Commons-l

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

7 participants
2055 discussions

Project completed
by CPA London 18 Jun '06

18 Jun '06

[[Category:Images requiring rotation]] has had all approximately 150 images rotated back to proper viewing this week. I left the category and there should be more coming in to fill the article and be worked on. I also created a category for Vietnam War Memorial photographs and catelogued the existing ones that were in neither article nor category other than Vietnam War, which seemed innapropriate. Wayne Ray http://wayneray.ca/

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Commons browser
by Magnus Manske 18 Jun '06

18 Jun '06

As a personal excercise in a programming language rather new to me, C#, I have started a commons category browser. It uses WikiSense to generate a commons category tree on-the-fly, and downloads the images in a selected category to be displayed as thumbnails. Noteworthy points: * Tries to download existing image thumbnails first to increase speed/save bandwidth * Caches the thumbnail locally * Doubleclick opens the browser with the image description page Note that not much else is working right now; it's just what I hacked together in an afternoon, in a programming language I'm still exploring. Scrolling through thumbnails doesn't work yet, some images are ignored, UTF8 category names are broken, etc. Plans: * Fix bugs * Cache category tree locally * Load thumbnails in the background, so one can browse in the meantime * Analyze description pages in the background to mark images with troublesome templates For those not faint of heart, with a fast internet connection and .NET 2.0 installed (Window$ only, though AFAIK the current Mono should theoretically support it): http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/CommonsBrowser.zip For the rest of you, here's a screenshot: http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/Screenshot.png Just the executable, source will be released under GPL, in anyone is interested that is ;-) Magnus

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Re: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way
by SJ 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

