I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
I've been tagging as replaceable a few hundred fair-use images of public buildings.
There were quite a number of images which had the "no free alternative found on the internet" as fair use rationale.
Also, so far, I got one disputation:
<< I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one. No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or created".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Campbell_College.jpg
Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with pictures of people. Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
Mgm
On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
I've been tagging as replaceable a few hundred fair-use images of public buildings.
There were quite a number of images which had the "no free alternative found on the internet" as fair use rationale.
Also, so far, I got one disputation:
<< I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one. No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or created".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Campbell_College.jpg
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with pictures of people. Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
Mgm
I admit that I've never tried myself, but it seems to me that most of these people would be eager to release a free photo. Does actual experience prove otherwise? Or has there really not been much of an attempt made?
-Rich
Tuesday, December 5, 2006, 3:34:15 PM, Rich wrote:
I admit that I've never tried myself, but it seems to me that most of these people would be eager to release a free photo. Does actual experience prove otherwise? Or has there really not been much of an attempt made?
On IMDB, the small time actors have to pay to submit a photo for the profile.
Rich Holton wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with pictures of people. Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
Mgm
I admit that I've never tried myself, but it seems to me that most of these people would be eager to release a free photo. Does actual experience prove otherwise? Or has there really not been much of an attempt made?
In fact I can't think of any examples where a small-time actor was contacted and said "no". The usual problem is to explain that we want a "free license" not just "permission" - very few people understand the distinction, and going by some of the answers to our boilerplate letters, they didn't read the letter that closely...
The Free Software Foundation solves this for their software by making every would-be contributor physically sign two pages of legalese - along with a VP of the contributor's employer if it's a computer-related company - and keeping all those in a file cabinet. This all seemed like a ridiculous procedure until free software started putting proprietary companies out of business, now it's a key bulwark against legal attack by the remaining companies.
Stan
On 12/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with pictures of people. Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user Towpilot serves as a fine counter example. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload... )
Lets not be lazy, hard doesn't equal impossible..
(Not that I think that images of celebs are the worst of our problems by any means.. I just don't want the misconception to stand)
On 07/12/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with pictures of people. Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user Towpilot serves as a fine counter example. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload... )
Indeed, Towpilot is an example of exactly the sort of person we should be reaching out to - professional or semiprofessional freelance photographers, with personal image archives, who're willing to release some of that material under a free license.
(I wish my grandfather's archives hadn't burned in the seventies... almost a century's worth of professional photographic negatives. *sigh*)
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user Towpilot serves as a fine counter example.
That only proves he can get pictures of dozens of celebrities.
Unless you have some reason to believe that those dozens are typical of celebrities in general and it's as easy to get pictures of the rest as it is to get pictures of those, it proves nothing.
I can walk into a bookstore and come out with a stack of $1 books. Does that mean that given any particular book, you can probably find it for $1?
On 12/7/06, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
That only proves he can get pictures of dozens of celebrities.
Unless you have some reason to believe that those dozens are typical of celebrities in general and it's as easy to get pictures of the rest as it is to get pictures of those, it proves nothing.
I can walk into a bookstore and come out with a stack of $1 books. Does that mean that given any particular book, you can probably find it for $1?
It was claimed that we can not get free pictures of celebs that don't visit award events, at least without stalking. I pointed out free pictures of celebs (some of which do not visit award events) which were, presumably, created without stalking.
I never argued that it was easy, only that it being hard doesn't make it necessarily impossible. If you have an argument why a specific free image isn't possible then you can make that argument for using an unfree image, ... such an argument should be accepted by the standing policy. (so long as you're actually arguing that it's not possible, rather than arguing that it's not easy)
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unless you have some reason to believe that those dozens are typical of celebrities in general and it's as easy to get pictures of the rest as it is to get pictures of those, it proves nothing.
It was claimed that we can not get free pictures of celebs that don't visit award events, at least without stalking. I pointed out free pictures of celebs (some of which do not visit award events) which were, presumably, created without stalking.
