Small erratum.
The previous message contains the sentence "The community has also made more or less clear they only want to whitelist public domain sources.".
This must be read as "The community has also made more or less clear they only want to whitelist public domain or using appropriate non restrictive free licenses sources.". For example, a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA source would be acceptable.
On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Sébastien Santoro dereckson@espace-win.org wrote:
Good afternoon,
Thank you for this feedback about your feelings and the lack of documentation of the process.
I raised independently with Steinsplitter on the IRC channel #wikimedia-commons the issue of documentation two days ago and subscribe to the Fae, Bawollf comments.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GLAMwiki_Toolset#Instructions now contains the information we need, and when we usually process these requests.
I can confirm if the request would have immediately stated at creation time this were intended for a GLAM workshop, I would have processed it the same evening.
If you wish to know how we handle these (at least how I handle these), I'm giving some indication about the workflow. As indicated by Bawollf, our priority is to ensure the request is a legitimate one and is not controversial.
As far as I'm concerned, the Wikimedia Commons community is the one qualified for any configuration change related to Commons, and has made implicitly clear they trust both GLAM institutions and experienced, trusted users in good standing with the community to make whitelist requests. This is so a simplified and straightforward process, any other change requiring a formal consensus on the wiki. The community has also made more or less clear they only want to whitelist public domain sources.
So, my first step is to ensure the request is from a GLAM institute or a trusted Commons user.
When I see a request from a trusted Commons users, I process it immediately without any further question. So, despite they thought they couldn't do anything, if they've added a comment in the bug "I'm ... and I endorse this request", it would have been useful as this endorsement is a green light. As would have been useful any comment it were from a GLAM institute.
If this information is missing, as it were here the case, I ask on IRC on both #wikimedia-commons and #wikipedia-fr (this channel has several very active trusted Commons users, not always reactive on the first) if someone could endorse the request. IRC is one of our main way to communicate for development and operations stuff.
If someone endorses the request, I state so and plan it for deployment. If nobody answers or has reticence, I state so in the ticket and wait for more feedback (for example, the remark about the resolution of files came from a trusted Commons user).
Generally, the reply from Commons administrators contains opinion about their own assertion of the copyright status of the files, in accordance with community practices. I also state this opinion in the bug.
To conclude, our main priority is to ensure our config changes reflect the willingness of the community, which means for whitelist: (i) it comes from a legit requester (GLAM partner or experienced trusted Commons user) (ii) metadata contains enough information to assert copyright status.
Please note this is generalised to any task or bug tracker: the more context and information you give, the more elements the person reading your task will have to be able to understand and act upon.
Disclaimer: this reply is made in my quality of Wikimedia volunteer handling site requests. It occurs I'm also administrator on Wikimedia Commons, but this is not in this quality I handle such request or give this opinion. The only advantage I have on this matter as Wikimedia Commons administrator is to be able to immediately after deployment test if the upload by URL works.
-- Sébastien Santoro aka Dereckson http://www.dereckson.be/