosing a broad and incorrect one. This was made to make users be more in compliance of Commons guidelines about categories.

Anyway, you can skip the second mouse click by typing the correct name of the category in its entirety and pressing enter. As for navigating the categories with your keyboard, we spotted a bug when selecting a category, we'll work immediately to fix it. I hope this helps. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:47, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): do I read that correctly as "you can save a mouse click by typing an entire word or phrase"? Not for anyone trying to work quickly. - Jmabel ! talk 17:05, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): is it (or is it going to be) possible to disable this somewhere in the preferences? -- Syrio posso aiutare? 11:39, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel Yeah, unfortunately that's what we can do at the moment. I'm in touch with the designer to try to reduce the burden, but so far all new solutions would be more cumbersome than do an extra click. I'll try my best to find a way.

@Syrio No, it's on for everyone, and we're not making this customizable, it would be too much work for too few users. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:56, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

@Retired electrician @Dave.Dunford @Kerry Raymond @Syrio @Jmabel Actually, the devs have told me another way to deal with this: instead of using enter, that would open the subcategories menu, shift + enter would immediately select the chosen category. Maybe this could help? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

So "too much work" for paid staff to add a preference or other solution makes it ok to impose extra work for volunteers? Multiply the extra effort across the addition of many categories for just a single photo, then multiply it across all the photos that that volunteer might upload and categorise in a day, and multiply that by all the volunteers uploading that day, multiply it by every day in the year. Saying it's "too much work" is saying volunteers don't matter. Kerry Raymond (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

No to adding the Shift key into it. If your hands are positioned over the keyboard in the normal touch type position, then you have pivot away with your left hand and then reposition again. Kerry Raymond (talk) 08:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi Sannita. Thanks for the reply, but I'm afraid the Shift+Enter solution doesn't work for me, even if I type the whole of the category name. Dave.Dunford (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Yeah it doesn't seem to work. .. Syrio posso aiutare? 17:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) I'm afraid I'm still finding the additional hassle of adding categories (when I know that no appropriate subcategory exists) to be a major disincentive to uploading/categorising new photos, and the Shift+Enter suggestion doesn't work. Is there no chance it could be made optional? Thanks. Dave.Dunford (talk) 16:13, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

In fact I'm going to stop bothering to add categories at the point of upload, and edit the photos subsequently to add categories via the more usable interface on the file page once the upload is complete. Still extra work, but not as much as adding them within the wizard. Sorry. Dave.Dunford (talk) 16:17, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

If you have the category name in the window (either by typing it fully, or by letting the system suggesting it for you) and then hit enter, the category is added correctly, and you do not make extra clicks. Ymblanter (talk) 18:45, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Not any more (or at least not when the category you want has subcategories). That's the whole point. Dave.Dunford (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it still works for me. Ymblanter (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Can I submit an image that I have already uploaded to Wikimedia Commons?

I accidentally uploaded my image to Wikimedia Commons outside of the contest upload wizard. It seems strange that I can "share images from Flicker" but I don't see a way to point to an image I already uploaded to Wikimedia Commons? BrighidManka (talk) 11:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

@BrighidManka link to the contest you are taking part in? RoyZuo (talk) 12:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Look at the wikitext markup for other images from the contest, then make the analogous markup on the file you have already uploaded. If you name the specific contest, someone can make those instructions more precise. Contests do not care how you uploaded the photo, they care about the current state of the wikitext. And, really, this has nothing to do with the Upload Wizard, and certainly does not concern the WMF team that supports it, but since this is the page you asked on, let's keep it in one place here. - Jmabel ! talk 07:18, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

VRT scenario

When someone uploads with the intent of having permission sent through VRT, how are they supposed to indicate what license they expect to have granted? - Jmabel ! talk 16:48, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: As normal, and then supplement with {{subst:PP}}.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: I don't see any place to do it. Could you tell me what field on what screen? - Jmabel ! talk 16:17, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

(If you were just trying to describe the intended result, yes, of course, but I'm specifically trying to understand how people can do this with UploadWizard.) - Jmabel ! talk 16:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: They should be able to upload it as normal with the intended license, and then after upload add the tag. All within the wizard, you'd have to ask @Sannita (WMF).   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 19:43, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't see anywhere in the sequence after "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work," that they give you an opportunity to indicate a license. @Sannita (WMF), am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk 22:54, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

AFAIK it should be put in the "other information" section, or added after the upload. That's at least what I'd do. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:50, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Unless I'm very mistaken, "pending permission" without an indication of the license is subject to {{No permission since}}. No wonder we see so many of these if the Wizard doesn't help people add it! (Pinging @Jeff G. with whom I was discussing this elsewhere.)

