It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
Some powerful persuasive arguments for either of the above viewpoints, or any other, would be nice.
(Why this has arisen now: I created a {{credit}} template for this purpose and used it in a couple of places. I was reverted. So more opinions are needed.)
Steve PS http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ states that "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." but in practice no one seems to specify a particular method. The ramifications of that practice are open for discussion.
On 10/29/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
PS http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ states that "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." but in practice no one seems to specify a particular method. The ramifications of that practice are open for discussion.
In that case, displaying the photographer's name (or more commonly, whatever nick they use on flickr.com) on the description page of the image is probably adequate unless they have explicitly specified their desire for something above and beyond that.
There are other options too. Some people put their name in the image meta-data. Others use a watermark (but could one legally remove this if the license allows "derivative works"? hmm...), And then there is at least one guy always includes his name as part of the image title for his own "cc-by" photos.[1]
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=upload&a... -- lots of good stuff there (some of it n.s.f.w.)
—C.W.
On 29/10/2007, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
There are other options too. Some people put their name in the image meta-data. Others use a watermark (but could one legally remove this if the license allows "derivative works"? hmm...), And then there is at least one guy always includes his name as part of the image title for his own "cc-by" photos.[1] [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=upload&a... -- lots of good stuff there (some of it n.s.f.w.)
Watermarked images routinely get the watermark removed.
- d.
On 10/29/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Others use a watermark (but could one legally remove this if the license allows "derivative works"? hmm...),
<snip>
Both GFDL and CC-BY prohibit derivative works from removing "copyright notices" appearing in the original. The licenses are ambiguous about whether one can validly relocate such notices that are embedded in the image to the description page.
Standing practice on Commons is to remove watermarks when possible, but also to allow the uploader a free hand to request deletion of the image if they object to that removal.
-Robert Rohde
On 10/30/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
if the license allows "derivative works"? hmm...), And then there is at least one guy always includes his name as part of the image title for his own "cc-by" photos.[1]
I've taken to doing that too, both for my own images and those I upload from flickr. If nothing else, it increases the chance that someone pinching the image from Wikipedia will inadvertently attribute it.
Because some people are just completely inept when it comes to crediting. For example:
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/02/mont-saint-michel-photos.html
I took the photo two below the one with the giant moon (with the medieval houses and French flag). It was originally not credited at all. I pointed this out to them, whereupon they credited the moon photo to me. I pointed out their error, now they appear to have credited the one four below the moon to me (even linking to the original image that I took on Wikipedia). Meanwhile the one I took seems to have wound up on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=387002604&size=o
With no attribution. Obviously I don't care because it's an awful photo. Same goes for the middle two photos on this page: http://www.crystalinks.com/carnacstones.html - but I'll be annoyed when someone pinches a good photo of mine...
Steve
On 10/29/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
PS http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ states that "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." but in practice no one seems to specify a particular method. The ramifications of that practice are open for discussion.
NO IT DOESN'T
Or rather, the page /says/ that... but the *license* does not.
The page, per Creative Commons (and the page itself), is not legally binding.
I agree that the text is misleading and wish they would fix it.
The relevant text from the license is "give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name".
Secondary history or image pages are the defacto credit standard for Wikis. Credit pages are also common on other websites.
Plastering up the content of the article with meta information is not good. At it's best it is distracting, at its worst it's spam.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Plastering up the content of the article with meta information is not good. At it's best it is distracting, at its worst it's spam.
I disagree strongly that a discreet "credit: John Smith" is "plastering", "not good", or "spam". I think it has the potential to improve our credibility and encourage more contributions. Obviously having little tags attributing every line of text to someone would be over the top, but a section at the bottom saying "main contributors: John Smith, BA, University of Melbourne; Fred Smith, software engineer" etc would surely help, rather than hurt.
With images, however, it's so easy and clear how to attribute properly: just look at the standard set by newspapers: "Photo: AAP", "Image: Getty" etc.
Steve
On 29/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
With images, however, it's so easy and clear how to attribute properly: just look at the standard set by newspapers: "Photo: AAP", "Image: Getty" etc.
We are not a newspaper and at random The Independent 26 October page 19 no credit on the images
On 10/30/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We are not a newspaper and at random The Independent 26 October page 19 no credit on the images
Zomg, a random sample of 1 was inconclusive?
Come on, geni, you can do better than that.
Steve
On 30/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/30/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We are not a newspaper and at random The Independent 26 October page 19 no credit on the images
Zomg, a random sample of 1 was inconclusive?
Come on, geni, you can do better than that.