FYI; part of a long thread on foundation governance and structure. Those interested in discussions about foundation membership, the meta-organization of the projects, and the future of the foundation : you may want to join or browse foundation-l. I don't know where these conversations will take place in the future, but at present they seem to be gathering in frequency and length on that list, and long-ranging decisions are being made over the next few months. SJ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:00:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way Hiya, Thanks for the long and insightful posts to this list recently. Some quick thoughts. > ARTICLE III - MEMBERSHIP > The Foundation shall have no members. Opt-in membership is useful; I always liked the idea, regardless of whether or how dues were set up. > ARTICLE II > Section 4. Community. > The Foundation acknowledges the valuable contributions of volunteers > throughout the world for their dedication and tremendous work. The > Foundation defines as one of its purposes the enhancement of the various > Wikimedia communities throughout the world in their respective languages. This would be an unfortunate first sentence. Foundations do not usually acknowledge the contributions of projects they support. The contributions of donors, perhaps... More generally : I am surprised to see the term "volunteer" has come to be used in these discussions as a way of distinguishing some contributors form the Foundation; at times in a lightly patronizing context ('volunteer' as opposed to 'professional' / 'expert' / 'dedicated')... similar to the way "amateur" has come to mean "dilletante" or "unpaid" rather than "connoisseur". I expect that Wikipedians of all people have a sense of generativity, active creation, and public responsibility which transcends the notion of 'volunteering' for a cause. When one returns home to fix the plumbing in a parents' house, does one call it "volunteering"? No. Participating in a barn-raising for a neighbor, or rebuilding one's own community after a storm? Likewise no. Neither is it "volunteering" to create part of a public art project, tend a community garden, write the biography of a hero, or spending an evening in language-exchange. Wikipedians "contributing" to the public store of knowledge are simply doing for their own global community what most people on the planet should come to do -- sharing what they know, and helping others do the same. On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Anthere wrote: > Hence my trying to turn toward you. > How many editors work on the projects ? thousands [over 100,000] > How many people are registered to this list ? a few hundred [only? when was the last time a call for sign-ups went out?] > How many people are active on this list ? A couple dozens > How many people from wikitech commented on the Apache model ? 0 > How many people from this list commented on the Apache model ? less than 5 [more coming...] This model was fascinating, though a lot to digest. (It would be even more fascinating to see one or two other models, and hear details of how and why they were set up.) > ---------- > Roughly, this model would be what I would qualify as a Private > Foundation. Or Business Foundation. It is a Foundation which focus a lot > on the efficiency of business (except that there is no business A pity, for a foundation with as much promise as this one has to change the world. > The Apache model is entirely different. I would call it a public > Foundation or a Community Foundation. Majority of members would be > garanteed from the community. There would be term limits. It would be a Right. > ---------- > Which model would be better in our case ? > > One model insists more on business. It would certainly be more business > efficient in the long run. It will certainly be more stable and more > reliable (only limited turnover in the board). Likely more professional. > I can envision a group of famous people seating on its board, with 3-4 > meetings per year. Some staying there forever because that looks good on > their business card, even though they do nothing at all (this is already > the case of one of our member). A big and well-paid staff to run the > business. And little by little, disinterest by the community. > > But this might be the best choice to create bonds with the big firms, > the big NGOs, as that Foundation will appear more solid and trustworthy. > More money... could mean better support of the projects and of our goals. I don't know. The best support of the projects and goals that I can imagine doesn't stem directly from money, but from an ever-increasing community participation; something which Wikipedia and other projects have enjoyed to date. > The second model will be more lively. A bazaar of some sorts. We could > expect the board to get more involved in every-day running. More > volunteer work probably. It will be much more difficult to organise, > because of the noises of campaigning from new candidates, of the public > discussions. It will be more of a social construction. Less stable due > to turn-over of board members. We would not have such a good image in US > business, but we might be loved by free-movement organizations and > citizens all over the world. > I suppose we'll have less money... but we may have more ideas because of > the boiling culture. I wouldn't say "by free-movement organizations and citizens" -- but simply "by individuals" all over the world. Many people who don't get 'free culture' or 'FOSS' at all, and don't care, get Wikipedia (great project) -- and get *really* interested when they find out the extent to which it is guided by a broad and milling community. Tangentially, it's not at all clear to me that this would mean less money in the long run; more to the point, goals of generating and distributing content may be better served without that intermediary. > If we pick up the second model, it will be much more painful. The Also a chance for community members to reflect on the best that they have gotten from the projects, and the best that they have seen in the world; regardless of which model is picked, it would be better if a few hundred community members took this analysis and brainstorming seriously so that it was a considered choice and not a default one based on what is easiest. > I thought it over and over. I am not sure which one of the two models > would be best for the goals of the Foundation. According to our habits, > we would say "first option". But are we not precisely amongst those who > proved that a decentralized, transparent model, largely based on > volunteer work and using the goodwill of non-expert people may be > successful ? Not only successful. Exuberantly, outrageously successful, orders of magnitude beyond the dreams of the initial participants. There are subtleties in what has worked here that have never before been effectively explored. Some are still mysterious, which is why small groups of editors / meta-editors / policy writers often have trouble tapping them as needed to work on specific projects. > I have little interest in the first model as an *individual*. Do you think it has value for the general good? > -------- > between community and Foundation are disorganised. We'll soon have new > appointed board members. I do not expect new appointments to help > reducing the lack of communication. > > But this is a broken system. Balancing between the Business Foundation > and the Community Foundation, so that no one knows where to put his ass. > > At this point, in large part, this now depends on you. If you want to do > a more Community Foundation, we need bylaws which reflect this. We need It is hard to get feedback on newly drafted bylaws when they are not public. How could the community help draft new bylaws that were different from what has been written? > Sorry for the long rant. > I hope it clarifies the current situation. > > Anthere Thanks again. Catching up on email, SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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some statistics
by Brianna Laugher 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