I never argued that it was easy, only that it being hard doesn't make it necessarily impossible.
That's nitpicking tiny nuances of wording in conversational English.
He could very well mean that it's impossible for most celebrities, not for every celebrity in existence.
It's obviously possible to get free pictures of *some* celebrities, but given a random celebrity, that random celebrity is probably not one of them.
On 12/8/06, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote: [snip]
He could very well mean that it's impossible for most celebrities, not for every celebrity in existence.
It's obviously possible to get free pictures of *some* celebrities, but given a random celebrity, that random celebrity is probably not one of them.
I've never seen an argument based in fact that a non-trivial number were members of the impossible set.
Because the very nature of being a celebrity usually implies some willingness to be a publicly visible person it would be logical for us to a begin from a position that such pictures are possible unless we see specific evidence to the contrary.
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit premieres or award ceremonies.
The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user Towpilot serves as a fine counter example.
That only proves he can get pictures of dozens of celebrities.
Unless you have some reason to believe that those dozens are typical of celebrities in general and it's as easy to get pictures of the rest as it is to get pictures of those, it proves nothing.
I can walk into a bookstore and come out with a stack of $1 books. Does that mean that given any particular book, you can probably find it for $1?
Can you find a *first-edition hardcover signed by the author* for $1? That's the sort of distinction we're talking about here.
Side note: singular of criteria is criterion. It's Greek, not Latin.
On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
I've been tagging as replaceable a few hundred fair-use images of public buildings.
There were quite a number of images which had the "no free alternative found on the internet" as fair use rationale.
Also, so far, I got one disputation:
<< I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one. No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or created".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Campbell_College.jpg
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On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote: [a random user wrote]
I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one. No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or created".
I'm not known for kind answers, but my response might be something along the lines of:
"If you're going to contribute, then yes we do expect you to buy a camera.. or at least borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing. If instead you'd rather not contribute, that is your decision... but if you're not going to contribute then please stop disputing our policy. Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that anyone could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal."
Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the lines of:
"Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"
-kc-
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote: [a random user wrote]
I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one. No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or created".
I'm not known for kind answers, but my response might be something along the lines of:
"If you're going to contribute, then yes we do expect you to buy a camera.. or at least borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing. If instead you'd rather not contribute, that is your decision... but if you're not going to contribute then please stop disputing our policy. Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that anyone could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal." _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/7/06, Puppy puppy@killerchihuahua.com wrote:
Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the lines of:
"Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"
Thank you.
Puppy wrote:
Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the lines of:
"Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"
But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."
-Jeff
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."
Pretty easy, we have had plenty of examples of folks who didn't bother to upload an image because we "already had one" in the form a fair use image. It's happened to me personally, and it's not news. That alone makes a pretty good example of harm becuase I don't think anyone would argue that it's not better to have free images instead of non-free ones.
You can also point out that since our goals which explicitly include free content, any addition of non-free content is harm. Not all additions are net-harm, however. The preamble of the Fair User Criteria on enwiki addresses the issue of harm vs net harm like this:
"The primary goal of Wikipedia's fair use policy is to protect our mission of producing and distributing free content which is perpetually free for unlimited distribution, modification, and application for all users and in all mediums. This goal could best be met by completely disallowing all content which is not free content; however, we understand that in order to completely meet the second part of our mission, producing a quality encyclopedia, we must permit some non-free material for critical commentary. Thus the authors of the English Wikipedia have decided to permit a limited compromise which is outlined in this policy. Most popular non-English Wikipedias do not permit unfree images at all."
So the FUC would have us ask the question "Does excluding this material preclude us from being a good encyclopedia?". Here the building is visable and photographable by all, so we must answer "No" even if we accept the notion that we can't be a good encyclopedia without a picture of this building. As a result, we can conclude that including the image is a net-harm from the perspective of furthering the goals of the project.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."