Steve
I could but until you stop making absolute statements I don't have to. Still same date pages 1,2,3,6,7.
And we know how newspapers credit free images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DNN_Wikipe-tan_2007-06-15.jpg
For full copyrighted works in no book are credits given inside with the actual work. Instead they are typically presented in a "credits" page at the last pages of the book.
The credit for the images can be included in the history page as an extra. It would be one hell of a task to code though. - White Cat
On 10/29/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
Some powerful persuasive arguments for either of the above viewpoints, or any other, would be nice.
(Why this has arisen now: I created a {{credit}} template for this purpose and used it in a couple of places. I was reverted. So more opinions are needed.)
Steve PS http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ states that "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." but in practice no one seems to specify a particular method. The ramifications of that practice are open for discussion. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 29/10/2007, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
The credit for the images can be included in the history page as an extra. It would be one hell of a task to code though.
Not really - just include the information from the image page for all images in the current version. The problem would be to present it usefully. (For who?)
- d.
For text, why should anyone care? If one contributes text to WP, its clear that one is not going to get credit in the conventional sense--the only way of preserving the contribution intact is to work on a topic nobody else bothers to edit. Those who really do care would probably be better of in any of a range of other projects.
All we ned do is meet the technical requirements for our license.
On 10/31/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/10/2007, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
The credit for the images can be included in the history page as an extra. It would be one hell of a task to code though.
Not really - just include the information from the image page for all images in the current version. The problem would be to present it usefully. (For who?)
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I note with interest that in the "bleeding edge" mediawiki, there is a "credits" action which attempts to give some credit information - I don't see any links to it in the GUI though. Apparently it comes from WikiTravel. Anyone know anything about it?
Or has this been around a while and doesn't do much useful?
Steve
On 2007.10.30 00:05:12 +1000, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com scribbled 0 lines:
It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
Some powerful persuasive arguments for either of the above viewpoints, or any other, would be nice.
(Why this has arisen now: I created a {{credit}} template for this purpose and used it in a couple of places. I was reverted. So more opinions are needed.)
Steve
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
-- gwern SERT Nash white ISS-ADP offensive PLA S511 .45 processing HRM
On 10/29/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
It's mostly about what people expect, I'd say. No one expects to see a bunch of author names splashed across the sidebar showing who wrote what; in cases where books have many editors and authors we're used to seeing a page or three listing them--separately from the text. In the case of photographs, though, people are used to seeing credit in the captions: newspapers, magazines, books, and even encyclopedias often do this. True, some leave all image credits for a separate section of the book, so our method isn't without precedent, but neither is the credit-in-the-caption method.
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
In this case, 'excessive fair use' is probably secret code for 'so many photos we can't really claim fair use anymore'. Taken in that context, this happens all the time: for example, I often find myself removing song lyrics from articles about songs. In some cases the complete lyrics have been listed, in others a large part of them. It can certainly be appropriate to quote some of them for commentary, but quoting the whole song is 'excessive fair use'.
Note, though, that I'm not taking a position on the issue of where to give credit on photos. I think that it's a good idea to make sure people know where to find the credits/license, but I'm not sure that putting credits in the caption is necessarily a good way to go either. A lot of arguments for and against it were brought up last time we had this discussion, so I won't rehash them; suffice it to say that I wasn't convinced of either position. I hope we can come to a good conclusion this time through.
Tracy Poff
On 29/10/2007, Tracy Poff tracy.poff@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
In this case, 'excessive fair use' is probably secret code for 'so many photos we can't really claim fair use anymore'. Taken in that context, this happens all the time: for example, I often find myself removing song lyrics from articles about songs. In some cases the complete lyrics have been listed, in others a large part of them. It can certainly be appropriate to quote some of them for commentary, but quoting the whole song is 'excessive fair use'.
I've frequently removed excessive slabs of quotation. Mostly because it's bad editorially.
Note, though, that I'm not taking a position on the issue of where to give credit on photos. I think that it's a good idea to make sure people know where to find the credits/license, but I'm not sure that putting credits in the caption is necessarily a good way to go either. A lot of arguments for and against it were brought up last time we had this discussion, so I won't rehash them; suffice it to say that I wasn't convinced of either position. I hope we can come to a good conclusion this time through.
I tend to put them in if it's of editorial interest, e.g. if the photographer is of some note themselves.
As Greg points out, the letter of the license says putting it on the image page is fine. In a book, photo credits will often be in a big slab at the beginning or end.
- d.
On 10/29/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
http://searchengineland.com/070911-083723.php
How else are we to ensure maximum participation from marketers?
