User talk:BMacZero

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Error by bot on identifying photographer

I believe a number of images collected by photographer Arthur Churchill Warner have been accidentally attributed to him (by the bot) as photographer. See https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv12719#ss11 , which discusses images in the Arthur Churchill Warner photographs collection that are not by Warner himself. I've fixed File:Seattle, looking east on Pike St from 5th Ave showing street railroad cars after the big snow of 1916, Seattle (WARNER 184).jpeg, I'm about to fix File:Chief Saanaheit totem pole and house posts from Kaigani Haida village of Kasaan, Sitka Park, probably between 1906 and 1910 (WARNER 458).jpg, but I suspect those are just the tip of an iceberg. Any idea if there is a hope of bot assistance in fixing this? It could be large. - Jmabel ! talk 01:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Apparently not uniformly wrong, because File:Children in front of eagle sculpture, Howkan, ca 1899 (WARNER 459).jpeg got it right. - Jmabel ! talk 02:28, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: The bot would have used whatever Photographer was specified on the image page, but if none was specified it would have assumed A. C. Warner for this collection. Sounds like that may not have been a good assumption, though it looks #458 at least was explicitly attributed to Warner at the time, based on the scraped data I have.

Scrolling through the list you linked, it looks like all the collected/copied works have item numbers starting with A, and his originals do not? If that's the case, it should be pretty easy for the bot to re-scape the ones with As and replace the author with either an updated author from UWash or "Unknown Photographer". I'll have to update the licenses as well. If that sounds right, I'll plan to look into that this week. – BMacZero (🗩) 02:48, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

For most of these, licenses won't be an issue because they are overwhelmingly before 1930, but I see a few later ones.

I'd lean toward rescraping photographer info and license and nothing else; most of these have had a fair amount of editing, and I wouldn't want to undo a lot of good work. Let me know when it is done, because I think even then a hand-check will be in order.

On the other hand, I can see that for some of these, there is a lot that they've updated over time as they have learned more; for example, look at what I found to revise at File:Iñupiat woman named Nowadluk Nora Ootenna wearing full length fur parka with pieced checkerwork hem, Nome, Alaska, probably between 1903 and 1908 (WARNER 445).jpg (look at the history). And, related, in some cases your bot may have scraped info on photographers that they have since corrected, as for that one.

So I'm a bit torn. If you are going to overwrite anything more than those two fields, is there any way to first do a batch job to see if the https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu has changed (compare what you'd get now against the original bot upload from years ago, instead of against the current state) and avoid updating if it hasn't changed at the master, so we don't overwrite good edits that added info? Or am I overthinking this?

Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. - Jmabel ! talk 03:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. I'll start with just updating author and license to fix our immediate Warner problem, and I'll get you a list. It'll be a larger, later task to start checking UWash for other kinds of updates and figure out if/how we can bring those over here. I'll definitely avoid overwriting any human edits we have here. – BMacZero (🗩) 03:54, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: I ran a fix and put the results here: Commons:Batch uploading/University of Washington Digital Collections/Warner Author Repair. The only ones that should need manual review now are the ones with yellow or red messages, and probably the "Known Photographer" images from your source, in case UWash does not reflect those authors, since all of this was still based on the UWash data. – BMacZero (🗩) 00:30, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Ran through the report, did what little fixing was necessary, will look through the "known photographer" stuff from the finding aid.

In the report, I ignored the issues of malformed PH Coll, nothing I can do about it.

Thanks for getting to this promptly. - Jmabel ! talk 02:51, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

By the way, I see a fair number of these images on the UW site that we don't have on Commons. What was the rule for which to bring over? In particular, I'd love to have https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/transportation/id/363/rec/1 - Jmabel ! talk 21:23, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

It's almost always failure to automatically validate the copyright status based on the available data. In this case, the file didn't have a Date field when I originally downloaded it. I should redownload all the old metadata to see if it will catch any more that have had that data added. Now at File:Side wheel steamer GEORGE E STARR docked at Seattle, Washington, 1894 (TRANSPORT 363).jpg. – BMacZero (🗩) 05:46, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! - Jmabel ! talk 06:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Happened again, on the Prosch album

The bot gave Prosch as the photographer for File:Academy of the Holy Names, ca 1885 (PROSCH 241).jpg. The photographer is unknown. I've fixed it there, but that probably was not the only place it was wrong on this for this recent batch. - Jmabel ! talk 17:50, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks; I'm fixing 187 instances now where Prosch was marked as the author but no author was listed at the source. – BMacZero (🗩) 18:16, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

There don't appear to be any cases where Prosch is actually named as the photographer, so there shouldn't be any photos credited to him after this is done. – BMacZero (🗩) 18:19, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh, bizarre, because I'm sure some of these are his! I guess this means I should remove everything from Category:Photographs by Thomas W. Prosch, right? - Jmabel ! talk 22:47, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, I guess so. Let me know if you spot any way to tell which photos are his authorships without manual determination, but I didn't spot any. – BMacZero (🗩) 22:56, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Correction request

Hello, BMacZero.

Can you remove the de facto borders of Crimea, Somaliland and Northern Cyprus in File:Eastern Hemisphere LamAz.svg? They are breakaway areas, which are de jure part of Ukraine, Somalia and Cyprus respectively. They are not internationally recognized by any country.

