Commons:Häufig gestellte Fragen

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Commons:FAQ

This page sums up frequently asked questions in Wikimedia Commons with a short answer and links to background pages. For clarifications on "Creative Commons license" visit Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about the project

Was ist Wikimedia Commons?

Wikimedia Commons ist eine Sammlung von freien Dateien, mit Bildern, Tönen oder Videos. Es dient als zentraler Speicherort für die verschiedenen Wikimedia-Projekte wie Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks und Wikinews. Genaueres erklärt der Commons:Projektrahmen.

What is the scope of this project?

See Commons:Projektumfang. The page Commons:Was Commons nicht ist may also be of interest.

Can I put material on this site?

Yes, you definitely can! In fact, that's what we want you to do. Just start with the First steps in order to join the project.

Was für Material darf ich hochladen?

Alles, was in den Wikimedia-Projekten verwendet werden kann – also Fotos, Grafiken, Zeichnungen, Diagramme, ganze Bücher, Musik, Videos, gesprochene Dateien, Animationen, PDF-Dokumente und vieles mehr. Die Dateien müssen unter einer Freien Lizenz veröffentlicht werden (siehe Commons:Lizenzen). Die gängigsten Lizenzen sind GFDL und CC-BY/SA/BY-SA. Ebenfalls erlaubt sind gemeinfreie Werke, d.h. Werke, deren Urheber vor bereits mehr als 70 Jahren gestorben ist. Nicht erlaubt sind Lizenzen, die

die kommerzielle Nutzung ausschließen (z.B. CC-BY-NC)
die Nutzung ausdrücklich (nur) für die Wikipedia erlauben
eine Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers für die Weiternutzung erfordern

Can I upload mobile apps that are suitable for teaching or demonstrating a concept?

No. See Commons:Projektumfang and Commons:Dateitypen. Commons is not intended to be primarily a repository for software, it's intended to be a media repository. There are other projects (for example F-Droid, but see Category:Mobile software distribution platforms for more options) that may be much more suitable for sharing apps you have created.

Can I upload text of which I am the author?

Commons is about multimedia content (images, video, sound), not text. Text may, depending on form and content, fit into some other Wikimedia project, such as Wikibooks, Wikipedia, Wikisource, or Wikiversity. However, please note that you must not copy and paste text to these other projects unless you are willing to release it into the public domain or license it for use under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike (CC BY or CC BY-SA) licenses. For example, to use text from a website—even your own—that external website must exhibit a clear statement of such public domain release or CC BY-SA licensing.

What are 'gallery' (main namespace) pages for? How should they be designed?

Galleries are a complement to categories (primary way to organize and find files on the Commons), as another way of displaying media. They allow files to be annotated with captions, shown at better sizes than the category default, organized in tables, etc. Typically they begin with short captions that briefly introduce the topic in many languages (these can be automatically generated using MultiDesc), followed by headed sections that typically use the <gallery> tag (see meta page for guidance).

The files should be followed by interwiki links (also generated by Sum-it-up) and at least one category. Gallery pages must be in at least one category.

A good way to design a new gallery page is to adapt an existing one from a similar topic. Species (plants/animals) pages will necessarily be different to location (cities/countries) pages.

Galerien oder Kategorien?

In der Anfangszeit von Commons war das Gegenstand heftiger Diskussionen – beides hat Vorteile. Es haben sich in Commons weitestgehend Kategorien durchgesetzt, die in wenigen Fällen von Galerien ergänzt werden. Generell sollten Dateien so organisiert werden, dass sie wieder auffindbar sind, d.h. in möglichst viele Kategorien und/oder Galerien eingebunden werden. Ganz generell gilt: Eine Kategorie kann eine Galerie nicht vollständig ersetzen und umgekehrt. Eine Kategorie ist besser geeignet für eine sehr große Anzahl an Bildern, eine Galerie bietet dafür die Möglichkeit der Sortierung, Auswahl und mehrsprachigen Kommentierung.

This is just advice for if you feel totally lost. Some topics have specific guidelines for the organisation of media, such as plants and animals which fall under the WikiProject Tree of Life. Unless you are interested in helping out with such projects, don't worry too much about finding out what the 'rules' are until someone tells you -- the people who take part in the project will fix things up.

Copyright questions

What licenses do the files I want to upload have to use?