;)
On 10/30/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
The main difference is that the author composed their text *for* Wikipedia, so we have no doubt that they're happy with the lack of attribution. However, if we're copying an image from Flickr, we just don't know - the intent behind labelling something as "CC-SA with attribution" is pretty unclear.
In any case, there's no good reason we *don't* attribute authors better. And in fact we don't really comply with the GFDL from this point of view: there should be a clear list of the five main contributors.
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different
standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
It's a lot more effort to take a photo.
Steve
Gwern Branwen wrote:
Steve Bennett scribbled:
It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
It's a valid point. We generate a whole history on a separate page for text. #1 could do the same for photographers and other graphic people.Many books accumulate credits on one page at the back of the book.
Ec
Ec
On Oct 29, 2007 2:59 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 2007.10.30 00:05:12 +1000, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com scribbled 0 lines:
It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
I'm 100% with Gwern. We should make every effort to credit creators and authors, and to filter up information about the provenance of an article, sketch, image, or media file.
Wikitravel is much better about this than we are. We should be indicating significant authors on every page, and a neatly-formatted small photo credit by a photo, as has been standard in many elegantly-prepared print publications, would likewise be good practice. We should be setting standards here, not concealing data that is at our fingertips.
SJ
SJ
Gwern Branwen wrote: <snip>
Question: why should we give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly shot photo whose license requires attribution to the author(s), and not give special prominence and mention of the original author to a carefully composed, lovingly written article/text whose license requires attribution to the author(s)?
I've noticed people seem to hold photos and text to very different standards. For example, I don't think I've once seen anyone remove chunks of quoted text for being 'excessive fair use', and yet similar actions and rationale for images are too common for me to need to belabor the point.
-- gwern SERT Nash white ISS-ADP offensive PLA S511 .45 processing HRM
errm yea:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content&am...
The "official" silence on this issue was/is still deafening
On 29/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
The obvious counterpoint -
We don't byline articles, and whilst most of those are definitely collaborative works, a decent fraction (10%? 20%?) are undeniably the work of a single author with some minor amendment by others. So why should a photographer - a contributor of one single element of the whole - get special treatment over the contributor of what is the most significant element by far?
----
That is a deliberately brusque statement of the position, but I think it's a very important thing to remember. Our cumulative work has no prominent attribution; all authors are recorded and attributed (albeit rather inefficiently), but you have to deliberately check to see who they are. We aggressively clamp down on people trying to sign their work, because we feel it's Not The Way It's Done.
The way I see it, both #1 and #2 are legitimate ways of doing things and both comply with the terms of the license as well as being generally in line with how the world as a whole does these things. Newspapers almost always byline photographs because there's no practical other way to do it; in books, however, it's quite common to find a page at the back somewhere with all the photograph credits.
I think the fact that we *ourselves* make a point of being discreet about attribution makes it more reasonable for us to go with #1 - as a photographer, I would feel short-changed if the authors were prominently credited but I wasn't, whilst I wouldn't feel offended at being relegated to the small print on p.350 if the authors themselves were in the small print on p.348.
Does that latter distinction make sense?
Andrew Gray schreef:
I think the fact that we *ourselves* make a point of being discreet about attribution makes it more reasonable for us to go with #1 - as a photographer, I would feel short-changed if the authors were prominently credited but I wasn't, whilst I wouldn't feel offended at being relegated to the small print on p.350 if the authors themselves were in the small print on p.348.
Does that latter distinction make sense?
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
Eugene
On 10/29/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
Cite?
On 29/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
Cite?
Text on Wikipedia is almost universally released under GFDL specifically to be used on Wikipedia. We rarely take text from anywhere else except in specific quotes, which we would always attribute (no point quoting someone without saying who you're quoting), and are used under fair use rather than being released under a certain license, anyway. We often take images from other places where they have been released under a variety of licenses, often we no intention for them to be used on Wikipedia. There is a big difference. (Whether or not it's a legally significant difference, I don't know, but it is a big difference.)
On 10/29/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our
best
pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to
be
given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
Cite?
Text on Wikipedia is almost universally released under GFDL specifically to be used on Wikipedia. We rarely take text from anywhere else except in specific quotes, which we would always attribute (no point quoting someone without saying who you're quoting), and are used under fair use rather than being released under a certain license, anyway. We often take images from other places where they have been released under a variety of licenses, often we no intention for them to be used on Wikipedia. There is a big difference. (Whether or not it's a legally significant difference, I don't know, but it is a big difference.)
