I don't know if anyone has any suggestions to deal
with this kind of
problem, or even if it has already been recognised as an issue. The
non-technical answer is, of course, to copy the commons images to the local
wiki, but that kind of defeats the point of commons, doesn't it?
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
It's commons policy not to delete images as long as the images are used
anywhere, if the deletion is not urgent (copyvios and policy-vios can be deleted
right away). Some people don't seem to get that into their head, though.
Note that commons admins often rely on my CheckUsage tool to check where an
image is used. Due to the way to database is fed from the parser, this might
miss some uses, though. Specifically, it may miss any ''conditional'' use
of an
image, i.e. used directly or indirectly inside a {{#if}} or {{#switch}} clause.
-- Daniel