On 12 November 2011 14:34, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson(a)gmail.com>
Date: 12 November 2011 14:11
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>, info(a)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_Ag…
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.
--
geni
