Rama, nice post. :)
On 07/11/2007, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Yeah. Looking at his talk page makes me sad -- the usual round of scripted & stacked image deletion warnings for copyright reasons. We need socially more appropriate ways to deal with copyright issues.
The thing is... Copyright is hard. It is a brick wall that is high, and I don't know of any way of getting around it easily or quickly that isn't cheating, ie fundamentally wrong, and likely to bite you on the arse in the future. It's like weight loss, there is only one way that works - the hard way.
You can be a great Wikimedian and not run into copyright for a long time. You do not have to have a good understanding of copyright in order to be a good contributor. This is because when you're only contributing your own work, you don't run up against the copyright wall. I'm giving my text up for free, OK, and anyone can use it however they like, OK. But *as soon as* you want to include someone else's work -- and for the vast majority of people, this is when they want to include an image by someone else -- you meet the copyright wall.
It's just so hard. Even if you wanted to minimise troubles and only pick images from Flickr, you have to know which licenses are the acceptable ones. Then - is this a derivative of anything else? Is it reasonable that this user is in fact the copyright holder? Has this user understood what they have agreed to by picking this license? What if they change it? And this is an easy case. Pick up random-website "attribution" like statements, or PD-age related questions and you can soon give yourself a nice headache, trying to find the correct answer when the fact is there is no one in the world that knows for sure what it is, you only get that certainty with an expensive lawsuit.
There is no shortcut through these questions. There's no alternative but to face each one as it comes and see how it applies to that situation.
Given that Wikimedia = free content + anyone can edit, it seems that by default it(we) must also take on the task of educating the general public about copyright issues. No one else is doing it, and it's an issue that has to be confronted, so it looks like it's up to us.
The instantaneous editing feature of Wikimedia conflicts with the slower copyright learning process. It's pretty obvious that automated templates are not the best solution to this overall dilemma but I don't have any great ideas about where to next.
regards, Brianna user:pfctdayelise
On Nov 6, 2007 9:05 PM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
The thing is... Copyright is hard. It is a brick wall that is high, and I don't know of any way of getting around it easily or quickly that isn't cheating,
[snip]
We already have the most important tool to overcoming hard problems: People.
We have a huge number of experienced commons folks for which the majority of typical copyright issues are *not hard*.
Yes, there are fuzzy gray corners all around the edges copyright which are fundamentally hard, areas if anyone claims to know *for sure* they are fools or they are lying.. but those generally aren't the areas where most new users have problems.
We need to build better ways of connecting new users with friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable community members. Once we have those many of these issues will go away.
I don't mean to trivialize our challenges, for they are real and substantial. Scaling our community while preserving the kindness and knowledge we need to pull this off will not be easy. But we have the right components to start with, and I think that building a clear path forward is within our ability.
What do people think of automatically assigning new users to a user advocate who speaks their language? Something where experienced users can sign in when they are around and new users will be assigned to them? Would that help? I don't think we need to worry about scaling it at first: if we are unable to assign advocates for everyone, we could at least help some.. and that would be an improvement.
On Nov 6, 2007 9:05 PM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
The thing is... Copyright is hard. It is a brick wall that is high, and I don't know of any way of getting around it easily or quickly that isn't cheating,
[snip]
We already have the most important tool to overcoming hard problems: People.
That is actually what we don't have :)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Orgullobot/Welcome_log http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Unknown_-_November_2007 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_needing_categories http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/2007/10
On Nov 7, 2007 2:34 AM, samuli@samulilintula.net wrote:
That is actually what we don't have :)
Lets not confuse people not doing what we think they should be doing with not having them! :)
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Nov 7, 2007 2:34 AM, samuli wrote:
That is actually what we don't have :)
Lets not confuse people not doing what we think they should be doing with not having them! :)
I'd happily help anyone *which asks me to*. I'm happy when someone actually leaves me a message answering a template warning, sometimes even apologising because they have no idea. Good! GOOD! You have no idea why you can't copy it or you can't use NC images. Ignorance is not a sin. If you ask you show your ignorance once. Then you won't be an ignorant (about it) any more. Because you cared, because you was interested enough to learn. I may spent quit much time writing an essay about sharealike licenses. But i will be doing it for a person. I know you're paying attention and will read it. I may not convince you to stop using a non-commercial clause in your works, but at least you will know why we don't allow it.