Anything that you upload must be in the Gemeinfreiheit, or under a free license such as GNU Free Documentation License or CC BY/BY-SA. For more, see Commons:Lizenzen and Commons:Lizenzvorlagen. Please do not invent licenses out of thin air. Most things on the Internet are copyrighted. Don't assume otherwise unless you have a good reason. When publishing your own work, you can release your work into the public domain ({{PD-self}}), or under specific licenses: {{self|license name}}, {{self|license 1|license 2}} etc. You may also choose one of the options from the drop-down menu license selector at Special:Upload under "own work".

Can I upload scans and images of others I modified?

Only the producer of an original work, or those who have been granted the right to license that work, can license the work. A scan or a modification does not automatically make a document become (or transform into) your own work. This means that you cannot just grab a file from the Internet and put a GFDL or CC license on it. See also Commons:Urheberrechtsregeln nach Gegenstand.

Why doesn't Commons include fair use content?

One of Wikimedia Commons core principles is that content stored here should be freely reusable in any context, anywhere in the world, in the same way that the (CC BY-SA licensed) encyclopedia content is. This restricts us to free content only. This principle, like the NPOV policy at Wikipedia, will never change. Also, fair use applies only to usage in an editorial context – it simply doesn't apply to a media repository. Copyright law also varies from country to country. Thus, Fair Use laws will also vary: each country has its own interpretation, and many jurisdictions have no fair use at all. As a result, fair use content is seldom going to be usable outside the United States.

Siehe auch: Commons:Fair use

Darf ich die Bilder und Dateien auch auf meiner eigenen Website benutzen?

Ja. Unter folgenden Bedingungen:

Beachte die Lizenz(en) auf der Bildbeschreibungsseite.
Die meisten Lizenzen (GFDL, CC-BY) erfordern, dass du die Lizenz nennst, sie im Volltext auf deiner Seite hinterlegst oder einen Link zum Volltext setzt.
Die meisten Lizenzen erfordern die Namensnennung des Urhebers.
Public-Domain-Dateien (mit PD-Vorlagen) können ohne Nennung des Urhebers überall verwendet werden.

Mehr steht unter Commons:Weiterverwendung.

Wie sollte die Bildbeschreibung aussehen?

Die Bildbeschreibungsseite muss folgende Informationen enthalten:

Beschreibung des Bildmotivs, möglichst in mehreren Sprachen (s.o.)
Urheber des Bildes (Fotograf, Zeichner, Illustrator)
- Wenn du selbst der Urheber bist: dein Benutzername, wenn du willst auch zusätzlich dein bürgerlicher Name
- Wenn jemand anders der Urheber ist: Dessen Lebensdaten bzw. dessen Genehmigung.
die passende Lizenzvorlage
mindestens eine Kategorie

Du kannst diese Angaben auch nachträglich einfügen, indem du die Bildbeschreibungsseite aufrufst und den Reiter „edit“ bzw. „Bearbeiten“ anklickst.

Where do I get credit for my images?

Some of our accepted licenses require attribution. This means that a photographer has to be given credit every time their picture is used. Please make sure you put the name you want to have mentioned in the description page of the image. Within Wikipedia articles, people who click your image in order to enlarge it will see your name.

What happens if a Flickr license changes?

I have uploaded an image, can I revoke the license later?

The short answer is "No".

Free licenses are designed in such a way that once you release the work under them, you cannot later demand that people stop using that particular license to distribute the work. This is done to protect the users from putting their time and energy making what you upload better or developing something around that work, only to find out later than their work cannot be distributed at all because you have changed your mind. Also see the official Creative Commons FAQ topic “What if I change my mind about using a CC license?”, more info.

Please think hard before you upload images to Wikimedia Commons.

Having said that, on some occasions, such as when it is clear that a mistake was made, and the uploader requests the deletion right after the upload, images are deleted. But this is not a loop-hole that you can use if your upload has resided on Commons for a week or more.

Wie erreiche ich eine Freigabe für ein fremdes Bild?

Du möchtest ein Bild hochladen, das du nicht selbst gemacht hast. Dazu benötigst du die schriftliche Einwilligung des Urhebers, das Bild unter eine freie Lizenz zu stellen. (Falls der Urheber nicht mehr lebt, musst du die Erben fragen.) Bitte benutze die Einverständniserklärung und folge den dortigen Anweisungen.

Technical questions

Does Commons use a special wiki engine?

No. It is the same MediaWiki as for most other Wikimedia sites, but with galleries instead of articles in the main namespace (see the question above). But this site has many heavily customized gadgets and most templates are unique to Commons and developed locally.

