[Wikipedia-l] Re: images on commons and gfdl

Tue Jan 18 12:25:30 UTC 2005

Mark Williamson a écrit:
> ht.wikipedia has a grand total of 0 images, and its number of articles
> is SO negligible that gfdl probably isn't much of a concern, plus the
> fact that none of them are linked from the mainpage (see for example
> http://ht.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominikani or
> http://ht.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayiti - reasonably good articles, but
> neither is linked from the mainpage).

Evidently.
This language was started a few days ago. I made the guy a sysop and 
gave him a couple of quick tips. Meanwhile, I made myself a user page (I 
might have over 40 user pages now) and put a picture I uploaded on 
commons a couple of days ago.

> However, GFDL information SHOULD be added by a competent editor in the
> target language (ie, not in French), and if that is not possible then
> perhaps a secondary language is acceptable.

Except that practically, it is not done.
People just link images without COPYING a license and description that 
someone already provided. We ain't machines. If that can be done by an 
automated process, why should we bother doing it ourselves ?

> But the chances that somebody will steal content from such a small
> Wikipedia are infintessimally small, and even so not all editors are
> likely to even KNOW that their submissions are by default licensed
> under the GFDL (this requires a working knowledge of English, as
> opposed to the basic knowledge of English nessecary for editing pages
> in general).

Generally, I give my work under gfdl.
I write about twice a month to a website to request that they comply to 
our license, which requires mentionning the licence type and the authors.

I feel that if I require from outside websites to comply with our 
licence (sometimes, I have to hint at legalistic issues), I think
1) we should start by complying to our licence ourselves and
2) we should provide websites with means to comply with our licence as 
we request.

As an editor, I would like that the images I gave to the project are 
kept under the licence I gave all inside the project. Right now, on ht, 
there is no author, and no licence, that is PD.

I cannot be sure there are other wikipedias where it is the case as 
well. It would be nice that the commons description page link to a page 
where all the cases of uses of the images are listed.

As a board member, I cant contact people to complain they did not 
provide information when we fail to give them the information.

Do you see my problem Mark ?

And all these problems, we can solve. Imho. Just need time and energy :-)

> Mark
> 
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 21:50:51 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>
>>Magnus Manske a écrit:
>>
>>>Anthere schrieb:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hello,
>>>>Not sure exactly where to write about this.
>>>>
>>>>I may have not understood something very well, if not, please explain
>>>>to me.
>>>>
>>>>When someone upload an image to wikicommons and place it under gfdl
>>>>license, I would tend to say that re-using this image would have to
>>>>follow gfdl license. We know that we do not respect well gfdl license
>>>>for text, since it is very difficult to follow all authors, but for an
>>>>image, it should not be a lot of problem to respect it, since there is
>>>>only one author, the one who took the picture.
>>>>
>>>>So, normally, to follow gfdl license, when we use the image we should
>>>>1) mention the gfdl and 2) mention the author, no ? So that anyone
>>>>reusing the image would be able to follow the gfdl in turn.
>>>>
>>>>What bugs me is that if I upload a picture to say the french
>>>>wikipedia, it is written in the image comment that I took the picture,
>>>>so I am granted the authorship of my work, and anyone using the image
>>>>could either mention wikipedia or myself. But at least, he has the
>>>>information available. Besides, the reader can see a description of
>>>>the image.
>>>>
>>>>When I upload an image on wikicommons, I can write this information
>>>>over there, but this information is no more directly available to the
>>>>guy using the information.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>Neither is the GFDL or the author list on any wikipedia article. You'll
>>>have to click a link (GFDL or "history", respectively).
>>
>>Possibly. But it is not because we poorly respect the GFDL on articles
>>(where it is hard to respect it) that we should poorly respect it, if
>>none at all on images.
>>
>>Between the moment you see an image and the moment you see the
>>description, there are at least two links (at best). I think it is not good.
>>
>>
>>
>>>Those who care about license information will find the link. Those who
>>>don't care wouldn't be helped with the text in plain sight either.
>>>
>>>Magnus
>>
>>Well, on the case of the ht wikipedia, even with the best of intention,
>>no one could see the license and no one could cite the source.
>>
>>In effect, that means that Wikipedia is not respecting the  sort of
>>contract it has with the editor. Somehow, we agree to give our work
>>under a certain license, but in exchange, we could expect that at least
>>within Wikimedia project the license will be respected. And it is not.
>>
>>Somehow, how could we complain that others do not respect the gfdl when
>>we do not respect it either ?
>>
>>Hence my suggestion for an automatic and mandatory message leading to
>>the right description on commons and hence my suggestion that the
>>description is also available on local projects.
>>
>>
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> 