Most our users are zombies. They don't read the messages, they don't mind that you wrote IT WILL BE DELETED on size 120pt on the previous page. They just go on. As such, we pay them with their same money. We put a generic text notifying them. They ignore it and the image gets deleted on a week. Really impersonal. You can't think on the real life on a person putting images on the wif there's someone in front of them shouting not to. You would expect them to listen and talk. On the other hand, on the real life he could get angry when you remove all his polemon uploads when he has gone some steps away.
On 08/11/2007, Platonides Platonides@gmail.com wrote:
Most our users are zombies. They don't read the messages, they don't mind that you wrote IT WILL BE DELETED on size 120pt on the previous page. They just go on. As such, we pay them with their same money. We put a generic text notifying them. They ignore it and the image gets deleted on a week. Really impersonal. You can't think on the real life on a person putting images on the wif there's someone in front of them shouting not to. You would expect them to listen and talk. On the other hand, on the real life he could get angry when you remove all his polemon uploads when he has gone some steps away.
So, this is interesting. I notice this too. But which came first: the templates that turn people into zombies, or the zombie users that deserve nothing more than a template?
So... what can we do that forces(?)/encourages people to engage as human beings, rather than act like zombies?
Is it partly language difference? (even though all the warnings have the links on them...) Is it an attitude like "commons isn't my project so I'm not invested in it, whenever I get a template warning it's THEM being jerks"? (emphasise us vs them)
Regarding the web chat idea Greg had, could something like that work on the toolserver?
cheers, Brianna
Brianna Laugher wrote:
[...] But which came first: the templates that turn people into zombies, or the zombie users that deserve nothing more than a template?
Zombie users I'd say - I used to write personal notes instead of using templates, especially for stuff that I deleted on sight. Maybe one in twenty actually responded, for the others it's not clear if they even saw my note. I don't understand the psychology either.
Stan
On Nov 8, 2007 1:31 AM, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Zombie users I'd say - I used to write personal notes instead of using templates, especially for stuff that I deleted on sight. Maybe one in twenty actually responded, for the others it's not clear if they even saw my note. I don't understand the psychology either.
I always thought the zombie users were users with the interface set to a language they didn't read fluently... I know that I'm a zombie when I edit some language I can't even remotely grok.
Hi list,
---Selon Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
On Nov 8, 2007 1:31 AM, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Zombie users I'd say - I used to write personal notes instead of using templates, especially for stuff that I deleted on sight. Maybe one in twenty actually responded, for the others it's not clear if they even saw my note. I don't understand the psychology either.
I always thought the zombie users were users with the interface set to a language they didn't read fluently... I know that I'm a zombie when I edit some language I can't even remotely grok.
I believe that many users appear to be zombies when they don't speak English and get (a bunch of) automated templates written in English.
Even if the templates have links to other versions of them, I am personnally convinced that the templates should at least be put on the user talk page in the language that the user used to name the images or to set their descriptions or in their edit comments. Surely, this takes more time to browse their contributions and guess their preferred language, but this eventually increases the chances to get an actual contact with the user.
So I'd suggest anyone adding welcome/warning templates to do their best to guess the user language. I'd also would like to propose that bots would not add automatically welcome templates after only one or two edits: this should be let to users as long as the bot has no ways to guess the newbie preferred language... I understand that this would add to the current huge load of work, but I'm sure that would dramatically improve the warmth of the user first contact with the community :)
Best regards from France,
On 08/11/2007, Alexandre NOUVEL alexandre.nouvel@alnoprods.net wrote:
I believe that many users appear to be zombies when they don't speak English and get (a bunch of) automated templates written in English.
Other problem: most of the templates are WAY too wordy. I realise essential things need to be said, but I suspect no template that any user receiving it is expected to read should be over about three sentences. Two or one if possible. Not simpler than possible, but certainly as simple.