Wie groß darf ein Digitalfoto sein?

So groß wie möglich, möglichst verlustfrei (= unkomprimiert) abgespeichert. Was deine Kamera hergibt. Die Erfahrung zeigt: Speicherplatz wird billiger, Computer werden schneller, Bildschirmauflösungen wachsen, Ansprüche an die Bildgröße und -qualität steigen. Vor Jahren war 1024x768 noch ein akzeptables Digitalfotoformat – inzwischen produzieren Handyfotos größere Aufnahmen. Für den Leser hat die Dateigröße keinen Einfluss auf die Ladezeit, da die Bilder serverseitig skaliert werden. Außerdem: Das Original aus deiner Kamera enthält viel mehr Bildinformationen, aus denen ein Bildbearbeitungsprofi noch etwas rausholen kann. Du siehst: Verkleinern und Komprimieren von Bildern macht dir viel Arbeit, bringt viele Nachteile und wenig Vorteile.

However, scaling of images may fail if the image is very large and rendering takes too much time or memory (in that case, either no scaled image is shown, or the full image is served to the browser, often causing it to lock up). For PNG images, a hard limit of 25 megapixels is in effect. Large JPEGs are only problematic if they are saved in progressive mode, since the entire image has to be processed at once. Use baseline mode instead.

Wenn du meinst, das Bild müsste bearbeitet werden, hilft dir die Wikipedia:Fotowerkstatt/Wikipedia:Grafikwerkstatt. Übrigens: Für die Nachbearbeitung von Bildern ist ein möglichst unverändertes, möglichst großes und detailreiches Originalfoto erforderlich.

Wie kann ich die Dateien in Wikipedia-Artikel einbauen?

Neunbinden-Gürteltier auf Nahrungssuche

Ganz einfach:

Den Wikipedia-Artikel zum Bearbeiten öffnen.
An der richtigen Stelle im Text [[Datei:Bildname|miniatur|Bildunterschrift]] einfügen.
Vorschau anzeigen lassen.
Speichern.

Beispiel: Nehmen wir an, du hast die Datei File:Armadillo en Montemorelos.jpg hochgeladen. Zum Einbinden müsstest du den Text [[Datei:Armadillo en Montemorelos.jpg|miniatur|Neunbinden-Gürteltier auf Nahrungssuche]] in den Wikipedia-Artikel einfügen, damit das Bild so erscheint wie hier. Hierbei wird zwischen Groß- und Kleinschreibung unterschieden.

Ein Wikipedia-Artikel sollte allerdings keine großen „Bildergalerien“ enthalten – dafür sind die Commons da. Einen Link zur Commons-Galerie setzt man im Wikipedia-Artikel mit {{commons|Name der Galerie}} bzw. {{commonscat|Name der Commons-Kategorie}}.

Mehr Infos: de:Hilfe:Bilder.

Hinweis: Anderssprachige Wikimedia-Projekte verwenden andere Schlüsselworte zum Einbinden von Bildern. In allen funktioniert jedoch die englische Syntax (z.B. [[File:Armadillo en Montemorelos.jpg|thumb|Nine-banded armadillo hunting for food]]), siehe dazu en:Wikipedia:Picture tutorial (englisch).

How do I link to an image without showing it?

Use [[:File:Example.jpg]]. That shows up as: File:Example.jpg

How can I transfer an image from Wikipedia to Commons?

If the image is under a free license, you can use FileImporter to transfer it to Commons.

Kann man Dateien umbenennen?

Shortcut

Commons:FAQ

How can I rename or move a category?

See Commons:Umbenennen einer Kategorie.

=== Wie trage ich Bilder in eine Kategorie ein? ===#!#

Als erstes musst du geeignete Kategorien für das Bild suchen. Grundregel: nimm die spezifischste Kategorie, die du finden kannst. Schau dir am besten mehrere vergleichbare Bilder an.
Öffne die Bildbeschreibungsseite zum Bearbeiten, indem du oben den Reiter „edit“ oder „Bearbeiten“ anklickst.
Füge im Bearbeitungsfenster unter den Angaben zur Lizenz die entsprechenden Kategorien wie folgt ein:

[[Category:Stars in Art]]

Achte darauf, existierende Kategorien zu benutzen. Wenn eine Kategorie rot angezeigt wird, existiert sie vielleicht unter einem anderen Namen oder muss neu angelegt werden.
Vorschau anzeigen
Speichern

Weitere Hilfe bietet Commons:Kategorien.

