On 7/6/07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom@gmail.com > wrote:

On 7/6/07, Eugene Zelenko < eugene.zelenko@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi!

I want to shamelessly announce :-) that my photo is used on
http://www.schmap.com/sanfrancisco/sights_richmond/#mapview=Map&tab=Places&p=21888&topleft=37.85263,-122.53326&bottomright=37.71099,-122.43679&i=21888.jpg.
But this image was taken from flickr, not Commons.

Indeed, I advertised Commons in "thank you" letter, but this is
information for critical analysis...

We still have problems with Commons visibility :-(. Google still can't
find images on Commons. GeoCommons is not included by default in
Google Earth. And so on and so on... :-(

I concur. Some months ago, I was requested permission to reuse one of my pictures of Nicolas Sarkozy (current French President). The lady who asked me found the picture on my flickr gallery and wanted to use it on the cover of a newsletter her company edited. I asked her to cite Wikimedia Commons as source, but we really need to increase our visibility.

 

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Guillaume Paumier

Definitely agree: three of my images are being used different places (one in a documentary for the British History Channel, one on a website in the UK, and one was used on a news article) and they are all images that were dual posted to Flickr and Commons. All three times, the mail came from flickr and that's where the image was taken from; credit in the news article went to Ayelie with a link to my *flickr* account, though I asked that the documentary mention "Ayelie at the Wikimedia Commons" .

 

We need to make it easier for people to contact the owners of the images, as people seem to like to do that before using them - I was contacted for two instances, and both times they seemed to want to double check things like how to credit me or, in the case of the one used on the site, I licensed a thumbnail as PD for them so they could use it as an icon without worrying about attribution for such a teensy thing. Some people do figure out that there's an "E-mail this user" link when you visit the uploader/author's userpage, but most people are just going to look at the image page. It is easy, of course, for people to simply add their personal info to the information page; but a lot of people don't think to or can't be bothered.

Ideas:
1. Enable a user preference where user's e-mail addresses are added to the sidebar or to the image description page on images they upload
2. Have an option (checkbox on upload page) when "uploading own work" to have your e-mail address added to the page, either via sidebar link or next to the author name in the {{information}} template
3. Have users fill a "public info" section in preferences, which is then shown on all image pages as a separate section; much like the "upload history" section.

Problems with said ideas:
1. All images uploaded, including moved images from other projects and old/PD images, etc., would have the option; not always a problem, but users may be contacted about images they didn't create or that were moved
2. None I can see, this is probably the best option.. though not everyone uses the "upload own work" form
3. Same problem as idea 1

To fix these issues we could add an option to every individual image to "add contact information"; and there could be an option to add information from another project, if the author included such info in the description page.


I realise this is going to take a *lot* of scripting and hacking etc., but there may be mid-way steps to make things easier in the meantime. The upload form won't be too hard to change, and is better than nothing. I can fill a bug report if anyone thinks these are good ideas... I'm just throwing them out there for now :)

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Ayelie
  ~Editor at Large