Pretty easy, we have had plenty of examples of folks who didn't bother to upload an image because we "already had one" in the form a fair use image. It's happened to me personally, and it's not news. That alone makes a pretty good example of harm becuase I don't think anyone would argue that it's not better to have free images instead of non-free ones.
But "better" doesn't necessarily mean "less harmful," which is the point. The question is "does having fair use images harm the project," and there's not a lot of evidence that it does, since we thankfully allow fair use.
So the FUC would have us ask the question "Does excluding this material preclude us from being a good encyclopedia?". Here the building is visable and photographable by all, so we must answer "No" even if we accept the notion that we can't be a good encyclopedia without a picture of this building. As a result, we can conclude that including the image is a net-harm from the perspective of furthering the goals of the project.
The "conclusion" is the continuing problem. Can the building be photographed? Yes. Is an existing unfree image of the building "harmful" while we wait for the free image to come about? The logical answer is that it is not, but that's where the diversion is coming into play, and the possible future in which the policy is based off of isn't doing much to clarify it.
-Jeff
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
But "better" doesn't necessarily mean "less harmful," which is the point. The question is "does having fair use images harm the project," and there's not a lot of evidence that it does, since we thankfully allow fair use.
It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a non-solution. The fact that other factors may make the harm preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content is a harm.
This is not rocket science. Did you even read my post? Did you read Kat's post? Must I assault you verbally to get your attention? :(
The "conclusion" is the continuing problem. Can the building be photographed? Yes. Is an existing unfree image of the building "harmful" while we wait for the free image to come about? The logical answer is that it is not,
[snip]
If it's logical please explain your thought process.. because I'm not getting it.
I clearly outlined two related perspectives which show the image to be harmful:
0) Free images are not free content, so adding non-free images breaks one of the primary goals of the project. 1) Non-free images do discourage people from contributing free images. This has happened to me personally so you can't deny it without calling me a liar, it has happened to friends of Jwales so you can't deny it without calling him a liar, we've seen people say it in emails. Even for folks like me who love replacing unfree images can't tell if an image is unfree unless they click on it. That this happens is not really open for debate.
You can discount these factors if you assert that free images are not a goal of the project but if thats your position you should state it outright so we can emphasize how incorrect you are. :)
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a non-solution. The fact that other factors may make the harm preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content is a harm.
But:
1) Fair use has not been defined as any sort of harm, only that it's contrary to an eventual goal.
2) We already allow fair use, thus implying that it's really not harmful at all.
This is not rocket science. Did you even read my post? Did you read Kat's post? Must I assault you verbally to get your attention? :(
Preferably with witty barbs and heavy doses of sarcasm, in a light cream sauce.
If it's logical please explain your thought process.. because I'm not getting it.
A photo of a building in the town over is an "unfree" image on Wikipedia currently. I can't get over to said building to take a picture until, say, next Saturday. The "unfree" picture harms nothing. It does not detract from the project's goal, it does not harm anything. Furthermore, said building is an architectural wonder, with unique arches and windows. Removal of the image until next week does harm to the project, as the unfree image illustrates the object in ways words simply cannot. The unfree image, in this case, is not harming at all, but rather helping.
This logic can apply to any "unfree" "replaceable" image. The policy does further harm to the project because of the broad defintion of "replaceable" that's being asserted by people who should know better. An image of J D Salinger is not really replaceable. An image of a female indie rock musician who has not played publically in 3 years, and has since gotten married and had children, is not really replaceable. An image of a high-profile rock band that bans cameras from their live shows is not really replaceable, unless we're advocating that other people break the rules so they don't have to break ours. The policy is more harmful than the "unfree" image that the policy is designed to replace.
I reiterate - there is NOTHING wrong with pushing for free content. It's undoubtedly secondary to why most of us are here, but it's absolutely worthwhile and useful to have and encourage. To push free content to a fault - where a fair use image cannot be used because a free *might* pop up - is not logical. We would never do that with, say, quotations from a book about a President, which is fair use content that we allow although the opinions are freely replaceable.