How do I best categorize my own pictures?

The Golden Gate Bridge is a bridge in San Francisco, United States. However, ~~Category:Bridges~~, ~~Category:San Francisco~~ and ~~Category:United States~~ are too general. Look at Category:Golden Gate Bridge instead. As this is further subdivided, Category:Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point is best suited for the above picture.

Categorization should answer "W-questions", most importantly: What is it? Where is it? A file should be put in the most specific category/categories that fit(s). We don't use general keyword tags like "nature" or "architecture" to organize files.

There are several ways to find appropriate categories (or gallery pages).

Look at Main page and at the categories given there, and go to the one that best fits your picture. Then look at subcategories and pages in that category, and again choose the one that fits best. Repeat until you find no more specific place that fits your picture.
Type the name (or location, or a short description) of the depicted motif into the search box. In the search results, look for a suitable category or pictures of the same motif that have already been properly categorized.
If your picture is suitable to illustrate a specific Wikipedia article, find out if there is a link to the corresponding Commons category (or gallery) in the article's "In other projects" or "External links" sections, and follow that link.

If unsure, choose a more general category. However, unless a picture has additional important elements to it that are currently missing their own subcategories, avoid categorizing pictures into both a subcategory and one of this subcategory's more general parent categories. See Commons:Kategorien for more information.

Warum kann eine Kategorie nicht auf dem neuesten Stand sein?

Manchmal sind die Kategorien nicht manuell durch Commons-Benutzer auf eine Seite hinzugefügt, sondern über eine Vorlage, die zum Platzieren identischer Informationen (inklusive Kategorien) auf mehreren Seiten benutzt wird. Wenn die Kategorien einer solchen Vorlage bearbeitet werden, werden die Seiten, die diese Vorlage beinhalten, nicht direkt aktualisiert. Das heißt, dass Seiten nicht immer in den aktuellsten Kategorien sind. Dies betrifft jedoch gewöhnlich nur Wartungskategorien und keine inhaltlichen Kategorien.

Various other temporary delays may sometimes mean that lists of category members or subcategories, or the page counts given, are not completely up to date. So if you are editing Commons and find that your page hasn't yet shown up in a category or been removed from an old category, don't panic! The problem will probably resolve itself within minutes, or after a longer time in rare cases.

How should categories be organized?

How do I best make a gallery of my own pictures?

You can create a user gallery either as a subpage of your user page (so if you are user Foo, put your gallery page at User:Foo/gallery), or as a category (called something like Category:Pictures by Foo). All user galleries should be in Category:User galleries, all user categories should be in Category:User categories – see Commons:Benutzerspezifische Galerien, Vorlagen und Kategorien for details. To find all the pictures you have uploaded, you can use the upload log.

How do I create a gallery?

See meta:Help:Images and other uploaded files#Gallery tag, category, table of images for information on how to create galleries the easy way – with the <gallery> tag. The page Commons:Galerien might give you information on common conventions of galleries here on Commons.

Warum wird das Bild unverändert angezeigt, obwohl ich es beschnitten/gedreht/bearbeitet habe?

Shortcuts

Generell kann es zwei Stellen geben, wo das Problem liegt: Entweder in deinem Browser oder auf einem Wikimedia-Server. Beide speichern sich lokale Kopien von Bildern in Caches, um sie nicht jedes Mal neu laden zu müssen. Wenn diese Kopien veraltet sind, muss der Cache komplett oder für das bestimmte Bild gelöscht werden, siehe Help:Purge. Weitere Infos hierzu findest du auf der Seite Hilfe:Cache in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia.

See Hilfe:Purge, en:WP:BYPASS, and en:WP:PURGE for more details.

Can I upload video and/or audio?

Yes! Take a look at our guides about video and audio.

Ein Bild wird nicht angezeigt

Wenn ein Bild nicht sichtbar ist, kann das folgende Gründe haben (in der Reihenfolge ihres Auftretens):

Die Server sind überfordert – trink einen Kaffee und versuche es später noch einmal.
Der Cache des Servers oder deines Browsers ist nicht auf dem neuesten Stand. Hier hilft die Seite de:Hilfe:Cache.
Dein Browser besitzt einen Adblocker, der Thumbnails wegen ihrer Breite von 180px (o.ä.) für Werbebanner hält. Trage wikimedia.org und wikipedia.org in die Whitelist deines Adblockers ein.
Die Bilddatei ist fehlerhaft. Lade sie herunter und prüfe, ob sie sich in einem Bildbearbeitungsprogramm öffnen lässt.

