User:Ziv

Mainly active on Commons, Wikidata and the German Wikipedia.

I live in the beautiful and peaceful country of Switzerland and have never lived anywhere else. However, when I retire, I could imagine emigrating to another country where the winters are more pleasant. Warmer and friendlier. In my free time, I'm working on a book. Wikipedia is my second favorite activity.

In late May 2026, I also became an administrator on Wikidata; I’m having a blast deleting items created solely for promotional purposes.

In January 2025 I changed my nickname to Ziv. It is a Hebrew name and means brightness, brilliance, glory and splendor. I chose this name because it's short and concise, and I like it.

My work on this language version of Wikipedia is mostly limited to replacing image filenames that have been renamed on Commons.

I would respectfully ask that you refrain from reverting changes when a filename is updated; language versions should always use the current filename rather than a redirect. Redirects on Commons are sometimes flagged for deletion, and some administrators do delete them. Consequently, the image would no longer appear in the article where it was previously displayed.

In my capacity as a Commons administrator, I sometimes replace copyright-violating images with other available ones — this is certainly better than leaving the article without any image at all when alternatives exist on Commons. In such cases of replacement, a red link subsequently appears in the article's revision history, as the copyright-infringing content was deleted after the replacement. Subsequently, the file description should also be reviewed by someone, as it may no longer be up to date. However, my choice of image is not set in stone; you are welcome to swap the image if others are available on Commons.

All changes are made using a script that uses my username. Sometimes I replace filenames manually without this script, and I even enjoy manually editing in other language versions.

Please also check out the requests page on Commons → Open commands and requests.

I also replace old jpg/png/gif files with svg vector versions manually. These are usually flags, icons or other files that have been replaced by a better svg version. Since svg files are not replaced by the bot CommonsDelinker, I sometimes have to edit user pages or User talk pages or User talk pages archives. In this sense, these are maintenance edits, like those users who fix Lint errors.

Thank you for your understanding and I hope you don't mind. If a user doesn't like the change to the svg version of the image, they can of course revert my edit.

If you have any questions to me, please write on my discussion page on the German Wikipedia or Commons, preferably in English, and I will be happy to answer your questions.