Not to be too cynical, but I hope that doesn't get speedy kept as well. I *had* mentioned that image of the badge earlier, at the Commons Village Pump, but no-one seemed to be that bothered. I also suggested adding the restrictions note that Fred also added to the image, but again, the response I got was: "We may choose to add a warning to the file description page, as we do for several other types, but I don't personally think it'd be very useful in this case.".
This whole debate makes the point that when the WMF legal counsel gets involved because some outside organisation has sent him a letter, and this debate between lawyers then becomes public, the community sometimes looks like a deer caught in the headlights, unsure whether they should debate the issue, or apply what counsel has said, or ask counsel for further advice.
The problem with the first two approaches is that the debate might end up with the wrong result, and if people say "but we followed the WMF legal counsel's advice" (even if they misinterpreted what he said), that might be bad for several reasons. The problem with the third approach is that the WMF legal counsel doesn't scale, and you can't ask him everything about every image (though if someone thinks it worth contacting him, they should always do so). The best of several poor options seems to be for the community to judge as best they can, contact the WMF legal counsel in rare cases only, and take note if an external request leads to the WMF legal counsel over-riding a community debate and learn the lessons from that.
On a completely different note (though I see Fred raised it as well), is that badge really genuine? The source isn't that reliable, and it would be nice to have a date, as I'm positive the design of such badges has changed over the years. For all images, you really do want to try and find the most reliable source possible, not some random website.
Carcharoth
On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Well, I tried that and quickly found
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FBI_Badge.jpg
That is not a logo but a badge and fits right inside the statute Mike and the FBI are discussing.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000701----000-....
I've nominated this for deletion. There may be others. Also, this is a object not an image. It presents the same problems as an image of a statue.
Fred
I think the "high resolution helps forgers and impersonators" argument is spurious.
Let's assume the logo were to be used improperly. Most people don't know what the "right" logo is. A decent image quality (straight lines, etc) would fool most people if it looked "professional" whether technically accurate or not. Social engineering does the rest (not everyone will argue with someone who claims forcefully they are FBI). Basic image cleanup is something anyone can do these days and any computer can tidy up a poor quality image to look "clean" (photoshop). If there was doubt asd to appearance most impersonators only need to google image: "fbi badge" to get close enough.
In simple terms I don't see any merit whatsoever to a claim that a good quality copy helps impersonators. Any impersonator will easily be able to do the job well enough to fool most people, and any capable impersonator will not be affected by Wikimedia's decision.
FT2
On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 5:11 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 8 August 2010 16:57, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I think I found the word, early in 2007. Misunderstanding that Gerard
is
more g'day than have a nice is a poor basis for any such judgement.
Yes, the thread has been rather non sequitur all the way down. Assume some bad faith and why, it's a microcosm!
- d.
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