The file may be too large to give a thumbnail (e.g., a large JPG in progressive mode). See: Commons:Dateitypen#Size and scaling.

How can I search for images?

Look at Special:MediaSearch or Special:Search and follow the links there. For more advanced searching see Help:Searching and Commons:Hilfsprogramme#Search. You can also go to related articles in the different Wikipedias and look at what pictures they are using. Some may already be on Commons, and they should be categorized, giving you a hint where to look for more.

How will the software be adapted for this project?

See Commons:Hilfsprogramme, Commons:Helferlein and Commons:Fehler.

I have a lot of files. Can I do a batch upload, rather than one at a time?

A file or page needs to be renamed or moved. Can this be done?

Galleries and other standard pages: yes. Accounts older than four days can rename articles by using the 'move' tab at the top of the page. Note that for different language titles, redirects should be created rather than moving a page.

Files (Images): Yes, but only by administrators or users with the filemover permission. Please see § How can I rename/move an image or other media file?.

Categories: no. If the badly named category is still a likely one (rather than a misspelling), the badly named one should be converted into a soft redirect by tagging it with {{Category redirect}}. The images in the category have to be manually changed to belong to the new category. (Cat-a-lot is a gadget which makes such mass recategorisation easy.) Note that due to technical restrictions, categories should all be in English.

When I tried to upload my file, I get this error: "." is not an allowed file format. See Commons:File types for more information.

Make sure that the file you're uploading has an extension and that it is one of the allowed types. Make sure also that you have not left a space either before or after the point.

Be sure to include an extension in the Destination filename: field as well. For example, write "Orange grove in summer.jpg" not just "Orange grove in summer".

What does the upload error This file contains HTML or script code that may be erroneously interpreted by a web browser. mean?

The file you tried to upload contains some HTML code in its metadata. Most likely, you tried to upload a JPG file, and the HTML is contained in the file's Exif data. Because of security concerns, such files cannot be uploaded.

You'll have to remove the HTML code from the file's metadata. You will need to have access to software that allows you to edit such metadata. One way to do this is via exiftool. This is a very powerful command-line program to edit image metadata. If you're using a computer running the Windows operating system, there is also a graphical user interface to that tool called ExiftoolGUI.

If the file you tried to upload is from Flickr, you can view (but not edit) the metadata on Flickr. For instance, this Flickr image does have HTML in its metadata and will thus provoke this error message. You can view the metadata by appending "/meta" to the URL: this image's metadata. The "Caption-Abstract" metadata entry contains HTML-code: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier,_New_Zealand#1931_earthquake">Wikipedia</a>. That's the bit you'd need to remove. (Yes, that's just a harmless link. But with HTML, one could try to do more nefarious things, and thus our software simply forbids any HTML in image metadata.) Download the Flickr file to your computer and then remove the HTML from the metadata.

Once you have removed the HTML from the image's metadata, you should be able to upload the file. (Do not upload this sample file from Flickr, though, it already exists as File:Central Hotel, Napier 05.jpg.)

I want to use a Commons image, but there is already a file at my local wiki with the same name which is blocking it. How can I access the Commons file?

Unfortunately at this time, the only options are to have the local file deleted, or re-upload the Commons image under another name, or ask for either the local image or the Commons image to be moved to another name. If the local image is renamed, the leftover redirect may need to be deleted as well.

How can I upload a new version of a file?

Firstly, you can only do this if your account is older than 4 days.

Secondly, consider uploading to a separate file unless the changes are relatively minor. See Commons:Existierende Dateien überschreiben.

If you are still intent on uploading a new version of a file, you should have the new version of the file saved to your computer, then navigate to the image page here on Commons. Under the subhead "File history", there is a link that says "Upload a new version of this file". Click on this link. You will be taken to a page titled "Upload file". Scroll down to the middle of this page to a box labeled "Source file". Next to the words Source filename is a button marked Browse.... Click on this button and browse your computer to find the new version of the file. Do not alter the entry under Destination filename:. Under File changes, indicate what changes you have made (e.g., "hi-res version" or "removed background noise" or "fixed colour balance")— just one line is enough to say what changes your new version contains. Lastly, click the Upload file button. A warning will appear telling you that you are replacing an existing file— as that is what you want to do, you should continue.

