[Wikipedia-l] Overwriting uploaded files

Sun May 19 19:25:22 UTC 2002

Right now, any registered user can upload a file with the same name as
an already existing one, thereby either unintentionally or
deliberately overwriting and removing the original file. This will be
recorded on the upload logs page, but not in the history of the page
which contains the image. As a result, anybody who uploads images
needs to keep local safety copies and needs to check from time to time
to make sure that the file on the server is still the intended one.

I propose that we completely forbid the overwriting of existing
uploaded files. If you have a new version of your image, give it a
different name and change the link in the article. That way, the
change will be recorded in the article's history, and the previous
version of the image will still be accessible.

Sysops would of course still be able to remove any file.

Axel