- Non-free images do discourage people from contributing free images.
This has happened to me personally so you can't deny it without calling me a liar, it has happened to friends of Jwales so you can't deny it without calling him a liar, we've seen people say it in emails. Even for folks like me who love replacing unfree images can't tell if an image is unfree unless they click on it. That this happens is not really open for debate.
I think I can thoroughly disagree with this without calling anyone a liar. I don't think the stick is getting the free content there any faster than the people who are militant about deleting these images could be by spending that time finding a free alternative.
-Jeff
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
But:
- Fair use has not been defined as any sort of harm, only that it's
contrary to an eventual goal.
- We already allow fair use, thus implying that it's really not harmful
at all.
Nyet. By that logic Cyanide is not toxic since it appears in some commonly eaten food.
A photo of a building in the town over is an "unfree" image on Wikipedia currently. I can't get over to said building to take a picture until, say, next Saturday. The "unfree" picture harms nothing. It does not detract from the project's goal, it does not harm anything. Furthermore, said building is an architectural wonder, with unique arches and windows. Removal of the image until next week does harm to the project, as the unfree image illustrates the object in ways words simply cannot. The unfree image, in this case, is not harming at all, but rather helping.
Are we talking wikipedia only, non comercial use only or claimed fair use because I'm haveing a hard time seeing how any fair use claim could be legit. In which case it is a copyvio. Copvios are a dirrect threat to wikipedians and depending on how courts find wikipedia.
geni wrote:
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
<snip>
A photo of a building in the town over is an "unfree" image on Wikipedia currently. I can't get over to said building to take a picture until, say, next Saturday. The "unfree" picture harms nothing. It does not detract from the project's goal, it does not harm anything. Furthermore, said building is an architectural wonder, with unique arches and windows. Removal of the image until next week does harm to the project, as the unfree image illustrates the object in ways words simply cannot. The unfree image, in this case, is not harming at all, but rather helping.
Are we talking wikipedia only, non comercial use only or claimed fair use because I'm haveing a hard time seeing how any fair use claim could be legit. In which case it is a copyvio. Copvios are a dirrect threat to wikipedians and depending on how courts find wikipedia.
I am the only person here who thinks that:
1. "Fair use" of copyrighted content is *allowed* by US law, provided it's done under condtions, so it's *not* an infringement of copyright?
2. Despite the fact that we're "allowed" (provided point 1 is true) to use these images, it's still *better* not to (where possible)?
On 12/8/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a non-solution. The fact that other factors may make the harm preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content is a harm.
Let's paraphrase into parable language:
"The explicit goal of the project is to acquire a collection of apples. Therefore, every time someone gives us an orange, this is harmful to our project."
This, by itself, is not logical. The implied extra clause that supposedly makes this logical is that people think that if we have enough oranges, we don't need any more apples. I would suggest that this attitude is what needs correcting, rather than our lovely orange collection.
Steve
On 12/10/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
apples. Therefore, every time someone gives us an orange, this is
Unfree content is superficially indistinguishable from free content. It is constructed similarly, and it appears to have similar applications.
So take your example and search and replace "orange" to "poison apple" and we have the beginnings of a parable which parallels the position of many of the folks who disagree with you.
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/8/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a non-solution. The fact that other factors may make the harm preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content is a harm.
Let's paraphrase into parable language:
"The explicit goal of the project is to acquire a collection of apples. Therefore, every time someone gives us an orange, this is harmful to our project."
Except that we have people who argue that the project is really to acquire a collection of fruit, and see no reason to acquire apples because "we already have the oranges, and they taste better anyway".
A number of people on the fair use policy pages have explicitly declared that they consider the free content goal to be secondary at most. I suppose it's fortunate that they haven't started lifting text from other websites en masse...
