Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/10/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
- People don't understand "fair use". The vast majority of uploaders think
"fair use" means "I think it's fair that this Wikipedia article should be illustrated", while those who are aware that it's part of copyright law tend to have mistaken ideas, such as "educational use" allows anything.
I agree. Is there a way to provide a very quick summary to anyone using this tag?
I think all the tags link to the relevant policy pages. But being a wiki that allows anybody to upload, I don't think it's plausible to operate under the assumption that every uploader understands all about fair use (much of which is murky even to lawyers) even after reading those pages, any more than we assume that there are no vandals, everybody knows how to spell, etc - not that I would mind prospective editors having to pass a spelling test before being allowed to touch articles. :-)
As long as this is a wiki, we are going to have bad uploads. The problem is that our image review process needs more time from more volunteers, and/or needs to be made more efficient somehow.
Also, a possible technical solution: force the uploader of a fair-use image to specify which article it's to be used for, and prevent it being used in other articles. Can a fair use image often be legitimately used in different articles?
That's the idea behind "fairusein" and its multi-argument friends. It doesn't however ensure the addition of a meaningful rationale.
Stan