(Templates tend to suffer badly from [[m:instruction creep]], as lots of people think of *just one more important thing* people should see in them. This leads to the template appearing as a "too long; didn't read" blob on a talk page.)
So I'd suggest anyone adding welcome/warning templates to do their best to guess the user language. I'd also would like to propose that bots would not add automatically welcome templates after only one or two edits: this should be let to users as long as the bot has no ways to guess the newbie preferred language... I understand that this would add to the current huge load of work, but I'm sure that would dramatically improve the warmth of the user first contact with the community :)
Definitely.
Hmm. What are the requirements for a Commons admin?
* a coupla hundred uploads * knowledge of the intricate and tight-arsed Commons rules on eligible content (particularly the thicket of what's public domain in what country) * willingness to do admin shitwork. * convincing others you are clueful. Long-term admin and bureaucrat on en:wp probably counts.
(The third is why I haven't tried - I know damn well I haven't time to do the third.)
The main problem is finding people who fit both the second and third. Yer average en:wp goldfarming admin prospect doesn't seem to be good at 2, and/or there isn't enough social cachet.
(The above was a response to a query from Secretlondon on her LJ: http://secretlondon.livejournal.com/347850.html - comment would also be welcome on what audio would be useful to add to Commons, as she's found her MiniDisc recorder and started recording piles of common sounds.)
- d.
On 08/11/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 08/11/2007, Alexandre NOUVEL alexandre.nouvel@alnoprods.net wrote:
I believe that many users appear to be zombies when they don't speak English and get (a bunch of) automated templates written in English.
Other problem: most of the templates are WAY too wordy. I realise essential things need to be said, but I suspect no template that any user receiving it is expected to read should be over about three sentences. Two or one if possible. Not simpler than possible, but certainly as simple.
That is true. I think templates are excellent for automatic notifications, but not for trying to modify user behaviour or teach anything. Our templates often conflate both these functions into a single thing and I have thought for a while it would be useful to separate those things and make it clear that the template only serves as a notification. (If one of my images gets nominated for deletion, I sure *do* want to know about it via an automatic template. But if you think I'm uploading copyvios, not so much.)
[[template:idw]] still makes me smile when I see it because it is the politest, most timid template you've ever seen that still says "we plan to destroy your work". That came about as a result of the PNG-SVG Wars of '05-Present.
Hmm. What are the requirements for a Commons admin?
- a coupla hundred uploads
- knowledge of the intricate and tight-arsed Commons rules on eligible
content (particularly the thicket of what's public domain in what country)
- willingness to do admin shitwork.
- convincing others you are clueful. Long-term admin and bureaucrat on
en:wp probably counts.
I think you overestimate the requirements. You need a coupla hundred edits, not uploads. And legal knowledge is NOT a requirement. You don't have to know what's going on - just don't PRETEND that you do. And know where you might be able to find out. (Commons:Licensing, etc.) Convincing others is also easy. Spend a couple of months on COM:DEL making comments that advance the cases. Part of the reason they are so slow to be closed is because no one comments, so the admin has to do all the thinking. Much easier if other people do all the thinking and the admin just closes. ;)
The main problem is finding people who fit both the second and third. Yer average en:wp goldfarming admin prospect doesn't seem to be good at 2, and/or there isn't enough social cachet.
Well, I am kinda glad about that. I am happy that our RfA is still very sane. (But then beggars can't be choosers.) Would someone who is after social cachet make a good admin?
cheers Brianna
On Nov 8, 2007 7:43 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 8, 2007 1:31 AM, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Zombie users I'd say - I used to write personal notes instead of using templates, especially for stuff that I deleted on sight. Maybe one in twenty actually responded, for the others it's not clear if they even saw my note. I don't understand the psychology either.
I always thought the zombie users were users with the interface set to a language they didn't read fluently... I know that I'm a zombie when I edit some language I can't even remotely grok.
I agree with that. I would also add that the zombie users are usually people who land on commons in an automatic kind of way, ie. they're led there by some pretty advertisement from one of the projects and are not sure whether they are in a different project, a different wiki, or simply in a no man's land they can't grok. Also people who don't speak "wiki", because they have no idea what they can do with an orange banner that says "you've got a message".