Stan
On 12/10/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Let's paraphrase into parable language:
"The explicit goal of the project is to acquire a collection of apples. Therefore, every time someone gives us an orange, this is harmful to our project."
Except that we have people who argue that the project is really to
acquire a collection of fruit, and see no reason to acquire apples because "we already have the oranges, and they taste better anyway".
There is currently very little community acknowledgement or support for any largescale effort for people to go take and donate free images to the project.
I'm all for changing that, but I have zero bandwidth to try to drive such a thing right now.
I have spent several dozens of hours taking photos, making graphics, and working with some museums trying to get specific images created or get permission to come take specific images (the latter mostly frustratingly not succeeding), when I had more time available to help. I've contacted dozens of companies trying to get them to free-release images, mostly unsuccessfully.
Pictures aren't just worth a thousand words; you can write those thousand words in the time it takes to accomplish getting the picture done, on the average.
A number of people on the fair use policy pages have explicitly declared
that they consider the free content goal to be secondary at most. I suppose it's fortunate that they haven't started lifting text from other websites en masse...
Wikipedia stripped of all the fair use images at the moment would suck rather badly.
Making Wikipedia worse, in order to try and convince people to put more time in and eventually make it better, seems like a bad tradeoff to me.
On 12/12/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
On 12/10/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote: A number of people on the fair use policy pages have explicitly declared
that they consider the free content goal to be secondary at most. I suppose it's fortunate that they haven't started lifting text from other websites en masse...
Some of them have.
Wikipedia stripped of all the fair use images at the moment would suck rather badly.
I believe that some areas would, Yes. But look at the articles on dewiki. Do those suck?
I think we have a need for some unfree images for critical commentary. There are articles where dewiki is kinda poor in part due to a lack of free images.
For example, their articles which best cover the famous photograph of [[Phan Thị Kim Phúc]] are [[de:Phan Thị Kim Phúc]] and [[de:Trảng Bàng]]. Both have external links and encourage readers to follow them to read the pictures.
What good does external linking do for free content? Most of whatever incentive to somehow free that image which could be created by excluding it is lost when we include a highly visible external link to it.
The primary advantage I see in completely excluding unfree works (even ones which can't be freed or replaced) is that we avoid confusing new contributors with an apparently inconsistent policy. On the other hand on dewiki it seems to be instutionalizing the process of external linking to content which would be inside wikipedia in an ideal world. Already enwiki is challenged by people adding externals rather than contributing content.
So nothing is simple. :)
Making Wikipedia worse, in order to try and convince people to put more time in and eventually make it better, seems like a bad tradeoff to me.
Whatever the extent that removing unfree content will make Wikipedia lower quality, making it more free is a move towards our goals. So removing unfree isn't pure loss. We have to consider the balance.
Bogdan Giusca wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
The following isn't entirely related to the above, but I'm quoting it anyway because it reminded me that I was going to mention this at some point.
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
Similarly for people. Imagine (hypothetically) that I'm planning to visit an event where I will likely see some celebrities. If there was a way for me to find out which OF THOSE celebrities don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia, it would be easier to know in advance which celebrities to focus on. The way it's now, however, I will likely just not care and only take images of things that /I/ want, not the things that Commons or Wikipedia needs.
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
Timwi
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote: [snip]
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
I suffer from this too.. We have lists, but they aren't really effective. I tried making a list of articles for things near me which don't have pictures.. but our category system makes doing so difficult.
Sometimes I visit some place and think "surely we have a picture of X".. only to later find out that we don't .. or that it's "fair use" .. or that it's just a very poor picture and that I could take one which is much better.
Or the reverse happens.. I'll be out in the woods and think "surely we don't have good pictures of trail markers" and spend an hour building a exhaustive collection only to find that the subject is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_blazing well covered].
To an extent I think that we'll only be able to solve this by putting up a good lightweight (wap perhaps) interface to our lists of needed images so people can reasonably query them while in the field.
