[Wikipedia-l] Require confirmed email address to upload images?

Wed Jun 28 20:49:59 UTC 2006

I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions.
GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem with
actual numbers (won't you Greg?)  =)

As to Tomasz' statements, I am equally interested in hearing what data, if
any, could be marshalled support your broad assertions.  They don't strike
me as valid, though I could be proven wrong.  I have doubts that will be the
case.

Erik's point is well taken; the deletionists have the better argument as far
as Commons goes, so I lean in his direction on that point.  I do know that
there is still a lot of garbage in Commons nevertheless.

I still don't see, especially in the case of single login, how providing an
email address is a net loss for those who upload images.  Nobody has
answered why the balance should tilt in favor of single-uploaders rather
than established users.

On 6/28/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Kat Walsh wrote:
> > On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ?
> >> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single
> >> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.
> >>
> >> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users
> >> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles,
> >> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything.
> >> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.
> >>
> >
> > Gaining nothing? It hurts users for us not to be able to contact them.
> > Text usually stays, as a fact in an article can be found and supported
> > by a source even if it is not the same source the writer used. But an
> > image? If we cannot find the original and do not know where it came
> > from, it must be deleted. That's a pretty big loss, I think, both for
> > Wikimedia not being able to use it and for the original contributor
> > who sees the effort they spent to upload and place it gone to waste.
> >
> > This isn't intended to stop vandalism, though it may slow it; any
> > vandal can register an account with an email address also. It is
> > intended to help good-faith users who want to contribute media. We
> > need to be strict about enforcing proper tagging and licensing of
> > images; we cannot budge on that. But it is a sad loss to delete things
> > simply because they didn't understand the procedure and we don't know
> > how to reach them.
> >
> > Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and
> > does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.
> >
> > -Kat
> Hoi,
> People who contribute a picture once are not vandals. It is ridiculous
> to suggest this
>
> The rules of the "game" have increasingly become more restrictive and
> pictures that used to be acceptable are no longer considered acceptable.
> I have in the past uploaded uploaded pictures with permission. I had
> added a message about the original author at the time. Then came thumbs
> and these messages went, some time later people decided to check
> permissions could not find them and deleted stuff. I found it out after
> I signed on to that project after some time. Because of the elegance in
> which people the Commons "community" decide that it is their way or the
> high way, I became in many ways less interested.
>
> People insist that it is not feasible to discuss changes to Commons
> policies with the projects in advance and, that it is sufficient to
> restrict this discussion to intimi.. This seems to me reminiscent to one
> of those tribes that ultimately moved into Africa in AD400 or thereabouts.
>
> I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the
> problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes
> up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the
> same however the number of material that you still want to check
> increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily
> forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are
> working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to
> remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem
> is not what is depicted.
>
> By talking about it as if there is a crisis, you make it a crisis; it
> seems as if we are at war.. I am not convinced AT ALL.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

-- 
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101