We probably should open up a discussion on the Village pump. Either the Wizard needs to make it easy to add a license tag here, or we need to change the bot that is adding {{No permission since}} and sometimes leading to deletions in seven days rather than a grace period of thirty. - Jmabel ! talk 17:39, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @AntiCompositeNumber, who runs @AntiCompositeBot.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:58, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

The 30-day grace period only applies to files that have a claimed license. Without a license tag, we are hosting the file in violation of whatever license the copyright holder may have chosen (because we do not include e.g. a link to the license text). As {{Permission pending}} says, Please make sure the file includes a license at the time of upload; this template is not a substitute for a license. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 03:31, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF), do I understand that currently when people come through that "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work" branch of the Upload Wizard, the file ends up tagged with "permission pending" but no license? And there is nothing telling them that they need to add a license to avoid speedy deletion? - Jmabel ! talk 21:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: If true, most such uploads will die in 7 days. This is not cool.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 02:25, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Ah yes, I mentioned this issue on COM:VPC#Excessive use of Permission pending. Right now, we have a lot of people adding "Permission pending" for files where there is no intent to get a permission, including cases where author is claimed to be "unknown". It should not be possible to add this template in this case. The result is that many obvious copyright violations are pending for 30 days instead of being speedy deleted. Yann (talk) 12:44, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): I know discussion of this has been spread over several pages. Do we have a tentative date by which this should be resolved by an appropriate change in the UploadWizard? I'm trying to work out whether it is worth my time to document the current situation at Commons:Uploading works by a third party, or if I should just wait until it is fixed. - Jmabel ! talk 21:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel I cannot give you a tentative date for the moment, I'll see if I can get one, but it'll likely require a bit of time. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

OK, then I'll document the current situation. @Sannita (WMF): when this changes, please let me know so I can update documentation accordingly. - Jmabel ! talk 21:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel Will do! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Redundant template addition

Hello,

the Upload Wizard contains a suboptimal processing of licensing statement. When someone chooses a licensing statement different from the basic CC-By-SA 4.0 for an own work, then {{Self}} gets added twice. The image on the right demonstrates the steps needed to get this double {{Self}}, I removed it in Special:Diff/1020287518/1020287572 manually. A conditional test to check for a valid licensing statement /copyright tag would be nice. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Very cumbersome to use when I have to input source and author info separately

i downloaded a couple of files from an archive catalog, so each file has a different source url, description, but date, licence, categories are the same.

now i either upload them one by one, or as i tried to use wizard, i upload one, fill in the details, then click back, upload more files, then click forward and fill in. a lot of unnecessary mechanical steps in between. for example, i cannot duplicate licence.

i would not use this if i were not forced to download those files (i couldnt get their direct urls so i cant use url2commons).

url2commons shows you how to do batch upload tool right. RoyZuo (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@RoyZuo: You might find it easier to use Special:Upload and just copy-paste the bulk of the content from each image to the next. (I generally do this ping-ponging in two browser tabs.) Not everything is most easily done with the Wizard. - Jmabel ! talk 21:48, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

What is an acceptable file format?

Trying to upload a new page (text, photo, links to other Wiki pages). No matter what file format I use, message comes that it is unacceptable. Wouldn't it make sense to say what format IS acceptable? StevenTiger (talk) 23:38, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

This knowledge is available: Commons:Project scope#Scope part 1: Files and Commons:Project scope/Allowable file types. But you can't actually "upload a new page", you can only write it in the on-wiki editors. The Wikimedia projects don't work like some content management system for your homepage, where you can indeed upload new pages. Think of Wikipedia or Commons as textbooks or image albums, glueing some pre-made pages in these is also not possible. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 01:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@StevenTiger: You may upload any image(s) here and make a draft article with transcribed wikitext on Wikipedia, if in compliance.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 20:17, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Invitation to check one's just-uploaded file details?

Hello people,

Experience has taught me (in view of my shortcomings) to click on the link to a file that's on the "Thanks for contributing" page immediately after I have uploaded via the Upload Wizard. Reason: mainly to check for any mistakes; or otherwise to add "prec=" to Location, or add to categories, etc.

Would it be worthwhile to have a line of text to the right of the link to the file (i.e., under the field in which the URL appears), something like this:

← Please click on the link to check that the details displayed are exactly as you expected. Thanks!

I'm mindful that some (many? most?) files are never checked after the Upload Wizard spits the uploader out at the end.

Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 11:39, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

My shortcomings in including metadata about each newly uploaded file are usually many. I seldom check and fix them the same day, but they automatically go on my Watchlist, which is usually about three days long. When they trickle down to near the bottom, I check and fix them, and again a couple days later when they trickle down again. Indeed in one long session a couple days ago I made an appalling number of errors and omissions, as you can see in my Contributions for the past couple hours showing my repairs. I think even uploaders whose usual work is better than mine ought to use this or some other habitual method to ensure self-checking. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:26, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Alternative PD tag required

AFAIK, that input box was there to let people add licenses that weren't in the list. If someone ticks "published US pre-1930", then it shouldn't be required. But it is; and it prevents from moving on in the upload if it's not filled. — Alien  3
3 3 05:57, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Plus, complying with the restriction means that the license is duplicated. — Alien  3
3 3 05:59, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

More fields for the Upload Wizard prefilling

Hi!

I often use Commons:Upload Wizard/Fields prefilling to upload image sets. However, fields like date or the copyright inputs (license, author and source) are missing. Could they be added? --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 12:30, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi @PantheraLeo1359531, I think this is a question for interface admins, and not for the Structured Content team. Sorry! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for noticing :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 13:36, 11 June 2025 (UTC)