[snip]
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
The prerequisite is correctly identifying things in Cambridge... which is currently non-trivial because of semantic drift in our categories and a lack of geocoding.
Surely you can have AutoWikiBrowser slug through a list of articles that link to Camebridge and also have a structure-stub tag or Buildings in Camebridge category to them? Then there's [[WP:RI]] too. Is there a Camebridge WikiProject?
Mgm
On 12/13/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote: [snip]
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
I suffer from this too.. We have lists, but they aren't really effective. I tried making a list of articles for things near me which don't have pictures.. but our category system makes doing so difficult.
Sometimes I visit some place and think "surely we have a picture of X".. only to later find out that we don't .. or that it's "fair use" .. or that it's just a very poor picture and that I could take one which is much better.
Or the reverse happens.. I'll be out in the woods and think "surely we don't have good pictures of trail markers" and spend an hour building a exhaustive collection only to find that the subject is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_blazing well covered].
To an extent I think that we'll only be able to solve this by putting up a good lightweight (wap perhaps) interface to our lists of needed images so people can reasonably query them while in the field.
[snip]
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
The prerequisite is correctly identifying things in Cambridge... which is currently non-trivial because of semantic drift in our categories and a lack of geocoding. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/13/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Surely you can have AutoWikiBrowser slug through a list of articles that link to Camebridge and also have a structure-stub tag or Buildings in Camebridge category to them? Then there's [[WP:RI]] too. Is there a Camebridge WikiProject?
Wikipedia is more of a mess than you expect.
You can reach lots of non-location things (like people, ideas, and products) via almost any clearly location based category. ... And many of the things which would be suitable for photography do not have anything that easily identifies them, for example [[Eden Center]] (why the heck do we have articles on minor shopping centers when we're still missing important US Supreme court cases.. blah! a rant for another day).
Also, none of our location based categories easily translate to 'near me' or even 'within a reasonable travel distance' .. if everything were geocoded, things would be much easier.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/13/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Surely you can have AutoWikiBrowser slug through a list of articles that link to Camebridge and also have a structure-stub tag or Buildings in Camebridge category to them? Then there's [[WP:RI]] too. Is there a Camebridge WikiProject?
Wikipedia is more of a mess than you expect.
That helps to insure that there is plenty of work for people to do.
why the heck do we have articles on minor shopping centers when we're still missing important US Supreme court cases.
I guess there are just more people interested in shopping centers than Supreme Court cases. The shopping center people are looking after their own interests, perhaps those interested in law should be as diligent.
Ec
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
The following isn't entirely related to the above, but I'm quoting it anyway because it reminded me that I was going to mention this at some point.
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
Similarly for people. Imagine (hypothetically) that I'm planning to visit an event where I will likely see some celebrities. If there was a way for me to find out which OF THOSE celebrities don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia, it would be easier to know in advance which celebrities to focus on. The way it's now, however, I will likely just not care and only take images of things that /I/ want, not the things that Commons or Wikipedia needs.
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
Timwi
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You could start by looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs_in_Cam... its parent categories.
The Mother Category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs
Bam.
Wheeeeeeeeee
On 12/13/06, Rory Stolzenberg rory096@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
The following isn't entirely related to the above, but I'm quoting it anyway because it reminded me that I was going to mention this at some point.
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
Similarly for people. Imagine (hypothetically) that I'm planning to visit an event where I will likely see some celebrities. If there was a way for me to find out which OF THOSE celebrities don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia, it would be easier to know in advance which celebrities to focus on. The way it's now, however, I will likely just not care and only take images of things that /I/ want, not the things that Commons or Wikipedia needs.
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
Timwi
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You could start by looking at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs_in_Cam... its parent categories. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/14/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
The Mother Category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs
For 20 points, what's the commons equivalent?
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/14/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
The Mother Category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs
For 20 points, what's the commons equivalent?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests
On 12/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Kewl.
