Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons/Drives/March 2012/Guide

This guide is a condensed and streamlined version of Wikipedia:Moving files to the Commons. It is strongly encouraged that you read that document in its entirety before you begin making transfers, as it contains the full instructions, a ton of good advice, and links to tools that have been created to make transferring easier.

How to participate

Prerequisites

Before you decide to participate, it's important to have a basic understanding of copyright law and how we apply it on Wikipedia and the Commons. You should know how to tell if something is in the public domain in the U.S. and in its country of origin, and you should know how to spot a copyright violation. You'll also need an account on Commons and you really should have a TUSC account. (They're free and easy to set up.) Got all that? Great! Then you're ready to begin.

Step 1 – Find a file to move

The obvious place to look is in Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons. There are thousands upon thousands to choose from there. If we happen to run out, there is a second, even larger list at Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons (bot-assessed). Finally, there are other good spots to find files to transfer listed here.

It has been determined that files with at least one use in an article are "priority candidates". These can be found in Category:Move to Commons Priority Candidates.

Step 2 – Decide what to do with the file

A list of issues that would indicate that files should not be transferred to commons is located at "What not to transfer" on the main guide. An expanded guide to dealing with such files is located at "Dealing with files that you can not or should not transfer" on the same page.

Just because a file is tagged as being eligible for transfer to Commons does not necessarily mean it should actually be moved. You are responsible for checking the file yourself and deciding what to do with it.

If the file has serious problems that warrant deletion, list it at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files or Wikipedia:Files for deletion. The tool Twinkle makes filing deletion requests much easier than it would be manually.
Some files are free in the United States but not in the country that the file originated from. Such files can be kept on Wikipedia but cannot be moved to Commons. If a file like this is tagged for transfer, remove the {{Move to Commons}} tag and replace it with a {{Do not move to Commons}} tag.
If you're just not sure what to do with a file, feel free to ask for assistance. If you need clarification on a file's copyright status, Wikipedia:Media copyright questions is the proper forum. There are also participants that have offered to give advice and clarification if needed. They are listed at the bottom of this page.
Do not use upload age as a guide – many files uploaded in 2004/5 have been recently deleted as copyright violations. Searching the internet by image (which helps find copyvios) was only introduced by Google this summer. The alternative image search (TinEye) sadly misses an awful lot of matches.
Finally, if you don't feel comfortable handling a specific file, skip over it. There are tens of thousands of files awaiting transfer, and most of them will be straightforward cases; there's no reason to stress out over the small number of irregular ones.

If it's ready to go to Commons, go on to Step 3.

Step 3 – Transfer the file to Commons

There are several ways to move files to Commons. This guide details the simplest way to do so. For details about additional methods, see the section "How to transfer files to Commons on the main guide. For a list of tools that have been developed to assist you, see "Tools" on the same page.

If someone else has already marked the file for transfer, the file description page will contain a purple box that says "This is a candidate to be copied to Wikimedia Commons". At the bottom of that purple box there is a small link that says "Copy to Commons via CommonsHelper". Click on that link.
You will be taken to a browser window which should say "Move-to-commons assistant" across the top. Many fields will already be filled in, but make sure your username is in the "User" field. Toward the bottom of the page, there will be a grey box where you are instructed to fill in your TUSC username and TUSC password. Fill them in, then click the box labeled "Directly upload file" so that box is checked. Finally, click the "Get Text" button below the grey box when everything is filled out.
If everything was filled in properly and CommonsHelper is functioning properly, you will be transported to a page with a large block of text at the top, and then near the bottom of the page, in large text, the words "Output of upload bot". Ignore everything above that header. Chances are high that there will be a message that starts with "THERE SEEMS TO BE A PROBLEM : Moved Temporarily." Ignore that also; it does not affect the transfer.
Click on the link to the file at Commons. The page also has a "delete the original image" link and an "Add {{NowCommons}}" button. Do not click these until after you have completed step 4.

Step 4 – Clean up the file at Commons

When you transfer a file to Commons in the way described in Step 3, the file will still have a few problems that need manual cleanup. You should check over the file and file description page in its entirety. Keep in mind the following:

At the top of the page there will be a yellow-orange box that begins with "This file was moved to Wikimedia Commons from en.wikipedia using a bot script." Clicking the "Check now!" link opens up an editing window that may fix some issues, and at the very least will remove the yellow-orange box after you click save. There is a clean up script at commons:User:Magog the Ogre/cleanup.js which does assist in some tidying of the data, but you still have to check before you hit "save"
Important information may have been lost during the transfer to Commons. Check to make sure that the file description page on Commons contains the description, author, source, date of original upload, and licensing template. Make sure that the licensing template on Wikipedia contains the same terms as the one on Commons.
There will probably be a lot of file-transfer information in the {{Information}} template, in addition to whatever information was already there. This can be confusing. You may want to move the transfer information outside the {{Information}} template. While it is by no means required, the Commons template Template:English Wikipedia to Commons Transfer Documentation has been created specifically for this purpose.
At the bottom of the page there may be a tan-grey box that begins with "This media file is uncategorized". A transfer is not complete until the image has appropriate categories. You can add categories manually, or... at the very bottom of the page there will be a grey box, inside of which is the text "Category (+⁺)." Click that, then click the (+) to the right of that, and an input box will open up. Try to think of one or more categories that the file would go in. There is an auto-fill feature, so if you start with something general, like "Boston", it will list all the templates that start with "Boston", such as "Boston Children's Museum", "Boston Bruins", or "Boston, Missouri". The list can be scrolled through using the up and down arrow keys. The tool also resolves redirects for you, so you don't have to worry about those. When you're done with the input field, click the "OK" button. You can then add more categories, or click the "Save" button to finish adding categories. The tan-grey box removes itself when you're done. This just makes adding categories easier.

Step 5 – Log your transfer as successful

You'll want to keep track of successful moves by listing them in the logs so you can get credit for them. Under your name, list the name of the file, and put the {{Moved to commons}} template beside it. Reviewers will check your work to see if you did everything right, and may leave you comments at the log page itself. If you've read over the main instructions at Wikipedia:Moving files to the Commons and followed this guide, you should have no problems.

Congratulations on a job well done!