Addition of 'Closed captions' template to files that have subtitles (Community Wishlist/W527)
On Commons, most files with Timed Text subtitles have the c:Template:Closed captions set but there's thousands of cases where it isn't set and users so far add that template manually (which consumes valuable volunteer time and misses lots of files). Example of a file with the template set.
If the template is present on the page, readers can easily see that subtitles are available. It also enables quickly seeing which languages those are available in and aids translation of subtitles and videos.
Importantly, it also categorizes the file into subcategory/ies of c:Category:Files with closed captioning by language which are subcategories of c:Category:Videos with subtitles by language. It sets the categories depending on which timed texts are set. And if a user adds a timed text translated from another language the respective category is dynamically added without requiring manual maintenance.
So for example, if one is filtering for / searching within videos that are available in English or have English subtitles (or all languages one can understand) then the respective files may be missing because they aren't in the category.
This could be used if there is better language support on Commons where for example search results are adjusted based on the user's configured language or based on what language they searched in in a Web search engine before they landed on the Commons page (with files in languages the user understands further up).
Moreover, when checking for files one could use in some Wikipedia one may want to quickly see which languages subtitles are available in (if not filtering via the cat), especially if one checks lots of files.
There already is this Quarry query: Media files with TimeText but missing Closed Captions template showing the ~8000 files with TimedTexts that don't have the template.
I suggest that the template is added to these files that don't have it set via some new script/bot.
- Pronunciation audio files I think need to be excluded (example)
- Probably it may be best if all audio files are excluded since there is little reason to listen to some audio if you don't understand the language (example)
- It would probably be best if this was run regularly by a bot or in any case it would need to be run regularly
Unassigned
Commons users especially if there is better dynamic integration of language features
- Created: 19:50, 22 March 2026
- Last updated: 14:47, 8 April 2026
- Author: Prototyperspective (talk)
This wish currently has 3 supporters. Voting for this wish is open until it is completed.