There are very few people on Commons who are *mostly* on Commons (ie. whose primary goal is contributing images), but they exist (we had a few cases lately, that French-speaking contributor, the one that started this thread). The problem as I see it is that we don't know how to integrate people in the Commons community, because to *really* be part of the Commons community, you don't need to be just a good contributor. You need, as Brianna put it, to climb the high wall of copyright and understand what this is all about. In short, I think that access to the Commons community, unfortunately, is at a high price. And I am not sure how we can change this effectively. Initiatives that draw people in on more "sexy" matters than copyright, such as POTY and such are great things, but are they enough?
Delphine
"Gregory Maxwell" gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 3:31 AM:
What do people think of automatically assigning new users to a user advocate who speaks their language? Something where experienced users can sign in when they are around and new users will be assigned to them? Would that help? I don't think we need to worry about scaling it at first: if we are unable to assign advocates for everyone, we could at least help some.. and that would be an improvement.
We have something like that at German Wikipedia ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MP ). There is a list of people available as mentors with a brief description of their fields of work.
People interested in mentors have to put a template on their user page in order to be found. That would be a nice solution on Commons, too. Especially when people have to be active to get a mentor, you avoid all the zombies wasting your time.
What do you think?
Regards,
Flo
On 08/11/2007, Florian Straub flominator@gmx.net wrote:
"Gregory Maxwell" gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 3:31 AM:
What do people think of automatically assigning new users to a user advocate who speaks their language? Something where experienced users can sign in when they are around and new users will be assigned to them? Would that help? I don't think we need to worry about scaling it at first: if we are unable to assign advocates for everyone, we could at least help some.. and that would be an improvement.
We have something like that at German Wikipedia ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MP ). There is a list of people available as mentors with a brief description of their fields of work.
People interested in mentors have to put a template on their user page in order to be found. That would be a nice solution on Commons, too. Especially when people have to be active to get a mentor, you avoid all the zombies wasting your time.
What do you think?
Go for it. The worst that happens is that noone uses it, and we are back where we are now. The best that happens is people who want help get it and the community grows.
cheers, Brianna
On Thu, 8 Nov 2007, Brianna Laugher wrote:
People interested in mentors have to put a template on their user page in order to be found. That would be a nice solution on Commons, too. Especially when people have to be active to get a mentor, you avoid all the zombies wasting your time.
What do you think?
Go for it. The worst that happens is that noone uses it, and we are back where we are now. The best that happens is people who want help get it and the community grows.
I suggest that if you do set it up, you should add some mention of it to the standard welcome template to draw it to the attention of those most likely to want to use it.
Chris
"Chris McKenna" cmckenna@sucs.org wrote on Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:03 PM:
On Thu, 8 Nov 2007, Brianna Laugher wrote:
People interested in mentors have to put a template on their user page in order to be found. That would be a nice solution on Commons, too. Especially when people have to be active to get a mentor, you avoid all the zombies wasting your time.
What do you think?
Go for it. The worst that happens is that noone uses it, and we are back where we are now. The best that happens is people who want help get it and the community grows.
I suggest that if you do set it up, you should add some mention of it to the standard welcome template to draw it to the attention of those most likely to want to use it.
Good idea. But first, let's collect some ideas and mentors: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Mentoring
See you there,
Flo
On Nov 9, 2007 12:06 PM, Florian Straub flominator@gmx.net wrote:
Good idea. But first, let's collect some ideas and mentors: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Mentoring
Note that we do this on enwiki as well, at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User
We've got a fairly good number of users adopting and being adopted (the categories show around 200 adopters, and 600 adoptees, but that probably overstates it a little). The biggest problem that we've had is keeping up with the number of people who want to be adopted. I'm not sure whether that would be such a big problem on commons, since I doubt we get as many new users on commons as enwiki, but the learning curve is probably a bit steeper on commons, to counteract that.