Yours sincerely, Kurcke (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

@Kurcke: Hi! I made those modifications and uploaded them as File:Eastern Hemisphere LamAz 2024 (de jure).svg, since a map depicting de facto borders may still be desirable for some applications. You can swap the file out wherever this one is desired, and let me know if I removed the correct borders. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:10, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Kurcke (talk) 19:14, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Requesting two uploads related to Seattle regrades

• https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/seattle/id/63/rec/1
• https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/seattle/id/1148/rec/1

These were omitted when the batch of photos discussed at Template:PH Coll 1446 were originally uploaded to Commons. I suspect that was because at the time they probably were undated at the source, which has now corrected that.

Thanks in advance! - Jmabel ! talk 23:59, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: It looks like those are actually missing because they were duplicates. 63 was a duplicate of File:Removing_dirt_during_regrade,_ca_1909_(SEATTLE_173).jpg, and 1148 was a duplicate of File:Seneca St from 5th Ave showing regrade workers, ca 1909 (SEATTLE 1206).jpg. I tracked them down with a search for e.g. insource:"{{UWASH-digital-accession|seattle|1148}}", since the duplicates are recorded that way. – BMacZero (🗩) 06:23, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! - Jmabel ! talk 18:26, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Museum of History and Industry

Seattle's Museum of History and Industry, which has long had the University of Washington Libraries host its online photo collection, has just started its own site at https://mohai.org/collections-and-research/search/. It looks like they have higher-resolution versions of a lot of files we already have (I'm not yet sure how consistently higher-resolution); mercifully, the old site will not be taken down (just not further updated) and it looks like the "Id number" on the new site corresponds to the "Image number" on the old site. Unfortunately, that "Image number" is not something we've sucked in.

I would guess that we'd like to overwrite with any higher-resolution photos. My guess is that the sanest way to do this would be first to scrape the old site for that "Image number", add it to our file pages, then use that to find the right source on the new site. Whether that's two passes or one, I have no idea. Anyway, do you think this is something you might be able to take on with your bot? If not, any suggestions? - Jmabel ! talk 18:23, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. I do have those item numbers downloaded, even though they didn't get added to the pages, so I should be able to go straight to the correct MOHAI page and get the new image. I'll let you know when I can get to it. – BMacZero (🗩) 00:50, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Wonderful!

Probably should get those IDs into the page when you do this (even if only with "other fields").

Question: would it be feasible to still somehow list the URL at UW Special Collections (those pages aren't going away) but correct the source as such to use the new site, where the high-res scans will reside? - Jmabel ! talk 03:40, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I can make sure all the relevant information is still there. – BMacZero (🗩) 19:49, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Another collection at UW Libraries that would be worth having

Prosch Albums, 1851-1906. Some cool stuff here, I think we only have a couple of these. Here's the one that got my attention: https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/prosch_washington/id/218/ - Jmabel ! talk 00:52, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Looks good, I'll add it to the list! – BMacZero (🗩) 18:58, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Got that one done: Category:Images from the Prosch Albums. – BMacZero (🗩) 05:02, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Copyright status: File:New Map of North America, agreeable to the Latest Discoveries (MAPS 8).jpg

Copyright status: File:New Map of North America, agreeable to the Latest Discoveries (MAPS 8).jpg

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading File:New Map of North America, agreeable to the Latest Discoveries (MAPS 8).jpg. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear. If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{self|cc-zero}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.) If you did not create the file yourself or if it is a derivative of another work that is possibly subject to copyright protection, then you must specify where you found it (e.g. usually a link to the web page where you got it), you must provide proof that it has a license that is acceptable for Commons (e.g. usually a link to the terms of use for content from that page), and you must add an appropriate license tag. If you did not create the file yourself and the specific source and license information is not available on the web, you must obtain permission through the VRT system and follow the procedure described there. Note that any unsourced or improperly licensed files will be deleted one week after they have been marked as lacking proper information, as described in criteria for deletion. If you have uploaded other files, please confirm that you have provided the proper information for those files, too. If you have any questions about licenses please ask at Commons:Village pump/Copyright or see our help pages. Thank you.

This action was performed automatically by AntiCompositeBot (talk) (FAQ) 05:05, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I've fixed this, but @BMacZero, it looks like your bot put only single curly brackets for the license template instead of double. - Jmabel ! talk 06:41, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I found the problem and fixed it. – BMacZero (🗩) 08:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

A date in the 1880s

Where did the bot get 1889 from at File:044 Seattle from Denny Hill (PROSCH 76).jpg? Photo looks to me to be the earlier of the two, and the handwriting could as easily say 1882, which would be consistent with the dating of the same photo at https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/peiser/id/69. Also, he says "Four years apart," which works for 1882 and 1886, but not 1886 and 1889. - Jmabel ! talk 01:55, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel: "1886, 1889" is just what UWash has on the 'Item Description' for that photo (https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/prosch_washington/id/76). Your assessment looks pretty compelling to me, so that's a UWash error. – BMacZero (🗩) 02:05, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Aha! I see, I was looking at the object description, not the item description (doh!). I wonder where they got that thing about Carleton Watkins as photographer, because at https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/peiser/id/69 they attribute the same photo to Theodore Peiser. - Jmabel ! talk 02:16, 4 January 2026 (UTC)