Commons-l February 2008

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

33 participants
28 discussions

CISS
by Magnus Manske 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

After the recent discussion about image submissions through OTRS, I'm putting my code where my mouth is: CISS - the Commons Image Submission System http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/cgi-bin/ciss.pl How it works: mail your images to magnus(a)ts.wikimedia.org and the mails (and images, if you included any) will appear on the site above. That, said, it doesn't work - yet! It's a partially working demo with more flaws than I can count, so any help is welcome. Some flaws in this version: * Uses my email adr on the toolserver * No upload to commons * No answering to mails * No mailing thread management * No real thumbnails * No mail deletion/closing/archiving * No spam filter * No flood prevention Hell, it doesn't even sort mails by date yet! Despite all this, it should demonstrate the ideas I have for that system. Ideas? Comments? Coding support? Magnus

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Re: [Commons-l] CISS
by bawolff 17 Feb '08

17 Feb '08

Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:02:06 +0000 From: "Magnus Manske" <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] CISS To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <fab0ecb70802160202s6ef486dhb7f832301f7f4986(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On some date, Mangus wrote: >Thanks for the feedback, Ayelie! [snip] >And, I might take you up on that CSS offer :-) >Cheers, >Magnus >P.S.: Does anyone know a way to easily allow Commons admins access to >CISS (and restrict everyone else)? IMHO everyone should be able to >have a look, but when it comes to uploading, we might want to limit >this, otherwise it's completely anonymous mail-and-upload spam... The obvious solution is user names and password, but that can't happen with the toolserver, so how about this: *Admin puts md5 or sha sum of some secret word on there userpage (possibly in a nice userbox, or maybe even display:none; so it doesn't interfere with anything. Could use js to make generating it simple as type in word, and out plops sum) *Users use that secret word along with there username to log in to the tool. Would that work? -bawolff

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Richard Stallman "Copyright vs. Community" Speech in Jena, Germany
by Eugene Zelenko 15 Feb '08

15 Feb '08

Hi! Probably Germany residents will be interested to attend Richard Stallman "Copyright vs. Community" speech in Jena, Germany. I attended this speech in Santa Clara university and it was very interesting. I even had insolence and sent couple suggestion about speech improvement to Richard Stallman :-) See http://www.fsf.org for more details. Eugene. PS There are also several other Richard Stallman's speeches in Europe.

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Languages subqueues for permissions-commons queue
by Guillaume Paumier 14 Feb '08

14 Feb '08

Hi, I'm forwarding the following email I wrote to the OTRS mailing list, since there may be people working on permissions-commons who are not subscribed to the OTRS list. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi, Recently, I have been asked by OTRS agents working on permissions-commons tickets in French language to create a subqueue for tickets in French: it's easier to find tickets to process. So I have created permissions-commons-fr as a subqueue of permissions-commons. Note that this queue is non redundant with permissions-fr, which is more specifically dedicated to permissions for fr.wikipedia. There has been some ticket-move-warring between permissions-commons and permissions-fr in the past, because some people considered a ticket in French should be answered by French people, and some considered it should be answered by people familiar with Commons. Now there is a dedicated queue for French people familiar with Commons. This message is intended to people working on permissions-commons: if you feel that your work would be made easier by having a dedicated language subqueue, feel free to tell me and I'll create a similar subqueue (I haven't made any statistics about the most used languages in permissions-commons tickets). -- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau

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Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Photo submission queue needs more people
by David Gerard 13 Feb '08

13 Feb '08

Forwarded here at Mark's request (there's something odd in Mailman that ate the last copy). Any OTRS volunteers on this list? Please lend your Commons experience :-) - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini(a)comcast.net> Date: 11 Feb 2008 06:29 Subject: [Wmfcc-l] Photo submission queue needs more people To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, English OTRS discussion list <otrs-en-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> I'd like to start this email off by saying that I think the photo submission OTRS queue is working very well. Too well, in fact - it's becoming clear that I cannot do it all by myself anymore. Yesterday, for example, there were a series of anti-scientology protests across the world. The wikinews article specifically encouraged people to submit photos to the photo submission queue. When I went to tend the queue, it had half-a-dozen emails containing in excess of 50 pictures. I'd like a few (2-4) more people to have access to the photo submission queue. But, I'd like those people to understand that unlike the rest of OTRS (which is dominated by a desire to reply to emails as rapidly as possible, using impersonal form replies that tell people how they can do it themselves) the photo submission queue is designed explicitly to make it easy for 3rd parties to submit photos to us. If you have a picture you think we will want, email it to us and we'll do the rest of the work.* (Note: to avoid the system becoming too popular, for the time being I have explicitely limited it to people; however, this has not stopped others from emailing in all sorts of things, from the anti-scientology protests to someone's picture of his pet catfish) To that end, the photo submissions queue typically requires substantially more work for me (us) on a case-by-case basis. However, this system has definite, tangible benefits over a do-it-yourself system (ticket #2008012210019431, for example -- a guy emailed info-en with a photo and received a two-page long list of steps to create an account and upload it. Off-put, he emailed the photo submission queue and had a much nicer experience) If anyone is interested in working on the photo submissions queue, please reply to this and let me know. (Note: A working knowledge of copyright issues is absolutely essential) * - Provided your email includes a statement that you own the copyright and agree to license it under a free license, preferably CC-BY-SA-3.0 -Mark _______________________________________________ Wmfcc-l mailing list Wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l