Avoid overwriting images with different images of the same topic.

Where can I see where my file is being used?

Below the "File history" section are two "file usage" sections, one titled File usage on Commons and another titled File usage on other wikis. These two sections will list all instances on Wikimedia Foundation projects where your file is currently in use.

Why is the text of my new uploads corrected soon after upload?

In last couple of years Wikimedia Commons has been working hard on localization or internationalization (aka. i18n) of most of the text a user might see on any page. The goal is to show the content in the language of the user's choice. The current upload process, which creates a lot of new text visible on each page, was written before the current push for internationalization and creates all the headers and other standard texts in the language of the uploader, and since the software supports many different languages, new images are created daily with text in all those languages. In order to correct the problem, some automatic processes (aka bots) patrol new uploads, changing the text to code which will automatically show the text in the language of the user's choice. Some of the changes you might expect to see on files uploaded (using English language for these examples) are:

Summary → {{int:filedesc}}
[[Commons:Copyright tags|Licensing]] → {{int:license}}
Own work → {{Own}}

Some discussions on the subject can be found here and here.

Can't the upload process be fixed so it creates the correct wiki-text?

As explained in the above section, the wiki-text of the new file uploads is created directly by the server-side upload program (a php script). It can only be fixed by changing the Mediawiki code. The problem is well known, but it is unclear if there are plans to fix it (as of Nov 2009). Some recent discussions on the subject can be found here.

Why did my image rotate after I uploaded it?

This is most likely the result of an error in the file's EXIF data (also called its "metadata"). See Commons:Rotation/de for information about fixing this problem.

Wie kann ich ein Bild drehen?

Bilder auf Knopfdruck zu drehen, wie das z.B. bei Flickr möglich ist, geht auf den Commons nicht. Um ein Bild zu drehen, muss man es gedreht als neue Version hochladen. Um sich dies zu ersparen, gibt es unter dem Bild einen Link "(request rotation)" mit dem man das Bild drehen lassen kann. Das Drehen wird vom Cropbot übernommen und kann ein paar Stunden oder Tage dauern.

Ursache für plötzlich gedrehte Bilder war eine Änderung an der MediaWiki-Software, die dazu geführt hat, dass Bilder plötzlich um 90, 180 oder 270° gedreht angezeigt werden (Details).

Manual way:

Template	Rotation
{{rotate\|90}}	90 degrees clockwise
{{rotate\|180}}	180 degrees
{{rotate\|270}}	270 degrees clockwise (90° anticlockwise)

If you request a rotation by another value (e.g. 5°), the image will be placed in Category:Images requiring rotation for processing by humans. Maybe an editor will take the time to rotate it – can take some longer time.

My camera puts a timestamp on photos. Good?

No. Not good. Turn it off. It's much better to just let your camera store things like this in the file's Exif data – most devices will do that automatically.

What are the strangely named components in file paths?

And how are they computed?

If you go to some file on a MediaWiki installation, say File:Spelterini Blüemlisalp.jpg, and you click to view the full version, you may discover that the file resides at the URL https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Spelterini_Bl%C3%BCemlisalp.jpg. (The "%C3%BC" part is just the result of url-encoding the Umlaut "ü".)

Where does that "/a/ae" part come from?: The "a" and "ae" denote some subdirectories that are used to avoid problems with directories containing too many files. Imagine all the millions of files at the Commons in one directory! Some operating systems have problems dealing with directories with many files. (Try working with a folder containing a few thousand files on Windows…)
Can it be calculated from the file name?: Yes. It's the first and the first two characters of the MD5 hash of the filename (blanks replaced by underscores) without namespace part. The file name "Spelterini_Blüemlisalp.jpg" has the MD5 hash "ae1a26d34d6a674d4400c8a1e6fe73f8".; MediaWiki installations can be configured on how to generate these filenames and directory structures. Any MediaWiki installation has one or more file repositories, which may be local or not. First, such subdirectories are used only if the global server-side configuration setting $wgHashedUploadDirectory is true (or $wgHashedSharedUploadDirectory for shared repositories). Then, for each file repository, there is a property called hashLevels that determines how deep the directory structure shall be. If zero, no such intermediary directories are used. If set to e.g. 3, three levels of directories are used; for the example above, one would get "/a/ae/ae1".; This method of storing files has been in MediaWiki since version 1.1 (and possibly even earlier), though it became a bit more configurable over time; initially, it was hardcoded to use two hash levels.; You can check what the file URL for a given file name will be at Special:FilePath. The file path can also be queried through the MediaWiki API using e.g. a query like https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=File:Spelterini_Bl%C3%BCemlisalp.jpg&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url. Both these methods, however, work only for existing files.; Online MD5 calculators differ in the way they treat UTF-8 input. Two that return values consistent with the way MediaWiki hashes UTF-8 strings are helloacm.com/md5/ and md5.cz.

