[Commons-l] Image donations?

Tue Jun 20 21:56:44 UTC 2006

Brianna Laugher wrote:
> * Please forbid any image below say 800px on one side, and ALL mobile
> phone pictures. They are the worst! (Even if they still upload a small
> image, it might be fine, the important thing is to discourage it)
>   
This is now forbidden by text, and by script ;-)
> * Please enforce the user to pick a better name than the default one.
> We have more than enough D23435646 and IMG345456456 and QZ23545657
> image names already.
>   
Enforcing this is difficult, unless "IMG*" and "Q*" are the only
patterns to watch out for, which I'm sure they aren't.
> * Please DON'T encourage sunsets. :( :( :( :( :( Maybe encourage
> pictures of their local area? at least they can ID that and we can
> figure out if we can use it or not.
>   
Don't talk bad about sunsets. One of my sunsets made it to image oif the
day on commons, after all. They're pretty. Don't tread on them! ;-)
> * Please ONLY allow this option: "I am the creator of this image, and
> hold its copyright." The other option will be such a pain and near
> impossible to verify, and trust me, there will be enough problems with
> their own work.
>   
Disagree. I have uploaded one or two pictures on commons that my mom
took. If we force people to lie on the very first item of the form, how
long do you think their discipline will be holding up?
> * "The public domain (only recommended for images which are in the
> public domain already)." Why??? I would remove this disclaimer and
> list this first, from most-free to least-free (GFDL only). [OK not
> least free but biggest hassle.] Just say "You grant anyone the right
> to use this work for any purpose including commercial use, without any
> conditions, unless such conditions are required by law." That's scary
> (and true) enough.
>   
Disagree. While copyright in its current from is in place, public domain
is not a good license (yes, not a license at all, technically) for our
purposes. Only GFDL/CC-BY guarantees freedom by restricting it,
perversely. IMHO public domain should be chosen only for old images and
USGov-type ones. Pictures that a user took should get a free license
instead, or at least we should encourage that.
GFDL can't be at the end of the list anyway, because otherwise dual
licensing wouldn't make sense ;-)
> * CC-BY-SA: "...and to be released in turn under a free license" -
> change to "any derivatives of this work to be in turn released under
> this license" (to my knowledge you can't just choose something else!)
>   
Done.
> * Please emphasise that licensing decisions cannot be undone in the
> future and if unsure, they should not contribute
>   
Done.
> Instead of just having a big blank space, let's be smarter than
> MediaWiki ;) and have separate fields for the required info.
> "Description (Who or what is shown? Where is it located? Why is it
> interesting or important?)"
> Source should be self-made as I stated above
> "Date (when was the image taken?)"
> Author and Permission, no probs - but please don't put the {{license}}
> in the permission field, put it separately below and in the Permission
> field put a text statement like "X chose to release this image under
> the Y license as part of the Z image donation drive."
>   
Mostly done. If we ever get serious about this, maybe I should
transclude the whole text from a wiki page or something.
> I think we should limit uploads to something like 2 per person per
> day. If they're uploading dozens of images they should probably get an
> account (in fact, make that the alternative: do you have heaps of
> great images to contribute? Sign up to WM commons and upload as many
> as you want!) and also to discourage WM users from "anonymous"
> uploading (WM users are probably a significant majority of donors
> anyway, come fundraising time).
>   
I've added a brief notice to that end.
> * How are we going to communicate to them where if anywhere their
> image will be available? The email... eh. If we have to email them to
> find something out it's already too much hassle, dump it. (IMO)
>   
I just put it in because it was on that weird drawing ;-)
Well, it is optional, and email is better than no email IMHO.
> * Also categories... suggest five (somehow) based on their description
> text & CommonSense and get them to pick the most relevant, or just
> leave it up to the reviewers?
>   
AFAIK CommonSense can only "sense" categories for existing MediaWiki
pages. I could probably write some two-step mechanism, but that feels
weird somehow. I'll leave it as it is for the time being.
> BTW this doesn't mean I support this idea yet, I just like critiquing
> Magnus' UIs ;P
>   
Please try it again! I've added new confusing colors especially for you :-)

Magnus