And Wikipedia's methodology for "honoring" authorship under the GFDL is also something of a stretch.
To quote the GFDL:
"List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), ..."
where
"For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, 'Title Page' means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text."
Taken at face value, I'd say the default format envisioned for the GFDL is that a list of authors should appear adjacent to article's title (rather than an edit history placed on a seperate page). Whether Wikipedia's approach technically satisfies the GFDL or not is one of those pesky issues that might even end up in court one day. Regardless, I am sure that if we did list all (or some) of an article's authors at the top of each page, then the question of whether it makes sense to identify photographers as well would be more simpler.
-Robert Rohde
Robert Rohde wrote:
And Wikipedia's methodology for "honoring" authorship under the GFDL is also something of a stretch.
To quote the GFDL:
"List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), ..."
where
"For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, 'Title Page' means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text."
Taken at face value, I'd say the default format envisioned for the GFDL is that a list of authors should appear adjacent to article's title (rather than an edit history placed on a seperate page).
Another way of reading that is to take the Main Page as the title page. The five listed authors could then be the five editors (other than bots) who have the highest number of edits. :-)
Ec
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
On 10/29/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
Cite?
For wat?
"expect more prominent credit to be given": http://duncandavidson.com/archives/564
One argument for not crediting photographers in the article itself, is that we don't credit authors either, other than in the history (which is at least one click away). But what people aren't perhaps aware of that we *do* credit text that was imported from outside Wikipedia: see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:1911 and also the article [[Leptocereus grantianus]], which I copied from a U.S. government website.
I could have not credited the original source except for an edit summary; that would have given the same attribution to the external source as to a Wikipedian. I didn't; likewise I'd prefer to credit images that we have pilfered from outsiders within the image captions.
I like the [i] with a link to the description page on [[User:Thebainer/thumbtest]], by the way.
Eugene
On Oct 29, 2007 7:51 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Cite?
For wat?
"expect more prominent credit to be given": http://duncandavidson.com/archives/564
Since when does one example turn into 99%, many, and many?
In that particular case the writer was primarily upset that *no attribution at all was provided*... which was due to a momentary database glitch.
[snip]
But what people aren't perhaps aware of that we *do* credit text that was imported from outside Wikipedia: see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:1911
For the most part the 1911 notice was useful for explaining why the article used arcane English and had an occasional racial slur...
I didn't; likewise I'd prefer to credit images that we have pilfered from outsiders within the image captions.
And I prefer that we not create an easy way for people to advertise or self promote directly inside articles. I'd prefer that our encyclopedia articles not be littered with names, sometimes quite offensive or insulting names. I think it's utterly essential, legally and ethically, that we be as consistent as possible in our attribution of images, so crediting just images from third parties isn't really in option in my eyes. We seem to be at an impasse. :)
I am in favor of improving our 'one click away' attribution. I've advocated we create a credits tab multiple times. There is clearly a lot that we can do to improve attribution without shoving it inline. I would not be opposed to including it appended to the bottom of the pages, as mediawiki does for text authors on Wikis that haven't disabled that feature. Is there room to compromise here?
Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
In any case, there's no good reason we *don't* attribute authors better. And in fact we don't really comply with the GFDL from this point of view: there should be a clear list of the five main contributors.
The GFDL requires us to list *at least* the five main. We list all of them. We're a little mixed up with the section naming, but we in terms of actual substance we are in full complaince. (except when people paste in stuff without attributing it, of course)
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
I think it's utterly essential, legally and ethically, that we be as consistent as possible in our attribution of images, so crediting just images from third parties isn't really in option in my eyes. We seem to be at an impasse. :)
What do you think about our practice of only crediting text from third parties, then? Which was the point of my previous mail.
Eugene
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
For the most part the 1911 notice was useful for explaining why the article used arcane English and had an occasional racial slur...
It serves two purposes in one go. Nice, huh?
And I prefer that we not create an easy way for people to advertise or self promote directly inside articles. I'd prefer that our encyclopedia articles not be littered with names, sometimes quite offensive or insulting names. I think it's utterly essential, legally and ethically, that we be as consistent as possible in our attribution
Crediting images in the same way as crediting text is "utterly essential, legally and ethically"? No, that's a huge stretch.
I agree we don't necessarily want to open the door to "advertising", but there surely safeguards we could put on that. IMHO we have already strayed into a grey area with our rampant use of US military propag^H^H^H^H^H photos.
I am in favor of improving our 'one click away' attribution. I've advocated we create a credits tab multiple times. There is clearly a lot that we can do to improve attribution without shoving it inline. I would not be opposed to including it appended to the bottom of the pages, as mediawiki does for text authors on Wikis that haven't disabled that feature. Is there room to compromise here?
