jkelly@fas.harvard.edu wrote:
I suggest that if we are feeling ready for a new initiative in the cleanup process, that we expand the image criteria for speedy deletion again. Adding "Any image that claims to be fair use without a complete "fair use rationale" per Wikipedia:Image use policy tagged with a template that places them in the category "No rationale" for more than 7 days, regardless of when uploaded."
I'm of two minds about this. While it would clearly get rid of a bunch of material we'd rather not have, the problem I see (which I've commented on in several places) is that we don't have any sort of consensus on what is a sufficient "fair use rationale". Many of the existing rationales are lengthy essays that are really rationalizations ("I don't see how anybody could be making money from this image" or "we're an educational non-profit resource that helps the orphan baby seals"), and if you start putting a 7-day clock on judging the quality of the essaymanship, it's just going to turn into one time-consuming fight after another.
Personally I think we have very few images that will be properly sourced, necessary, and not fall into one of our existing fair-use buckets. In my passes through the existing generic fair-use category, I find that at least 2/3 of the images are completely unsourced, and most of the remainder fit our existing types of accepted fair use, or are easily replaced with free images.
What I think would work is to put images with not a single word of rationale on the 7-day clock, while putting up poorly-worded rationales into a category that will get further review. Ultimately I would like to see all fair-use rationales come from a list of approved texts; if an image doesn't fit any of the pre-approved rationales, then we require it to be thrown out. We'll forego some images that might have new and creative justifications, but win overall by not having to have endless heated debates over fine points of rationale wording.
Stan