If we do end up with something like this on commons we'll probably want to announce it on [[w:WP:ADOPT]] as well, so we (we-the-adopt-a-user-program) know where to point users who want commons help. I'll do that myself, once things get set up; until then, everyone might want to take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Adopt-a-User/Archive_1
to see what sort of problems we had with this.
Tracy Poff
On Nov 7, 2007 3:05 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Rama, nice post. :)
On 07/11/2007, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Yeah. Looking at his talk page makes me sad -- the usual round of scripted & stacked image deletion warnings for copyright reasons. We need socially more appropriate ways to deal with copyright issues.
The thing is... Copyright is hard. It is a brick wall that is high, and I don't know of any way of getting around it easily or quickly that isn't cheating, ie fundamentally wrong, and likely to bite you on the arse in the future. It's like weight loss, there is only one way that works - the hard way.
I'm also thinking that Commons:Licensing is a long and hard document to read and above all very scary for new users. It tries to set out the details of our licensing policy. Maybe we should create a summarizing page that outlines the basics and refers to the relevant Commons:Licensing, Commons:Derivative_works, etc.?
Bryan
We do have [[COM:COWN]] and [[COM:CLIC]].
Most of the summarising has been done in the upload messages, I think...
Anything in particular that you find it missing? I fully agree with previous authors: copyright stuff is hard. Going outside one's contry's jurisdiction makes it even harder. "Making it work on Commons" is "impossible" (but we do make it happen!)
Cheers!
Siebrand
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: commons-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:commons-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] Namens Bryan Tong Minh Verzonden: woensdag 7 november 2007 10:29 Aan: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List Onderwerp: Re: [Commons-l] Copyright is hard (was Re: Professionalphotographers on Commons: sucess story)
On Nov 7, 2007 3:05 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Rama, nice post. :)
On 07/11/2007, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Yeah. Looking at his talk page makes me sad -- the usual round of scripted & stacked image deletion warnings for copyright reasons. We need socially more appropriate ways to deal with copyright issues.
The thing is... Copyright is hard. It is a brick wall that is high, and I don't know of any way of getting around it easily or quickly that isn't cheating, ie fundamentally wrong, and likely to bite you on the arse in the future. It's like weight loss, there is only one way that works - the hard way.
I'm also thinking that Commons:Licensing is a long and hard document to read and above all very scary for new users. It tries to set out the details of our licensing policy. Maybe we should create a summarizing page that outlines the basics and refers to the relevant Commons:Licensing, Commons:Derivative_works, etc.?
Bryan
On 07/11/2007, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:
I'm also thinking that Commons:Licensing is a long and hard document to read and above all very scary for new users. It tries to set out the details of our licensing policy. Maybe we should create a summarizing page that outlines the basics and refers to the relevant Commons:Licensing, Commons:Derivative_works, etc.?
I tried some of this with [[Reuse]] - which is a document specifically targeted to people outside Wikimedia who don't have a clue about this but see a nice picture and want to reuse it.
It's not just a question of what we're documenting, but specifically who it's aimed at - outside readers, Wikimedians from the projects we service, people who are or should be used to Commons, experienced copyfighters, etc.
- d.
- d.
[Clearing out the drafts - for some reason I forgot to send this a month ago]
On 07/11/2007, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
It's just so hard. Even if you wanted to minimise troubles and only pick images from Flickr, you have to know which licenses are the acceptable ones. Then - is this a derivative of anything else? Is it reasonable that this user is in fact the copyright holder? Has this user understood what they have agreed to by picking this license? What if they change it? And this is an easy case. Pick up random-website "attribution" like statements, or PD-age related questions and you can soon give yourself a nice headache, trying to find the correct answer when the fact is there is no one in the world that knows for sure what it is, you only get that certainty with an expensive lawsuit.
A somewhat-related problem that I encounter is that when people do get their heads around copyright, it becomes the most significant piece of metadata they can imagine; they go looking for copyright releases in an exhaustive and often futile way.
I have lost count - really - of the number of times that I've had to explain to people that if a publisher says material is "public domain" and then says it's copyrighted in the same sentence, they probably didn't mean the magic copyright sense of public domain, and we don't get to play nomic to prove they did...