Hell yeah. Any of these would be fine, IMHO, for text: - Box with names of prominent contributors - Prominent link to "credits" or "authors" with clearly spelled out list of main contributors (rather than the "history" tab which is really for something else)
For images: - Name of author* shown in small print next to the caption - Prominent link to an obvious "more information" type icon on the image (like the example you made)
Slightly less good: - List of contributors of images displayed somewhere on the page - Contributors of images shown on same page as authors.
In either case we will need to actually store this metadata properly. I don't think we have a reliable way of determining who the author is.
The GFDL requires us to list *at least* the five main. We list all of them. We're a little mixed up with the section naming, but we in terms of actual substance we are in full complaince. (except when people paste in stuff without attributing it, of course)
*grumble* It's like asking someone for a one-page report and they point
you to a filing cabinet and tell you all the information is in there. Can you tell from a history page who the five main contributors are? How long will it take you to tell?
Steve *Author - got a better term for the person who made an image, if it isn't necessarily a photo?
On 10/30/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Artist.
Seems a bit pretentious for a happy snap or a quick diagram. At least
author is neutral in that way.
Steve
On 10/29/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given. They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
No, but they have chosen to be credited in the normal way for the publication to give credit. Perhaps we should make it more obvious that there IS an image description page, however - some suggestions for that were brought up last time this came around.
-Matt
On 10/29/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
No, but they have chosen to be credited in the normal way for the publication to give credit. Perhaps we should make it more obvious that there IS an image description page, however - some suggestions for that were brought up last time this came around.
There was quite a bit of work done, especially on the commons list, but no one pulled the trigger to make it so.
On 29/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
No, but they have chosen to be credited in the normal way for the publication to give credit. Perhaps we should make it more obvious that there IS an image description page, however - some suggestions for that were brought up last time this came around.
There was quite a bit of work done, especially on the commons list, but no one pulled the trigger to make it so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thebainer/thumbtest
A reasonably-advertised straw poll on the subject might be a good idea at this point.
(I really like the versions with [i] and the 'expand' rectangles.)
- d.
On Oct 29, 2007 7:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A reasonably-advertised straw poll on the subject might be a good idea at this point.
(I really like the versions with [i] and the 'expand' rectangles.)
So... I don't much care what the outcome is, but the i gets significant negative points in my book for not being maximally linguistically neutral.
The *best* way to make this change is to change the monobook behavior in mediawiki because consistency across our projects is important, and they all have the same issue of clicking not being obvious. However, this demands a language-neutral solution.
To that end what I would prefer is that some brilliant artist would come along and make a nice clear monobook feel version of the (C) and magnifying glass icon which is in the lower left corner. ... If wishes were horses..
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
The *best* way to make this change is to change the monobook behavior in mediawiki because consistency across our projects is important, and they all have the same issue of clicking not being obvious. However, this demands a language-neutral solution.
IMHO consistency is not *that* important. A good solution could easily have an "i" for en, and some Chinese character on zh. If the symbol looks roughly the same (white text on blue background, in the appropriate corner), that's good enough. "i" is pretty well understood internationally anyway.
Fwiw, the one that works the best is your version with the big "i", replacing the other "expand this image" icon. I think a person wanting to see the image bigger will just click the image, and someone wanting the image credits will click the "i" - irrelevant that they go to the same place. I sort of prefer Stephen's original "i" size though.
Steve
On Oct 29, 2007 8:12 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
IMHO consistency is not *that* important. A good solution could easily have an "i" for en, and some Chinese character on zh. If the symbol looks roughly the same (white text on blue background, in the appropriate corner), that's good enough. "i" is pretty well understood internationally anyway.
It's true. Your suggestion is consistent enough. But now you've now taken it out of my ability to impliment. Replacing a single icon is easy. Setting icons for 209 languages is much harder. ;)
Fwiw, the one that works the best is your version with the big "i", replacing the other "expand this image" icon. I think a person wanting to see the image bigger will just click the image, and someone wanting the image credits will click the "i" - irrelevant that they go to the same place. I sort of prefer Stephen's original "i" size though.
Feel free to edit the page to propose other styles. It's not hard to do better than what we have today. :)
So long as people can get behind one version we can change it. :)
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
On Oct 29, 2007 8:12 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
IMHO consistency is not *that* important. A good solution could easily have an "i" for en, and some Chinese character on zh. If the symbol looks roughly the same (white text on blue background, in the appropriate corner), that's good enough. "i" is pretty well understood internationally anyway.