For 30 points: Is there any point duplicating this page on en and commons? Should not all the en stuff be replaced by a gigantic redirect?
Steve
On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Kewl.
For 30 points: Is there any point duplicating this page on en and commons? Should not all the en stuff be replaced by a gigantic redirect?
Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
As far as I know, WP:RI isn't used nearly as much as the category, and the category is useful as it's connected to a template that one can add to the article's talk page, so that everybody who looks at the talk page finds out that it needs a picture, which is something that Commons can't do.
On 12/18/06, Rory Stolzenberg rory096@gmail.com wrote:
As far as I know, WP:RI isn't used nearly as much as the category, and the category is useful as it's connected to a template that one can add to the article's talk page, so that everybody who looks at the talk page finds out that it needs a picture, which is something that Commons can't do.
Could a bot or something feed these language-specific requests into a central repository? It'd be nice if Jacques P Frenchie at fr:Discuter:New York can request an image, and that request actually be acted on by New Yorkers. New Yorkers who, presumably, are not likely to be reading the French version of their favourite article...
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/18/06, Rory Stolzenberg rory096@gmail.com wrote:
As far as I know, WP:RI isn't used nearly as much as the category, and the category is useful as it's connected to a template that one can add to the article's talk page, so that everybody who looks at the talk page finds out that it needs a picture, which is something that Commons can't do.
Could a bot or something feed these language-specific requests into a central repository? It'd be nice if Jacques P Frenchie at fr:Discuter:New York can request an image, and that request actually be acted on by New Yorkers. New Yorkers who, presumably, are not likely to be reading the French version of their favourite article...
Who will repair me of this troublesome toolserver?
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
You could also to to the toolserver:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missing_images.php
scan a category, and list only the ones with missing images.
Except you can't, toolserver databases are still down :-(
Magnus
That thing has been down for a long time. What does it take to fix it?
Mgm
On 12/14/06, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 12/13/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
You could also to to the toolserver:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missing_images.php
scan a category, and list only the ones with missing images.
Except you can't, toolserver databases are still down :-(
Magnus _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I've just had an idea.
One of the "problems" cited for "replaceable" fair-use images is that they give the (false) impression that an image is no longer needed for the relevant article, right?
Well, maybe it would make sense to mark nonfree images in the article somehow. A red border, perhaps.
I know the following suggestion requires extra coding, but I imagine it would be possible to have a tag on the image description page (which, in the case of the English Wikipedia, would be transcluded through some of the copyright-status templates), which would cause the image thumbnails in articles to have an extra CSS class specifier. Then extra styling can be added for that CSS class specifier, e.g. red border or background. Or it can be neutral by default but still enable CSS wizards to add something to their own user CSS.
Discuss. :)
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
I've just had an idea.
One of the "problems" cited for "replaceable" fair-use images is that they give the (false) impression that an image is no longer needed for the relevant article, right?
Well, maybe it would make sense to mark nonfree images in the article somehow. A red border, perhaps.
I've had the same thought, but there are lots of unreplaceable nonfree images. I'm sure the art types would be freaked out if paintings by recent artists all had red borders around them - especially for some modern works where it might not be clear whether the red border was part of the painting or not. :-)
It would however, be spiffy if an image tagged as replaceable had all its article uses marked visibly. Right now people are doing it manually.
Perhaps one could generalize, so that, say, uses of an image in articles other than the ones listed in "fairusein" would also be flagged visibly. One truly sneaky way to "mark" would be to display a blank image and/or give it a zero size, heh-heh-heh.
Stan
On 12/14/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
It would however, be spiffy if an image tagged as replaceable had all its article uses marked visibly. Right now people are doing it manually.
Someone asked for this before, but more generally, geni maybe? I can't remember. Anyway, if we could somehow mark in the article which images were about to be deleted that would be super helpful. So, to make your idea even more useful, if we could somehow give images a class based on something in the image description page that would be great. We could tag fair use images, but also replaceable ones, as well as simple no source/no license type things. Ideally the visual would be controlled by css based on image classes.