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Fwd: [Icommons] Fwd: Invitation to join the Document Freedom Day 2008
by Brianna Laugher 13 Feb '08

13 Feb '08

Hello, A Document Freedom Day is planned in late March, similar to Software Freedom Day. I imagine some people here may be interested. Presumably this is not the "first official accouncement" yet (so, still don't treat as public info yet)... cheers, Brianna ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Heather Ford <heather(a)icommons.org> Date: 10 Feb 2008 08:49 Subject: [Icommons] Fwd: Invitation to join the Document Freedom Day 2008 To: icommons(a)lists.ibiblio.org remember please not to distribute this publicly just yet - its in the prep phase - Best, Heather. Begin forwarded message: From: "Georg C. F. Greve" <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Date: 08 February 2008 12:03:23 PM To: greve(a)fsfeurope.org Subject: Invitation to join the Document Freedom Day 2008 Dear colleagues, advocating Free Software towards various people and groups is often made more difficult by their legacy of data lock-in. Migration to some seems a choice of gaining their freedom by losing all their old data, and in too many cases that is unfortunately true enough. The logical answer to this are Open Standards that give everyone the freedom to use, study and implement them. But most people don't know much about this issue and generally don't take care to save their data in ways that allow them to choose and live in freedom. There has been some debate about this through the years, with particular focus around the Open Document Format (ODF) due to current events. In this group, people have been discussing the idea of a "Document Freedom Day" for some time - and FSFE's Serbian team now jumped at the possibility and took initiative for the Document Freedom Day, which will advocate freedom of data in the area that everyone has a direct relationship to -- documents -- to raise awareness about the principles. The Document Freedom Day is planned as a complimentary activity to the Software Freedom Day - so the two are placed six months apart: The first Document Freedom Day will be held 26 March 2008. The message of the DFD will be focussed on benefits of freedom in data and formats, specifically the Open Document Format (ODF) and the relevance of Open Standards. You can find the (still rudimentary) web site at http://www.documentfreedom.org and you are very much invited to join this effort as an organisation and get personally involved. If you know others who might have an interest in this activity, please feel free to also invite them. But please avoid blogging about this before the first official announcement, as we would prefer to add some more information first. With best regards, Georg -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info) Heather Ford iCommons Executive Director http://icommons.org The iCommons Summit: 29 July - 1 August 2008, Sapporo, Japan Phone: +27 11 327 3155 PO Box 1453, Saxonwold, 2132, Johannesburg _______________________________________________ Icommons mailing list Icommons(a)lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/icommons -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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File formats for romantics
by Brianna Laugher 12 Feb '08

12 Feb '08

http://svghearts.com/ I had no idea SVG support on mobile phones was widespread. cheers Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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Musing with professional photographers: further lessons learned
by Rama Rama 12 Feb '08