It's true. Your suggestion is consistent enough. But now you've now taken it out of my ability to impliment. Replacing a single icon is easy. Setting icons for 209 languages is much harder. ;)
This is the enwiki mailing list. Our first priority is to make it work on the English Wikipedia, and to choose the alternative that is best *for us*.
In my opinion, the (C) really gives the wrong impression. It will be understood to mean: don't copy this image. Which is exactly the wrong message for an encyclopedia that tries to be Free.
Eugene
On Oct 29, 2007 8:26 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
This is the enwiki mailing list. Our first priority is to make it work on the English Wikipedia, and to choose the alternative that is best *for us*.
0_o
Is a solution which no one will bother implementing really best?
In my opinion, the (C) really gives the wrong impression. It will be understood to mean: don't copy this image. Which is exactly the wrong message for an encyclopedia that tries to be Free.
The RED (C) probably does, I agree. But the pale blue icon, the example in the lower left corner?
The images are, in most cases, copyrighted.
When you copy them you have certain obligations.
If your entire understanding of your obligations is going to come from a 15px wide icon, then I'd rather you think you can't copy the images.
How can we worry about respecting the authors on one hand but then worry that we might shatter a reusers misconceptions about his copyright obligations? ;)
What do you think about our practice of only crediting text from third parties, then? Which was the point of my previous mail.
We don't, for the most part, provide inline credit in such cases. Most of the EB1911 notices have long since been removed. They are useful for certain informational purposes, but it's not really a standard practice.
Gregory Maxwell schreef:
On Oct 29, 2007 8:26 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
This is the enwiki mailing list. Our first priority is to make it work on the English Wikipedia, and to choose the alternative that is best *for us*.
0_o
Is a solution which no one will bother implementing really best?
All of the proposed solutions should be implemented with templates; you cannot just replace the "thumbnail icon" with another symbol, (i) or (C), because some of the images that do not have that icon (e.g. in infoboxes) need attribution as well.
And creating a template does not need any special powers. It justs needs to be accepted by the community. And to be implemented on enwiki, that means: the enwiki community.
In my opinion, the (C) really gives the wrong impression. It will be understood to mean: don't copy this image. Which is exactly the wrong message for an encyclopedia that tries to be Free.
The RED (C) probably does, I agree. But the pale blue icon, the example in the lower left corner?
The images are, in most cases, copyrighted.
When you copy them you have certain obligations.
Yes, but we don't want a pavlov reaction, that they should stay away. We want to train re-users of our content to ask for more information about the limits of what they want to copy. And (i) means "information". I think it's perfectly suited for this purpose.
The hopeless cases won't click a (c) anyway, although they might be curious enough to click the (i). (Don't ask for a {{cite}}. This is just an argument I made up on the spot.)
What do you think about our practice of only crediting text from third parties, then? Which was the point of my previous mail.
We don't, for the most part, provide inline credit in such cases. Most of the EB1911 notices have long since been removed. They are useful for certain informational purposes, but it's not really a standard practice.
I was not aware of that.
On another subject: if Citizendium would copy one of our articles with a reference to us in the edit summary of their first revision, and if they would not acknowledge the source of their articles in any other way, would you be satisfied with that? Would that satisfy the (admittedly vague) demands of (our implementation of) the GFDL?
Currently, they add an attribution notice at the bottom of the article. I would argue that that is necessary. I also think that this is analogous to our attribution of contributions from outside sources.
Eugene
On Oct 29, 2007 8:58 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
All of the proposed solutions should be implemented with templates; you cannot just replace the "thumbnail icon" with another symbol, (i) or (C), because some of the images that do not have that icon (e.g. in infoboxes) need attribution as well.
And creating a template does not need any special powers. It justs needs to be accepted by the community. And to be implemented on enwiki, that means: the enwiki community.
Holy crap, so you'd propose we wrap every thumbnail/bordered image with a template. Shoot me now.
Thats a very very bad idea.
Yes, but we don't want a pavlov reaction, that they should stay away. We want to train re-users of our content to ask for more information about the limits of what they want to copy. And (i) means "information". I think it's perfectly suited for this purpose.
The hopeless cases won't click a (c) anyway, although they might be curious enough to click the (i). (Don't ask for a {{cite}}. This is just an argument I made up on the spot.)
Well, any change is okay with me. No. I shouldn't say that. Proposing we start wraping all captioned images with a template is not okay with me.
