On 2/5/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 2/5/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. You seem to be saying that
- there are instances of images with this template on them which are
mistagged and that 2. people might think the tags are correct when they might not be.
Yes, but also 3) this problem is becoming more and more widespread among these types of image tags.
Have any evidence? Most of these tags were revised three months ago as part of a general overhaul. The hope was that by improving the wording on the tags and making it more specific, it would be easier to spot inappropriately applied tags. Checking over all existing media is of course a much slower affair, but I think the goal was good. And I haven't seen any big changes of this sort for quite awhile, certainly not anything which deserves to be called "more and more widespread".
It's different because when the template changes it makes makes tens or hundreds of tags incorrect all at once, as opposed to when an image is simply mistagged, that affects only one image.
So, are you arguing that we should never change image templates? Or that we should go through each one after each change to check if it is up to date? Give me a break. You want to organize people do to that, go for it, but it seems like a foolish way to approach this.
Which is not to say that templates of this sort should be changed often or changed regularly. But these fair use templates have changed, what, once? At that was for a specific reason, which was discussed amongst editors both on the 'pedia and on the mailing list. And yeah, there will be some images for which the template no longer applies. And when we stumble across them, as good editors, we should change them. Same as anything else.
You're right that both are a problem. The one of changing image tags seems to be easier to resolve, though. Don't change image tags except for minor grammatical changes. If you break that rule, at least go through all the tags and remove the tag from the images where it no longer applies. If that's too much work, start a new tag instead of changing the existing one.
Well, in an ideal world we'd have hoards of people willing to do this. In reality we have only a handful. And there have been a number of re-cat projects. Anyway, if you really think this category should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb, there are ways to get this effected.
It is, of course, possible to define when a tag is supposed to be used without rewriting the actual text of the tag. Personally I'd suggest that policy changes should not be enacted by changing the text of templates, but that's just me. Another possible solution would be to remove the tag from the images where it no longer applies - a job which most naturally would fall upon the person changing the tag.
This was raised on this list and on multiple places on the 'pedia months ago when it was undertaken. Nobody voiced any real objections, and lots of people were supportive. I don't know where you were then but this wasn't something which was just done out of the blue and without any notification and deliberation. The goal was a re-haul of the fair use templates from their original forms ("This image is fair use") to something which would encourage better tagging and better understanding of fair use ("This image, when used in X and Y fashion, should be fair use"). Personally I think it has done a lot of work in getting people to better use fair use tags and helping people decide whether or not a given image is properly tagged.
It seems to me that the result is quite obviously a bad thing - lots of images are mistagged. I don't really understand how you can suggest that there's nothing wrong with that.
All I'm suggesting is that a unilateral dismissal of all change is foolish, and that not everything gets fixed overnight. And that there are actually places to discuss this thing if you are really trying to get things fixed, rather than just to complain.
Probably. But if a tag isn't correctly applied, what's the point of having it in the first place? Seriously, I'd rather have no tag at all than have an incorrect one. Image tags were originally descriptive, not prescriptive, and frankly I see no reason that should be changed.
Because it wasn't working AT ALL originally. There is some backward implementation which needs to be done, but the newer tags are, I think, better on every level in moving forward.
FF