How do I translate the subtitles on a video?

You can create a copy of the timed text page containing the transcribed subtitles, changing the language code in the timed text page to your language code. Then you simply translate the text. See Commons:Timed Text#Internationalization.

Internal error: bad token

When uploading a file you may see an Internal error: Bad token. error message. This will usually be fixed by logging out of Commons, closing your browser, and starting again. If not, you may additionally delete all cookies (or just the wikimedia.org cookie) and purge your browser's cache before trying again. If this still does not solve the issue, try turning off ad blockers or network filters (sometimes the token could look like an advert URL).

How do I close my account?

If you want to stop using Commons, then no special procedure is needed: simply stop visiting the site. Accounts cannot be removed completely, but some measures can be taken for privacy. See Right to vanish.

Wie kann ich eine Seite oder ein Bild löschen lassen?

Commons:Richtlinien zum Löschen lesen.
Schnelllöschanträge ({{speedydelete}}) sind geeignet für versehentliche Uploads, offensichtlich geklauten Dateien ({{copyvio|optionale URL}}, Doubletten ({{duplicate|andere Datei}}.
Ein „normaler“ Löschantrag sollte auf Englisch gestellt werden – Commons:Löschanträge ist dafür der richtige Ort.

Why can't I upload?

In some cases, uploads can be blocked by Commons:Missbrauchsfilter.

Questions about the Commons community

Was ist ein Administrator und wie kann ich einer werden?

Infos dazu stehen unter Commons:Administratoren.

Wo kann ich Fragen stellen?

Im deutschsprachigen Commons:Forum oder im englischsprachigen Commons:Village pump sowie in jeder Sprache im Commons:Help desk.

How does Commons work with similar projects?

Commons is very interested in working with projects that have similar aims. See Commons:GLAM for details.

What should I do if a page or file needs deleting?

See Commons:Löschanträge and Commons:Löschrichtlinien.

Why don't all images from Wikimedia projects get uploaded here by default?

Most importantly, some Wikipedias have a less strict licensing policy than Commons, as some pictures that would not be acceptable to Commons would be okay on them. Commons does not (and cannot) allow fair use content, as some Wikipedias do. See Commons:Fair use.

Welche Sprache sollte auf Commons benutzt werden?

Theoretisch: jede Sprache, in der es eine Wikipedia gibt. Faktisch: in erster Linie Englisch, es gibt aber auch sehr viele deutschsprachige Mitarbeiter und das deutschsprachige Commons:Forum. Mehr dazu unter Commons:Sprache.

Bildbeschreibungen sollten in deiner eigenen Muttersprache sowie auf Englisch, im Idealfall in weiteren wichtigen Sprachen existieren. Die verschiedenen Sprachen werden mit einem Baustein gekennzeichnet:

{{de|Dies ist die deutschsprachige Bildbeschreibung}}

{{en|This is the image description in English}}

Namen von Kategorien und Galerien: generell in Englisch, mit einigen Ausnahmen:
- Tiere und Pflanzen: lateinische Bezeichnungen
- Städte, Länder, Flüsse, Regionen, Verwaltungseinheiten usw.: in der Landessprache
- Kunstwerke, Musikstücke, Literatur u.ä.: in der Originalsprache
Die Bezeichnungen in anderen Sprachen werden als Weiterleitung auf die Galerieseite angelegt.
Dateinamen: Siehe Commons:Dateibenennung. Kurz: bitte verwende aussagekräftige, beschreibende Dateinamen. Deutsche Dateinamen (File:Scheinwerfer am Brandenburger Tor in Abenddämmerung.jpg) können ebenso verwendet werden wie englische (File:Traffic jam at the Tower of London in May 2008.jpg).

Unfortunately, users who don't know English well may have a harder time on Commons. Commons tries to supply information in many languages, but non-English pages tend to be incomplete or outdated. Also, some things, like the names of categories, can't (yet) be localized. Sorry.