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

Thu Jun 29 18:58:55 UTC 2006

Hi!

> * The insistence of the Commons community that they are a law onto
themselves
> * The Commons serves as a resource to all projects whereby its
> policies directly affect ALL other projects
This is 100% true. Commons cannot be "the law" for the simple reason that
it's not them writing copyright laws. It's countries' lawmakers  in instead.
So no matter how compliant to law we decide to be, it's not the people at
commons who may write them or enforce them.

WmF will never (nobody in his mind would) accept the responsibility for
stored content. We all know what happened to sites that were held
responsible for copvios. But as long as it's the user being responsible as
the author of the upload, he cannot be requested to conform to a policy from
commons, because this is *very* deceptive (let alone the deletionist trend).
I do appreciate the monumental amount of work that people @ commons do to
give us all resources, yet a  person maybe induced to think that he/she is
not violating any law (because commons said it's okay), and later get in
trouble with the "real law", that does not even know about the very
existence of commons' policies. This IS a problem.

I do acknowledge that a much clearer solution for copyright problems must be
found, though. In the meantime, as a simple "user @ commons" I would really
appreciate a better catalogation system, instead of a stricter copy check,
if I was to make a choice myself. Yet, the problem with copvios exists...
and it's potentially risky for the whole community, so it must be addressed,
somehow. But since we all share the consequences, we should all share the
decisions.

It's a heavy step. We all are overloaded as things are, and caring about
commons is another HUGE mark in our to-do lists. If commons went their own
way it's probably even because this suited most of the community, as we
could simply use them, and eventually insult them if and when we did not
like what they did. So asking commons to share their policies also means
asking us all to share our time and work with them...

As per freedom... I honestly feel doubtful.

1) it's 100% true that *any* new step in an online process induces a loss in
traffic.
2) I really believe that much of the current deletions are simply due to the
absence of a contact that may explain the real copy situation.
3) I acknowledge that there are people (maybe only minorities, so what? It's
still traffic we loose) that really do not want (or cannot) register an
email address.
4) I think that people who see their files deleted are possibly going to
develop a vision of commons as "the copyright cops", instead of looking at
them as a resource provider.

Pls take the following as a "what if" case for study, because I am still
personally quite far from understanding what I'd consider the best solution.

What if:
1) we add an explanation in the login process, telling people that if they
have no email stated they have an added 80% of having their files losts in
commons, because of copy laws?
2) we add the same box on the upload pages for all users who do uploads
without having a registered email?

After all, people who do not have an email are already unable to use a
number of email-based features. This would end up in making marketing for
commons (everybody would be aware of their existence since their early steps
in a wiki), while not stopping a man from taking his risk, if he feels to do
so.

Just an early thought. Maybe someone can elaborate better, if the idea is
worth being elaborated.

Bèrto