I counted these by hand, so there could be mistakes. [[Category:against policy]] has nearly 1000 items. These are items that should be speedy deleted as obvious copyright violations. Literally, these are supposed to be deleted on sight. [[Category:Unknown - March 2006]] has over 1000 items. These are items that were tagged as missing source information in March. They should be speedy deleted after 7 days. [[Category:Unknown - April 2006]] has around 1400 items. [[Category:Unknown - May 2006]] has an astounding 2600-2800 items for deletion. (You know you're in trouble when you count "1000" and the file names are still at "D") [[Category:Unknown - June 2006]] has something incredible like over 4000 items for deletion...and it's only June 9th!!! OK actually all the categories 1 June - 8 June have less than 200 items each, so something weird is going on. I don't know where all those extra items are coming from. Hm it looks like some are people misusing the 'Unknown' template and they somehow get added to the current month. Ah... yes, that is it. [[Category:Incomplete license]] has about 400 items. (For some, their 7 days might not have expired yet.) [[Category:Images with no copyright tag]] has about 500 items. I think this is all Orgullobot's work (only recently had a bot tag all new uploads with this tag if there's no license tag). [[Category:Duplicate]] has about 800 items. These are non-essential deletion. [[Template:Delete] links to some 2000 items (although some of those are policy pages, for example). But even then I think there must be a gap between that template and [[Commons:Deletion requests]]. Just at a rough guess, there are probably about 200 items listed on [[Commons:Deletion requests]]. And these are supposed to be deletions requiring discussion (and for some reason today I see another 43 (!) "delete this because there's an SVG" nominations just from one user :/ ). These are supposed to be important cases that can set precedents. How can admins even find these debates let alone take part in them? This page (the template) is 247kb. No wonder <10 admins (of over 130) regularly look at it. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say, it doesn't matter how many admins we have, or how hard they work, we cannot realistically reduce this backlog by using the current methods we follow. On the 8th June less than 250 items were deleted (including categories and articles, etc). Same on the 7th June. .................................... ????????????????????? .................................... Is this something we should not worry about? Or how can we ever solve it? Over 12,000 images waiting to be deleted. A severely depressed, Brianna /[[user:pfctdayelise]]

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Brion is *the man*
by Essjay 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

Important notice: Brion totally rocks. Images can now be undeleted...Yes, I said undeleted. I'll be leading group worship at the Church of the Almighty Brion at 7PM UTC tomorrow. Essjay -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia http://www.wikipedia.org/

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Image uploads now undeletable
by Brion Vibber 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

Uploaded files which are deleted can now be undeleted; admins can also view the deleted files without actually undeleting them. This is integrated into the existing Special:Undelete in what I hope is a fairly clear and intuitive manner. It's my hope that this will encourage admins to tackle the deletion backlogs a little more aggressively, since mistakes will be easier to undo. I've tested it both offline and on the live servers and everything seems fine so far, but if you do encounter problems please report them at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Category:Own work
by Magnus Manske 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

What to do with [[Category:Own work]]? Instead of asking each and every author for a license (with many authors probably unreachable), how about this: 1. People who upload their own work at the commons obviously want them to be realeased under a free license (otherwise, they'd go to flicker or something) 2. As they didn't chose a license, they either didn't know they have to, and/or don't care about these "legal technicalities" 3. In order to grant their obvious wish to release these images under a free license, we add GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5 to all of these images 4. We leave {{OwnWork}} and change it into a notice that the license information below is assumed, and if the author doesn't agree, (s)he should write a note on the talk page or fix it directly 5. Where the author is easily reachable, leave them a note what we did Wikimedia projects live on "assume good faith", and IMHO we should do so where peoble uploaded their own images and just forgot to add {{GFDL}}. Magnus

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some statistics
by Zirland 15 Jun '06

15 Jun '06

Speaking about statistics... I looked on WhatLinksHere of deprecated {{PD}} tag and it gives 22.500 < x < 23.000 links. I seriously doubt anybody can solve this manually. Deprecated {{Redundant}} gives "only" little less than 1.000 links. What shall we do with it? -- Zirland

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An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes
by Brianna Laugher 12 Jun '06

12 Jun '06

Hello, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions on complex international copyright law. This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention given to these cases. And yet Wikimedia has a legal department: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy (Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite active on Commons but hasn't been for some time. Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal department to create and fill a permanent position known as something like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about two weeks on any given issue. I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department, because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues, unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else. Of course they should not be bothered with every little issue. Only things that cannot be resolved on [[COM:DEL]] should be taken to the CLO (presumably by admins). (For example we would not ask them to try and find the source of an item. The onus is on the uploader to provide the source. If they cannot, we have to delete.) The advice they offer should be recorded, interpreted as a precedent and binding. I hope to draw some attention to this issue here (and the Village pump) and if there is more or less unanimity, I will post a request to juriwiki and the foundation-l mailing list. Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved: * To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright, "freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or interpret in terms of US law? (Big discussion at the moment about a photo of the interior of a German railway station: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Berlin_H… ) * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ). * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo… ) * "Agencia Brasil" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they intend to allow these specific rights?" * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21 ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily resolved. * US presidential portraits ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paint… ). * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD, is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall is not? (Because it is 3-D, not 2-D anymore) * Personality rights. What permission is required of people photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can you decide that anyway?)? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_o… , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before) * Stock xchange images (current: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order to use current images? I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a good idea or not. Thanks, Brianna /user:pfctdayelise

