On 12 November 2011 14:34, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com Date: 12 November 2011 14:11 Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, info@wikimedia.org

I've noticed a problem with overzealous deletionists on Commons.  While this may be something of a legal and political issue, it's also operational and affects multiple *[m,p]edias at the same time.

I've spent some time over the years convincing public figures that we need official pictures released for articles, rather than relying on fan (or publicity or staff) produced pictures.  Because of my own experience in the academic, computing, political, and music industries, I've had a modicum of success.

I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them.  From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.

Problem is a lot of cases of fans doing the same thing. We prefer people to go through OTRS under the interesting assumption that people are less likely to lie via email.

This week, one of the commons administrators (Yann) ran a script of some sort that flagged hundreds of pictures for deletion, apparently based on the proximity of the word facebook in the description.  There was no time for actual legal analysis, at a rate of more than one per minute.  The only rationale given was: "From Facebook. No permission."

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sharon_Agu...

In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook."  Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.

Given the number of people who copy celebrity pics from random places on the web it does matter.

A bot posted a link to the notice on the en.wiki talk page that used the photo, where in turn it appeared in my watchlist.

Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."

That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable.  Self-justifying strawman argument.

I'm not seeing a strawman argument.

In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file.  A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself.  The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!

In practice the situation can be far more messy with the actual copyright being potentially split among up 4 different people/groups (the photographer, the celebrity, the celebrity's management, any show they happen to be appearing on at the time).

After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."

Yann is sticking to the OTRS route which you were trying to sidestep. Given that you were arguing at cross purposes there is a reasonable case to be made that it had no utility.

There are a number of obvious technical issues.  YouTube and others

Have business models based on their users breaching copyright on a massive scale. They are from our point of view only of interest in terms of what not to do.

have had to handle this, it's time for us.

1. DMCA doesn't require a takedown until there's been a complaint.

We are trying to build a free content database. Not a "no one has gotten around to issuing a DMCA takedown notice yet" database. Photobucket is that way.

We really shouldn't allow deletion until there's been an actual complaint. We need technical means for recording official notices and appeals. Informal opinions of ill-informed volunteers aren't helpful.

The obvious comeback asside. The waiting for a complaint method is inconsistent with our goals to create a free content image collection and weaken our hand against illegitimate complaints. A key reason we can shrug off the likes of the NPG and remain somewhat credible is that we are somewhat paranoid about IP issues.

2. Fast scripting and insufficient notice lead to flapping of images,

and confusion by the owners of the documents (and the editors of articles, as 2 days is much *much* too short for most of us).  We need something to enforce review times.

This is commons not en. We try to keep bureaucracy down to reasonable levels (257 admins and 10 million images its not like we can afford to do otherwise).

3. Folks in other industries aren't monitoring Talk pages and have no

idea or sufficient notice that their photos are being deleted.  The Talk mechanism is really not a good method for anybody other than very active wikipedians.  We need better email and other social notices.

4. We really don't have a method to "prove" that a username is actually

under control of the public figure.  Hard to do.  Needs discussion.

We generally fall back on OTRS.

5. We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help

confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.

Mostly a mix of tineye, checksums and mark 1 human eyeball. The best commercial tech I'm aware of is PicScout and I suspect our tactics do a better job.