Commons bans the overwriting of files for non-autopatrolled users

[ltbdl]

annouced at

commons: Commons:Village pump#File overwriting is now limited to users with autopatrol rights (T-H-L)

after being discussed at

commons: Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2023/08#Limit file overwriting to users with autopatrol rights (T-H-L)

with pretty high support

i wonder if there will be unintended consequences?

[Hemiauchenia]

This seems like a very drastic change for something which has about 15 votes total. As remarked in that thread, how does this effect the crop tool? I suspect we will see many more image forks to get around this.

[Vigilant]

lol, this decision is rife with unanticipated side effects.

[Zoloft]

Say, what happens if I decide to overwrite one of my submitted images?

[Bezdomni]

Say, what happens if I decide to overwrite one of my submitted images?

I'll test it later, but based on that announcement this does not require special rights...

The abuse filters to prevent users from overwriting files they did not originally uploaded (sic) are now active. Users who want to overwrite files uploaded by other users now need to request ether autopatrol rights or they can request an exception for a particular file.

Users without autopatrol rights should remain to be able to overwrite their own files.

how does this effect the crop tool?

A crop should not overwrite an image but be a separate file. (There may well be cases where it is desirable to overwrite the image, but as a general rule, a crop is a modification for which the cropper should take responsibility.) The obsessive focus on objects to the exclusion of their environment sometimes leads (presumably) well-meaning croppers to leave much of the aesthetic value of a photo on the cutting room floor.

[Konveyor Belt]

I'm sure there's a lot of maps/charts and the like that are regularly updated that will be broken by this. For example Democracy claims.svg has been used and edited since 2009, while its creator has not edited since 2012.

[Hemiauchenia]

A crop should not overwrite an image but be a separate file. (There may well be cases where it is desirable to overwrite the image, but as a general rule, a crop is a modification for which the cropper should take responsibility.) The obsessive focus on objects to the exclusion of their environment sometimes leads (presumably) well-meaning croppers to leave much of the aesthetic value of a photo on the cutting room floor.

I mean, it depends, take a file I recently cropped https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... cado_2.jpg for example, there's no
good reason for this image to have a dropshadow, so simply uploading the crop as an updated version of the image is clearly the most reasonable course of action.

[Giraffe Stapler]

This is actually a very sensible change and how the system should have worked in the first place. You can replace files you have uploaded, but you can't replace files other people have uploaded. There will be cases (like the frequently updated maps examples) where this could be a hassle, but I very much suspect that forcing users to request help updating will actually be a good thing for some of those files.

This will have a knock-on effect of reducing the kind of vandalism where someone replaces a heavily-used file with a picture of Jimmy Wales eating a hotdog.*

*Just a hypothetical. I am not aware of any instances of this happening with a picture of Jimmy Wales eating a hotdog.

[Anroth]

Yeah process-wise this is one of the options they should have gone with in the beginning.

I wouldnt go so far as to say unintended consequences, its not that difficult, even for commons editors, to see the consequences here. I cant think of any of the disbenefits that outweight the benefits though. And thats even if you consider some of them (like above, crops replacing existing picture) are arguably not a disbenefit in the first place. (FWIW, the process where I am is you rename the original, then upload the crop with the same name.)

[Beeblebrox]

I suspect most even semi-active Commons users will probably not even notice anything different. Pretty sure I got that user right without even asking for it.

[Bezdomni]

Looks like it was given to you by a globally banned user.

[Ming]

It would be nice, however, if they did something about the proliferation of different versions of the same images, especially photos of paintings.

[Beeblebrox]

Looks like it was given to you by a globally banned user.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:INeverCry

It's a trifecta, blocked locally for socking, global banned by the community, and banned by the office.

And yet, back then they were very active on commons and I remember them being quite helpful with getting garbage that was only uploaded to spam en-wp deleted there. People are weird.

[owl be it]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... =822254366

Looks like there are now a twentynine requests for autopatrol open right now, compared to a whopping two prior to this announcement. A well-thought-out plan saving time and effort, definitely not just creating worthless mountains of bureaucratic crap

[rnu]

worthless mountains of bureaucratic crap

There's no such thing.

[Giraffe Stapler]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... =822254366

Looks like there are now a twentynine requests for autopatrol open right now, compared to a whopping two prior to this announcement. A well-thought-out plan saving time and effort, definitely not just creating worthless mountains of bureaucratic crap

That was to be expected. When the configuration got changed there was going to be a surge of people asking for the necessary permissions. Once they get it, they won't need to ask again.

[Anroth]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... =822254366

Looks like there are now a twentynine requests for autopatrol open right now, compared to a whopping two prior to this announcement. A well-thought-out plan saving time and effort, definitely not just creating worthless mountains of bureaucratic crap

That was to be expected. When the configuration got changed there was going to be a surge of people asking for the necessary permissions. Once they get it, they won't need to ask again.

Not to mention the benefit of having an audit of the edits from those editors who are making those types of changes. Which commons actually appears to be doing in those requests. Dont see a down side here.

[Beeblebrox]

WP:PERM (T-H-L) is reguarly backlogged as well, as in most cases each request requires at least a few minutes of reviewing the users recent activity, and not every admin wants to or has the time to do that. I started contributing there years ago, becasuse I thought it would be a little "feel good" task, where you are helping others get access to tools they need, as opposed to deleting their work or blocking them. And mostly it is that, but you also do get hat collectors and people who clearly don't even know what it is they are requesting.

Anyhoo, I agree this is probably not going to be an ongoing issue and that a initial surge should have been expected.