On 7/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/12/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
It would help if the people spearheading non-free image use cleanup campaigns weren't deletionists on the issue.
By that, I mean that they took a look at things, and for example where something was properly labeled an album cover when it was uploaded but didn't have a current Betacommandbot-compliant Fair Use in [[article]] section, the cleanup people added the required rationale rather than deleting the image. If there are licensing questions or issues, uploaders be actually told about it and invited to fix things first.
This complaint has come up before. The bot does inform people that the rationale is missing. Further, adding rationales can be nigh on impossible for many cases because we do not know or understand what purpose the uploader intended for the image within the article. The boiler plate answer is, "Identification". But, the people conducting deletions frequently do not see that as reasonable rationale and delete.
The problem is that the bot may not inform someone who's still active and cares about the project.
This came up on a notable song's page, where the CD single's art was included. The guy who uploaded it is apparently long gone and ignored the warnings. I have the page watchlisted, but not the included artwork... I suppose I could go around to all the pages I watch and watchlist all the images manually, but...
For things which are album covers, and used in one place (the album, or for a notable single, the song), the deletionist excuse doesn't fly. Ten to thirty seconds of looking at it will tell you exactly what it's used for. It's not ambiguous. The use of cover art for album and single articles is unambiguously ok within the existing copyright policy, and there's no potential for confusion if that's all you're doing with it.
I don't mean to generalize from this and suggest that every deletion was improper, or every deletionist is doing a sloppy job. I have both recommended for deletion and deleted stuff which was policy violations. But... these are the types of incidents which form people's opinions on the policy, and its practical implimentation.
If the opinion is "I have to delete everything that doesn't obviously conform with policy", then I have a problem with it. No, you don't. You're going too quick, not paying enough attention, and it's going to be bad for the project.
If the opinion is "I have to check everything that doesn't obviously conform with policy, and fix it if I can, or delete it if I can't", then you have my support. Most of the time it won't take that much extra effort, and it will avoid nearly all of the confrontations (most of them except for accidents and truly corner cases).