[Wikipedia-l] Force user to choose a licence when uploading data

Thu Mar 18 22:44:47 UTC 2004

Stan Shebs wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>> On Wednesday, March 17, 2004, at 03:55 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think there is universal support for this proposal, actually this
>>>> proposal:
>>>>
>>>> 1.  Force the user to choose a license
>>>> 2.  Force the user to fill out a field (or more?) indicating the 
>>>> source
>>>> 3.  Write this on the page: {{msg:<NameOfLicense>}}
>>>> 4.  Additionally store the license and source information in a 
>>>> separate
>>>> database field
>>>
>>
>> My only concern about this approach is that most people don't 
>> understand anything about copyright.  Asking them to choose a license 
>> under those circumstances is like rolling dice.  It would be nice if 
>> the license choices were accompanied by a brief outline of the 
>> implications of each choice.
>
>
> Or simply a "don't know". If a person doesn't really know about this 
> stuff,
> I'd rather them say they don't know, than to try to pick an approximate
> match. A tricky way to help sniff out problem pics is to ask for the 
> date of
> the picture too, then focus attention on "post-1923 don't knows".

A little admission of not knowing goes a long way.  I agree that a 
little data about where and when these pictures come from would be very 
helpful.  The failure to explain the origin of a submission is rapidly 
becoming a problem at Wikisource.  The contributor is in the best 
position to know where his material comes from, and he owes a little due 
dilligence to the rest of the community.  Regretably, many of the 
unsourced contributions probably are in the public domain, but anything 
more than some very basic tests are beyond the scope of what a reviewer 
should need to do.

Without going into details, I consider myself as having an aggressive 
attitude about what should be treated as in the public domain, but even 
an aggressive attitude needs facts to back it up.

Ec