Judson [[:en:User:Cohesion]]
On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:43:28 +0100, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
On 12/14/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
It would however, be spiffy if an image tagged as replaceable had all its article uses marked visibly. Right now people are doing it manually.
Someone asked for this before, but more generally, geni maybe? I can't remember. Anyway, if we could somehow mark in the article which images were about to be deleted that would be super helpful. So, to make your idea even more useful, if we could somehow give images a class based on something in the image description page that would be great. We could tag fair use images, but also replaceable ones, as well as simple no source/no license type things. Ideally the visual would be controlled by css based on image classes.
I know I brought up something like that once. It had almost slipped my mind though, but I finaly got around to submitting a "bug" request for it.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8298
Hope it is doable, there would be some caching issues to work out I guess.
On 12/17/06, Sherool jamydlan@online.no wrote:
I know I brought up something like that once. It had almost slipped my mind though, but I finaly got around to submitting a "bug" request for it.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8298
Hope it is doable, there would be some caching issues to work out I guess.
Yes, it was you, oops! :D I'll go vote for the bug now.
Judson [[:en:User:Cohesion]]
Stan Shebs wrote:
Timwi wrote:
I've just had an idea.
One of the "problems" cited for "replaceable" fair-use images is that they give the (false) impression that an image is no longer needed for the relevant article, right?
Well, maybe it would make sense to mark nonfree images in the article somehow. A red border, perhaps.
I've had the same thought, but there are lots of unreplaceable nonfree images. I'm sure the art types would be freaked out if paintings by recent artists all had red borders around them - especially for some modern works where it might not be clear whether the red border was part of the painting or not. :-)
*cough* <blink> tags around a giant red "PLEASE FIND A FREE REPLACEMENT" are the only way to do it.
On 12/14/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
I've just had an idea.
One of the "problems" cited for "replaceable" fair-use images is that they give the (false) impression that an image is no longer needed for the relevant article, right?
Well, maybe it would make sense to mark nonfree images in the article somehow. A red border, perhaps.
I know the following suggestion requires extra coding, but I imagine it would be possible to have a tag on the image description page (which, in the case of the English Wikipedia, would be transcluded through some of the copyright-status templates), which would cause the image thumbnails in articles to have an extra CSS class specifier. Then extra styling can be added for that CSS class specifier, e.g. red border or background. Or it can be neutral by default but still enable CSS wizards to add something to their own user CSS.
Discuss. :)
Timwi
One crude way to do this would be to put each replaceable/in-danger-of-deletion image into a tiny infobox or frame, which has a colored border. You could probably do that via bot already, since you would just be adding stuff around the existing correct image link syntax, and not trying to modify Mediawiki or the link.
--Gwern
Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote: I've just had an idea.
One of the "problems" cited for "replaceable" fair-use images is that they give the (false) impression that an image is no longer needed for the relevant article, right?
Well, maybe it would make sense to mark nonfree images in the article somehow. A red border, perhaps.
I know the following suggestion requires extra coding, but I imagine it would be possible to have a tag on the image description page (which, in the case of the English Wikipedia, would be transcluded through some of the copyright-status templates), which would cause the image thumbnails in articles to have an extra CSS class specifier. Then extra styling can be added for that CSS class specifier, e.g. red border or background. Or it can be neutral by default but still enable CSS wizards to add something to their own user CSS.
Discuss. :)
Timwi
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l I think the point is that if there is a good fair use image, people won't be motivated to generate free content. It's not an issue of people thinking that copyrighted images are free. If there's already a good picture on an article about X on the wikiarticle, red-bordered or no, I'm less likely to be bothered about trying to obtain a good free-content image of X.
excelsior\ ik-¹sel-se-er, eks-¹kel-se-or\ [Latin] : to reach higher
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