[WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 11/28/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think what you are arguing is something different to quite a lot of
> > others.  They are saying why the policy was necessary.  Your complaint
> > is actually that you weren't warned.  I don't think anyone would
> > disagree that you should have been notified before the deletions took
> > place.
>
> There were thousands of images (possibly tens of thousands) that
> qualified for speedy deletion under the new policy.  Issuing warnings
> to the uploader of each such image would have interminably delayed the
> cleanup, which was already well-overdue.  Repeated public notices were
> issued; we're sorry you missed them or did not realize they applied to
> you.
>
> Kelly

I fail to see the need to rush in this instance, though.  I think a
better policy would have been to remove the images from the articles
first, then contact the uploaders, and then delete the images in round
two.  At the most that would take twice as long, which wouldn't be so
bad, and more likely it would take less time than that.

But again, I don't see the rush to *delete* the images.  It's not like
they posed a legitimate legal threat.  Their threat was more to the
project, to the encyclopedia, and removing them from the articles (and
hey, if you really want, from the other pages too), removes that
threat.

In any case, the two images I had deleted without being warned were
tagged.  One was tagged as GFDL, the other was tagged as public domain
as I got it from the VOANews website.  I actually don't have any idea
why the second was removed.  The reason given for deletion pointed to
a diff that didn't actually exist.

In case anyone cares, the latter image was [[Image:Tv MarkFelt 1jun05
150.jpg]].  It was displayed on
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-06-01-voa30.cfm and the actual
image is at http://www.voanews.com/english/images/tv_MarkFelt_1jun05_150.jpg.
 Ironically, it has actually been replaced by [[Image:W Mark Felt
screenshot.jpg]], which is clearly *not* a public domain or free image
at all.

Anthony