Can't we just start by asking for a software upgrade that doesn't accept images without a source? Hiding the link also makes uploading harder for regular contributors who don't remember links and use the side bar for easy access and for newbies who do care abou copyrights. Mgm On 3/22/06, Rudy Koot <r.koot(a)students.uu.nl> wrote:

G'day Mark, This sort of thing used to irk me terribly, until I stumbled across something approaching Enlightenment. If we assume good faith, the answer is obvious: the user isn't lying in a desperate attempt to violate copyrights and get us in trouble; he's (it is usually a he) merely confused and caught up in process fetishism. Images aren't deleted because they don't have a tag: they're deleted because they have no source and their copyright status is unclear, and we've decided not to take the risk of keeping such images around for no good purpose. But if I, or any other person trying to crack down on copyvios, try to explain the situation to a newbie, we say: "you need to place a tag on this image". Is it any *wonder* he gets confused? What, will any tag do? Any source is appropriate, right, even if that source says "all rights reserved, do not steal our images or we'll steal your thumbs, and what use will your precious Gameboy be then, eh?"? We confuse what the tags mean with the tags themselves. I have the same problem with other templates, like the {{testn}} warnings: we aren't warning people, we're slapping a template on their page (congratulations! You're the 100th RC patroller to tag this page this year! Has it occurred to you that this talkpage already contains 99 identical boilerplate warnings, and what effect that has on a growing lad?), and likewise with images. Bingo. And he's not being malicious in that; he's being human (or possibly a magpie). We need to explain to him *why* he can't have his picture; "because it hasn't got the right tag" just doesn't cut it. When we say "that's policy", what we're *really* saying is "because I and a few other people said so". Learning the *reason* why we do things, so that a) we can do them properly, and b) we can explain them to others, is vital. -- Mark Gallagher "But the visibility was very poor, and you yourself admit that you were being struck by thunderbolts all the time, which must have distracted your attention, so it is more than probable you were mistaken." - Esmond Haddock, /The Mating Season/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.6/288 - Release Date: 22/03/2006

Mark Gallagher wrote: The image use policy page said all that three years ago when I started at WP, and it still does; I didn't have any trouble understanding it after working on WP for a couple weeks. The upload page has all manner of links and warnings, which link to even further explanations, eventually going back to first principles for those that want to learn all about copyright law. While I want to assume good faith in all of this, in actually looking through a random swath of recent untagged uploads, the explanations that come to mind are either that we have many editors with the IQ of a turnip, or they are deliberately ignoring the policy and explanations we're putting in front of them. Whichever the case, their uploads are not helping build the encyclopedia, and we need to stop making excuses for them. Stan

Stan Shebs wrote: I agree here. I want to AGF, and perhaps in a number of cases, yes, the editor is just acting in good faith. But I've seen a number of cases -- even on Commons -- where the uploader just wanted some pictures for his article. Take, for instance, the images on [[Michelle Kwan]], which are all licenced under the GPL and yet are sourced from Encarta or some Tripod webpage -- neither of which mentions *anything* about the GPL. Numerous images previously used on the article as fair use were taken down (for what reasons, I know not) and replaced with these ostensibly "free" images. I suspect this is more common than we might think. I browse the celebrity articles quite often, and I keep seeing this game of musical chairs going on with the images because they're fair use. Each time the image gets replaced with either an image lacking source/licence data or another fair use image -- in either case, the image will end up deleted after a while, and the cycle will repeat. Is it any wonder that fans get fed up and start blatantly lying to us about the copyright status of images? Then there are some cases where you just have to AGF but also yell "what the bloody hell were you thinking?" at the uploaders. For instance, there's an image of [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]] on Commons tagged as public domain because of age when it wasn't even taken 50 years ago. (And I really doubt Malaysian copyright law provides for such a short period of copyright.) And then we have a number of images tagged with a template identifying them as PD because they are a work of an employee of the Malaysian Prime Minister's Office. Only problem is that there's *nothing* to show that this assertion is true. The Malaysian PM's site is copyrighted by the Malaysian government, with all rights reserved -- and I doubt it wasn't created by employees of the PM's Office. These mistaken taggings are more worrying, IMO, because they tend to come from active editors who just don't know any better. For most other cases I think it is reasonable to AGF, but most images with copyright problems *are* uploaded by throwaway accounts or people who blatantly lie to us. These are the two main problems (from my experience): good and active editors simply not knowing better, and throwaway accounts/bad faith editors uploading just any old damn image -- and in some cases tagging it incorrectly as free. Having said that, I do think that it might be a tad over-reacting to make it extremely complicated/impossible for new editors to upload images. The problem is that the only good way to tell if someone is acting in good faith and at least knows something about our policies is by how long that editor has been here and how many edits that editor has made. Pretty much anything else is subject to gaming, as Mark Wagner/Carnildo has pointed out. John

Mark Gallagher wrote: That's a very important point. Simply saying, "because it's policy" gets people to dig in their heels. Many of these are young guys who are then reminded of mom or dad telling them to clean their rooms or mow the lawn. They are testing their independance all the way. Ec

On 3/24/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's a pretty good explanation in cases where we might actually get sued. In other cases (e.g. by-permission images, logos on userpages, and so forth), it really is a matter of project policy rather than any concrete legal liability on our part. Kirill Lokshin

Dear uploader: If this image is from the web, please provide the URL to that image. Bingo, instant image verification (and likely, instant copyvio verification).

On 3/27/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo(a)gmail.com> wrote: Orphan them. -- geni

On 3/22/06, Jesse W <jessw(a)netwood.net> wrote: And once you finish with the untagged images, which project are you going to move on to? Verifying the fair-use claims on the 150,000 images in [[Category:Fair use images]]? Checking the accuracy of the 80,000 or so "GFDL" images? Finding the few images where the "No rights reserved" claim isn't bullshit? Image tagging is an important task, but it isn't the only place where work is needed, either. I haven't checked already-tagged images, but new uploads (based on the data at http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-March/041534.html) have at least a 40% error rate for tagging. -- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]

On Mar 23, 2006, at 11:04 AM, Mark Wagner wrote: Either of those two tasks are useful. I was merely saying that we are making progress, not falling behind, afaict, so changing the process may not be necessary. OK. That is an issue.

On Mar 23, 2006, at 3:19 PM, Ilmari Karonen wrote: Well, that's progress... Having gigantic piles of dirt lining the hallways, and dirt on the walls, and the roof, is worse than having dirt under the carpet. Yes, we need to deal with the dirt under the carpet, too, but we have still made progress. Jesse Weinstein

On Mar 23, 2006, at 4:37 PM, Justin Cormack wrote: Er, no. If you read this whole thread, we still have about 15,000 signs to put up, and according to Mark Wagner, a lot of the signs are not correct, which is what I assume Ilmari Karonen meant about the dirt under the carpet. Getting good enough signs put up is exactly the problem we are working on right now. Whether we have fair use images or not is a whole other issue. Don't mix it in here, please. Jesse Weinstein

Jesse W wrote: Yes, that's what I meant. In fact, going with the sign analogy, it might be more appropriate to say that we have put up signs saying "clean", slightly under half of which point to dirt. -- Ilmari Karonen