On 3/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/22/06, Rudy Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
Mark Wagner wrote:
Wikipedia's got a problem with images. 2000 of them are uploaded every day, and most of them have inadequate source information, an incorrect license tag, or an invalid fair-use claim.
A quick and easy way to reduce the flood of images would be to remove the link to Special:Upload from the sidebar, and instead point the "upload file" link to [[Wikipedia:Image use policy]]. If users have to hunt around for a bit for the actual upload link (and hopefully read some of the page), they're less likely to upload every image they can find on Google Image Search.
Thoughts?
Given the experience I just had with a new user, I'd think that disabling uploading for users without a userpage and/or new users (1 month?) would be a good idea.
Can't we just start by asking for a software upgrade that doesn't accept images without a source? Hiding the link also makes uploading harder for regular contributors who don't remember links and use the side bar for easy access and for newbies who do care abou copyrights.
All that will do is force users to provide whatever the software is looking for as a "source". We're seeing this already with copyright tags: people are sticking license tags, usually "fair use" and "CopyrightedFreeUse" license tags, on images in a desperate attempt to keep the images safe from the "no license" patrol. You can see this in the responses to OrphanBot's notifications: many are of the form "What license tag should I stick on my image to keep it from being deleted?".
When trying to solve the image problem, there are some fundamental things you need to keep in mind: *Joe User doesn't care about "correct" *Joe User doesn't care about "copyright" *Joe User doesn't care about "source" *Joe User doesn't care about "policy" All Joe User wants is pictures in his article.
-- Mark