Hi!
Yeah using a bot is a blind thing, as you don't see the image itself, but isn't the goal to have all free images in one place? I know, that a cleanup is necessary of the "free" images, and that having an image hash would speed up the process of locating duplicates (even duplicates maybe of once deleted images).

I believe though that trusted users should be given an opportunity to mass upload files to commons from local wikis. This would be done, by "verifying" an image on the local wiki by placing a template on it and also adding a comment in an other language different from that of the wiki itself if possible, and than have a bot (or any other automated solution) upload the images tagged this way to commons (first checking if the template was put on by a trusted user, if this is too server intensive, than just have the admin protect the original image [I believe the protection status could be checked more easily, than the history]), and after a batch it would notify admins (eg. on the CommonsTicker) which images can be deleted, and also references to which need to be replaced first (the tagging template should include optional metadate as "new filename", "category", "license" (if different on local wiki, than on commons), and such.

Anyway, the other idea I have for the Commonshelper, that would need a configuration change on commons:
1. Allow uploads via URL, but only accept wikipedia / wikimedia domains
2. Have the commonshelper prefill the url box as well as the summary box of the upload form
3. and an extra for local admins: a delete link for the original image (maybe with the possibility, that a bot running on the toolserver changes the references to the old name on the local wiki, to the commons version [is this something toolserver can actually do?])

Regards,
Bence Damokos


On 12/5/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax@gmail.com> wrote:
Artur Fijałkowski wrote:
> The main problem with moving images using bot is it's blindness...
>
> Mentioned user copied some copyvios from pt.wiki licensed as CC-BY-SA
> because he didn't watch those images, but probably simple move images
> using linked to license template :(
>
> And this thing I want you to remember:
>
> Never, never, never do this!
>
> We had 2-3 months ago same problem with move of PD images from fr.wiki
> - wrong PD template (deprecated {{PD}}), no categories, galleries,
> lots of duplicates of images that were already on commons with other
> names, overwriting existing images with unrelated content with same
> name  ...
>
> Bot is good and nice toy, but it's very dangerous in unexperienced hands...
>

That's a good point: did they get approval to use the bot? If not, why
weren't they blocked for running an unauthorised bot?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP



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