On another subject: if Citizendium would copy one of our articles with a reference to us in the edit summary of their first revision, and if they would not acknowledge the source of their articles in any other way, would you be satisfied with that? Would that satisfy the (admittedly vague) demands of (our implementation of) the GFDL?
Currently, they add an attribution notice at the bottom of the article. I would argue that that is necessary. I also think that this is analogous to our attribution of contributions from outside sources.
Thats not at all in strict conformance with the GFDL. (Nor is just mentioning at the bottom though its much better).
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Holy crap, so you'd propose we wrap every thumbnail/bordered image with a template. Shoot me now.
Bang.
Thats a very very bad idea.
Why? From a programming perspective, I very much like the idea of wrapping everything about the underlying language in some higher level language. But I understand that templates have performance issues.
If we can get around that though, I don't see why this:
{{image|Foo.jpg|This is a foo.|author=Mr Foo}}
is worse than
{{image:Foo.jpg|This is a foo.{{author|Mr Foo}}}}
Well, any change is okay with me. No. I shouldn't say that. Proposing
we start wraping all captioned images with a template is not okay with me.
Yup, we got that. Why?
Steve
On Oct 29, 2007 9:58 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
If we can get around that though, I don't see why this:
{{image|Foo.jpg|This is a foo.|author=Mr Foo}}
is worse than
{{image:Foo.jpg|This is a foo.{{author|Mr Foo}}}}
You have terrible taste. Prepare to die. *stab* *stab*
Thou shall not code the autorship data redundantly. The data you want is on the image page. Do not copy it into the page text. Multiple copies invite bitrot, vandaism, human error, and increase work.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
You have terrible taste. Prepare to die. *stab* *stab*
Ow. Ow. Stop that.
Thou shall not code the autorship data redundantly. The data you want
is on the image page.
Not really. It may be possible for a human to deduce the authorship information, but it's not "data". I'm actually guilty of this - many of my photos say "Taken by me." Ugh.
Do not copy it into the page text. Multiple
copies invite bitrot, vandaism, human error, and increase work.
Yes, that is true. How about this:
{{image|Foo.jpg|This is a foo.|showauthor}}
Obviously this would require: - Some mechanism to indicate on the image page what should be shown as "authorship" information - A change to the {{image}} tag itself to recognise and display the information - Some css? to control the display of the information.
You know, a tooltip might be a nice way to display attribution information, along with the caption.
Steve
On Oct 30, 2007 12:53 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. It may be possible for a human to deduce the authorship information, but it's not "data". I'm actually guilty of this - many of my photos say "Taken by me." Ugh.
Yes, it's true. All the more reason to fix it once. Most images on commons use the information template which does mostly do the right thing. ;)
{{image|Foo.jpg|This is a foo.|showauthor}}
Obviously this would require:
- Some mechanism to indicate on the image page what should be shown as
"authorship" information
- A change to the {{image}} tag itself to recognise and display the
information
- Some css? to control the display of the information.
There are several enhancement requests in bugzilla with basically amount to "read data out of the image page so we can do things with it in the articles". It's a pretty reasonable request, no one has gotten around to implementing it yet. Perhaps I'll do it sometime.
You know, a tooltip might be a nice way to display attribution information, along with the caption.
I completely approve of tooltips. It would nice to make the tooltip Caption — author / License.
I also approve of creating a nice credits tab. And I'm not strongly opposed to appending credits information at the bottom of the page.
It's just the always visible inline stuff that I think is a problem.
Ok to summarise where we have gotten to in compromises, consensus etc:
- The image page should have author and licence metadata parseable by MediaWiki and useable on other pages. - [[Image:]] tags should have an information link to the image page, in one of the mocked-up styles. - [[Image:]] tags should ideally show author and licence information in a tooltip. - Article pages should show credit information for all images on the page in a list, either as a second tab, or at the bottom of the page somehow.
[I'm ignoring text credit information for the moment]
How do we make it happen?
Steve
On Oct 30, 2007 1:13 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Ok to summarise where we have gotten to in compromises, consensus etc: How do we make it happen?
Lets go one at a time:
- [[Image:]] tags should have an information link to the image page, in one
of the mocked-up styles.
This one is easiest. Let consensus behind a style, then I'll work out the details and make sure we get it implemented.
- The image page should have author and licence
metadata parseable by MediaWiki and useable on other pages.
Commons has the data source side of this nearly covered with information template.
Basically some kind of magic word would be added to the mediawiki markup that indicates the surrounded post-transclusion text should be copied out into a separate column in the database. Since commons already has structured data for authorship, once the software is done this would require only a few template changes.
