[WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage

Tue Mar 15 19:16:38 UTC 2005

I do not even see what to add to your mail Sj.

I do not think I can be listed amongst those who generally received it 
well. And the very idea is making my blood pressure too high.

Ant

Sj a écrit:
> Yesterday I came across a beautiful panorama, one which any reference
> work would be thrilled to have, which had been *casually* put up for
> deletion.
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wuerzburg_panorama.jpg
> 
> This image had illustrated the article on Wuerzburg for a long while,
> and was then removed by an anonymous edit in February.
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W%FCrzburg&diff=9939546&oldid=9902946
> 
> It was soon afterward listed for deletion as one of hundreds of
> "unverified orphans" [UOs] listed in recent months. Quoth an
> enthusiastic UO deleter:
>   "I've been doing this for about a month, and it's been generally
> well received."
> 
> Out of about 100 such images currently listed on Images for Deletion,
> I found about 20 which were either clearly uploaded by their creators,
> or seemed likely to have been (by virtue of composition, edit
> summaries, image descriptions).  Some of these could clearly be used
> productively in articles, even if they aren't at present; in
> particular the Wuerzburg image and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Xi%27an_city_wall.jpg
> 
> [ Detailed rant:  http://tinyurl.com/4zpyb ]
> 
> This kind of careless deletion must stop.  It should be unacceptable
> to list a borderline image for deletion, and only afterwards notify
> the uploader, who may not even visit Wikipedia every week.
> 
> A cardinal rule of image deletion should be : take every precaution
> not to irreversibly delete beautiful, free content.  Particularly so
> long as we tolerate foolish debates about the unproven copyvio-status
> of everyone's favorite autofellatio image.
> 