Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Multimedia and Commons/See Exif without restoring file

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See Exif without restoring file

• Problem: Exif plays an important role in copyvio detection. Many files get deleted because of their Exif, especially on Commons. Sometimes an admin needs to check the Exif of an already deleted file (example). The solution to this problem is temporarily restoring the file or downloading the file and checking its metadata offline. It would be good for admins to be able to see Exif of deleted files without restoring or downloading them.
• Who would benefit: Admins, especially Commons admins
• Proposed solution: Add an ability to MediaWiki to see metadata of deleted files without restoring them
• More comments:
• Phabricator tickets:
• Proposer: 4nn1l2 (talk) 21:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• @4nn1l2: What is the use case? Could you give an example? I don't know that we could always show EXIF data to everyone. This data can be manipulated and could contain something offensive or otherwise inappropriate that shouldn't be visible. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  I made my proposal clearer. Of course, I meant to add an ability to MediaWiki so that only admins could see Exif of deleted files. I am searching for a good example, but it may take some time. 4nn1l2 (talk) 23:08, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  @MusikAnimal (WMF): I tried to write a query to search for the word "exif" among deletions by User:Túrelio on Commons. I am almost sure that I have seen them restoring a file temprorily to see its Exif. Unfortunately, the query does not work: quarry:query/50029. Could you please take a look and help me fix it. Sorry for the trouble. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  @MusikAnimal (WMF): OK, I fixed the query myself. Here is the new query: quarry:query/50030. And here are some examples you requested for:

  • c:File:Tenedle_.jpg: c:Special:Redirect/logid/280428322: "checking exif"
  • c:File:ARD-Korrespondent_Udo_Lielischkies.jpg: c:Special:Redirect/logid/284765140: "momentary undelete to examine exif metadata"
  • c:File:Ulrika_Nielsen.jpg: c:Special:Redirect/logid/287813303: "temporary to check exif"
  • c:File:Ben_Kayiranga_en_Imikenyero_(vêtement_traditionnel_rwandais).jpg: c:Special:Redirect/logid/290974872: "do not know how to see exif"

  Sorry for the pings. 4nn1l2 (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks! I think the proposal is very clear and well-written now :) I have a tiny bit of doubt this sort of feature belongs in MediaWiki, but we could certainly build a gadget to do this, also checking if the EXIF data is available in structured data (as Geert Van Pamel notes below). MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 04:09, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  Well... I am wondering if the SDoC data would still be available (and how) after an image would have been deleted? Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 08:37, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• There are bots running like c:User:BotMultichill, c:User:BotMultichilElT, and c:User:SchlurcherBot that copy EXIF data to SDoC (Structured Data on Commons). Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

  But I think here we arrive back at the original question: when the image has been deleted, the SDoC most probably is not accessible any more since the image is not available on Commons any more, so the structured data is not accessible neither? Or maybe the data is still searchable? Who can confirm this? Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

SDoC is not accessible and also not the entire EXIFs are in SDoC. Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Voting

•  Support Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Without being an administrator, this tool is complementary for the detection of 'copyvio' files. DePlusJean (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Петър Петров (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support - Darwin ^Ahoy! 01:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 03:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support As the proposer 4nn1l2 (talk) 23:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support --Aristeas (talk) 16:32, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support --Achim (talk) 09:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 13:18, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support --Túrelio (talk) 19:53, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Ahmad^talk 04:32, 21 December 2020 (UTC)