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Opinions on some issues (was Re: An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes)
by Anthony DiPierro 11 Jun '06

11 Jun '06

On 6/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote: > * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ). > The discussion is at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM I never liked these anti-DRM clauses. It should be noted though that many of the current licenses have them. The GFDL, for instance, states that "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." Personally I think it's better to state things as a permission, rather than a restriction. IOW, I'd favor "You may circumvent any technical measures which attempt to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of this work." [the exact wording might have to be put into better legalease] Since circumvention only has to happen once to free the work from any DRM, I don't see the potential harm of any DRM restrictions that don't have the power of law backing them up. > * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there > is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we > consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even > possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo… > ) > It's possible to consider the effects of copyright law independently of the effects of trademark law. I'm not sure how useful of an exercise this is, though. As I understand it, trademark law, even internationally, doesn't restrict the types of uses which commons was created for. Does commons want to create a repository of content which you can then use in your car commercial? If so, then I guess trademark law is important. If not, then I think it'd be good to hear some input from lawyers in various jurisdictions as to what restrictions trademark law *does* impose. > * "Agencia Brasil" license ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also > has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a > website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that > as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus > Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they > intend to allow these specific rights?" > That's an interesting question, though not really at all a legal one. Personally I'd say the answer is somewhere in between, (try to get an explicit license, and don't delete immediately, but possibly delete if no response comes). Of course, Wikimedia Commons pretty much relies on the false assumption that it's possible to issue a non-revocable license to everyone in the world. So getting too technical about such things is bound to fail. > * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star > Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits > of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this > before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21 > ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily > resolved. > This is similar to the trademark law question. And I think it comes back down to the question of what type of use is commons contemplating. Probably the majority of images on commons could be cropped and used in some way which might violate someone's IP rights in some jurisdiction. On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that someone is going to lose a lawsuit for using a photo of a can of Pringles. You could construct a hypothetical, but it'd be little more than a mind experiment. It would be nice to hear from some legal experts (licensed or not) in various jurisdictions as to whether or not this is true. What type of cases have been lost over things like this? We live in a world where the Girl Scouts were threatened with a lawsuit for singing copyrighted songs at the campfire, so maybe there are some such ridiculous situations. > * US presidential portraits ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paint… > ). > In this discussion and the previous one I've seen a lot of just plain old incorrect statements of legal facts. From what I've read it seems to me that the works are probably technically copyrighted, but that it's unlikely anyone is going to get sued over them. Legal experts should certainly be involved in determining if that's the case, but the bigger question is what to do in such a case - similar to the one about something "freely licensed" without a specific license. > * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD, > is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any > photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall is not? (Because it > is 3-D, not 2-D anymore) > That statement is not true in every situation nor in every jurisdiction. > * Personality rights. What permission is required of people > photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish > your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is > this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need > to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can > you decide that anyway?)? ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_o… > , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before) > In the US it's not copyright law, but "other law". But I don't think that means it can be ignored. I'd say privacy rights are more similar to copyright law and that images (or other content) which violates privacy rights shouldn't be allowed. But publicity rights are more like trademark law - they only affect particular types of uses. Then again, publicity rights tend to have a greater reach than trademark rights. I've just recently learned that some US states even recognize publicity rights after death. See (and listen to) this story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5440241 If such a case holds up this could have a huge chilling effect on things like Wikimedia Commons. It'd be so bad I'd be inclined to say that commons should outright ignore such laws. Of course, I fail to see how such a ruling could possibly be found consistent with the First Amendment. > * Stock xchange images (current: > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it > seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images > (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they > might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order > to use current images? > > I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. Heh, I do, but partly because I think there's a misconception involved as to what questions are involved. > I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate > to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or > not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a > good idea or not. > I think there are some places where it'd be nice to have input from legal experts, which is very different from getting professional legal advice. I also think there are lot of people who are giving really bad input on the legal matters, and something should be done to make it easier to filter them out. But in most cases I think the issue comes down to a policy question, and not a legal question. And I actually think one of the biggest problems is that people keep confusing the two. Anthony

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