12 Feb '08

Yesterday, I exchanged a few e-mails with a professional photographer to confirm the licencing status of some of his work on Commons. I discovered someone willing to confirm the licence, but evidently quite disgruntled by his experience of Commons. Two lessons can be learned from what I read: 1) We are victims of a paradox which forces us to be especially annoying with the most precious of our occasional contributors. A significant proportion of the high-quality photographs of celebrities uploaded on Commons are copyvios. This forces us to be especially strident with copyright issues towards well-meant photographers. Short of the most courteous civility, repeated requests amount to downright harassment, and may appear to question the word of the uploader. I don't have a magic formula to break the paradox itself, but we should make efforts to sensibilise our users: DO: * be extremely polite * apologise for bothering people with seemingly superfluous paperwork * apologise for seemingly doubting their word * offer to help and advise personally if the user needs anything Commons-related * formulise the request in such a way that a simple "OK" from the user is sufficient. Open-ended questions are creepy ("what next, my credit card number ?") and bothering ("how many bleeding mails will I have to send before they are content with what I gave them ?"). DON'T: * assume that the user knows all of our rules. We are there to guide them. * assume that the user is aware of problems that we encounter as Commons administrators (typically, that most photographs that look like his are copyvios). 2) There is definitely a trend of professional photographers to request credits under the image in articles. This is what they are accustomed to. I (and a few others) think that we should make efforts to sensibilise our users to this. We can definitely afford to credit people in articles. This is a small concession which costs us very little and can benefit us greatly. See http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aide:Ins%C3%A9rer_une_image&curid… for instance. Cheers ! -- Rama

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Is copyleft unfree?
by Robert Rohde 11 Feb '08

11 Feb '08

I have recently been discussing a possible change in licensing for my future works. The details of that discussion aren't important at the moment, but there is one point I would like to raise before the larger community. I was told by Lupo (whom I eminently respect) and others that adding binding copyleft [1] provisions to my work would be incompatible with the concept of "free works" that Commons employs. [2] In broad terms, the kind of copyleft I was considering is the strongly viral sort. Specifically, if you use this image, then the remainder of the document/work that it appears in must be either have been released from copyright or be placed under one of several acceptable copylefts (e.g. GFDL, CC-BY-SA). It has always been my intention that this be applied in such a way as to be compatible with Wikipedia, Citizendium, Encyclopedia of Earth, other works published under copyleft. Paradoxically, I was told that a requirement for making future works free is itself "unfree", since Commons adopts the position that freedom must be "available to anyone, anywhere, anytime" [2], and requiring copyleft on the larger document unduly restricts who can use it and when. One of this reasons this confuses me is because Stallman and the FSF already consider the GFDL to be strongly viral. In specifics, their intent was that the "aggregation" provisions of the GFDL be construed narrowly, and that all other works be classed as "modified versions" such that the work as a whole would be subject to copyleft. Specifically the aggregation provisions in the GFDL says that a work may be combined "with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium... if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit." [3] They really intended this to be limited to situations like seperate documents on hard drive, or seperate songs on CD, where the relevant works are very clearly distinct and independent. It is not legitimate, in the FSF opinion, to mix GFDL images or text with materials that are less free than the GFDL in any single document. As you may be aware, this is not the same as the position of Creative Commons with respect to CC-BY-SA. Creative Commons considers their copyleft to be much less viral and only apply to directly modified works. In other words, the copyleft on CC-BY-SA images only requires a further copyleft on modified images, and not on any of the accompanying materials. In particular, you can mix CC-BY-SA images with generic copyrighted text, without violating their terms. This difference in viral degree reflects the different goals of the FSF vs. CC, with the former focused on creating free content while the latter is more focused on giving options to authors and changing the way copyright works. You may also be aware that resolving this is one of the sticking points in discussions to make the GFDL and CC-BY-SA compatible. Having summarized the above, I consider my position as closely aligned with the FSF interpretation of the GFDL. In other words I want free works to be those that give rise to more free works by virally expanding copyleft. I've been told that in effect this is not an acceptable goal for materials on Commons. And by immediate extension that the FSF interpretation of the GFDL is also essentially "unfree". (I will note that a strict application of the GFDL copyleft would exclude the use CC-BY-SA on any page bearing GFDL content, and in practice that is not the way Common/Wikimedia behaves.) It is also worth noting that I already apply the FSF interpretation of the GFDL with respect to the GFDL images I have published. In other words, I expect and demand that reusers copyleft their documents when they incorporate my GFDL images into them So, I would like to get feedback from the community about whether viral copyright is acceptable within the context of Commons' free content goals? And if not, what should be done about the GFDL which the license's authors (and some publishers, like myself) already consider to be strongly viral, even though in practice the Wikimedia projects don't often treat it that way. -Robert A. Rohde [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft [2] http://freedomdefined.org/Definition - Definition of Free Works [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_L…

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SVG validity checks
by Brion Vibber 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

While reviewing some other code, I went in and started ripping up some of the file type & validity checks in MediaWiki's upload system, as they've been driving me nuts for some time. One quick subproject was tossing in an XML well-formedness check for SVG files. For the curious, here's a report on the invalid files I encountered while testing this with files from Commons: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SVG_validity_checks -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)

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Commons-l February 2008