What do we do on Enwp? ... I'm thinking that an effort to move all free images to commons would actually take no more work than trying to fixup the descriptions on enwp.
- [[Image:]] tags should ideally show author
and licence information in a tooltip.
This is an utterly trivial software change (on the order of a few minutes) after the data is extracted and available in the database.
- Article pages should show credit information for all images on the page in
a list, either as a second tab, or at the bottom of the page somehow. [I'm ignoring text credit information for the moment]
If we ignore text it's like the above, but ignoring text is ignoring the elephant in the room. Traversing 30k+ revisions to get all the user names who have edited and article with a huge history is not reasonable.
One possibility would be creating a editable credits tab (like a talk page). The bottom of the page is auto populated with image credits, basically the extracted image data plus a thumbnail for each image. The top would be a editable Wikipage. We could bot populate them with a list of all people who edited, or a filtered version, and then invite people who add new content to add themselves to the page. Don't want to be credited? don't list yourself.
I fear that this last one is complicated and significant enough of a change that its dead on arrivial, but it's the only way that I think we could stand to seriously improve our text attribution. :(
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
This one is easiest. Let consensus behind a style, then I'll work out the details and make sure we get it implemented.
Ok. Having said that I'm off on holidays for the next week, maybe someone else can start the process? Drop a note at the village pump, maybe centralised discussion and somewhere else? Plus an explicit message here...
Commons has the data source side of this nearly covered with
information template.
Basically some kind of magic word would be added to the mediawiki markup that indicates the surrounded post-transclusion text should be copied out into a separate column in the database. Since commons already has structured data for authorship, once the software is done this would require only a few template changes.
Presumably something like {{author:...}} along the lines of {{defaultsort:...}} ? Then you're saying we just update the relevant template to markup that field specially. Cool. We're assuming that raw text is a good enough representation for authorship...maybe it would be better to be more explicit like "attributiontext" or "authorname" or something, to leave open the possibility for more details later on like contact information etc.
What do we do on Enwp? ... I'm thinking that an effort to move all
free images to commons would actually take no more work than trying to fixup the descriptions on enwp.
Not sure. For some reason the Commons people are openly hostile to the idea of a mass import of free media to Commons. And in any case the attribution mechanism will be useful for fair use images. I suggest we leave this as a problem for en people to solve in their own time - as long as the mechanism works, they can get around to rolling it out whenever they want.
- [[Image:]] tags should ideally show author
and licence information in a tooltip.
This is an utterly trivial software change (on the order of a few minutes) after the data is extracted and available in the database.
A MediaWiki software change? Also when you say "utterly trivial" do you mean that you can yourself perform it and get it committed? Out of curiosity, what's the normal lead time from a new feature going into the repository, and it appearing at en.wp ?
If we ignore text it's like the above, but ignoring text is ignoring the elephant in the room.
Sure. There's an elephant and a rhino in the room. I'm happy to deal with just the rhino for the moment.
I fear that this last one is complicated and significant enough of a change that its dead on arrivial, but it's the only way that I think we could stand to seriously improve our text attribution. :(
It is indeed a hard problem. Let's stick with rhino hunting.
Steve
On Oct 30, 2007 2:47 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Ok. Having said that I'm off on holidays for the next week, maybe someone else can start the process? Drop a note at the village pump, maybe centralised discussion and somewhere else? Plus an explicit message here...
Sounds good.
Presumably something like {{author:...}} along the lines of {{defaultsort:...}} ? Then you're saying we just update the relevant template to markup that field specially. Cool. We're assuming that raw text is a good enough representation for authorship...maybe it would be better to be more explicit like "attributiontext" or "authorname" or something, to leave open the possibility for more details later on like contact information etc.
Yes.
Not sure. For some reason the Commons people are openly hostile to the idea of a mass import of free media to Commons.
AFAIK only because of things like Category:GFDL_Presumed and other mostly rubbish stuff.
And in any case the attribution mechanism will be useful for fair use images. I suggest we leave this as a problem for en people to solve in their own time - as long as the mechanism works, they can get around to rolling it out whenever they want.
Fair enough.
This is an utterly trivial software change (on the order of a few minutes) after the data is extracted and available in the database.
A MediaWiki software change? Also when you say "utterly trivial" do you mean that you can yourself perform it and get it committed? Out of curiosity, what's the normal lead time from a new feature going into the repository, and it appearing at en.wp ?
I can perform it and commit it myself. Lead time 'depends'. If there are changes in SVN which require a database schema change we'll lag further behind SVN. Right now we're about 3.5 weeks behind SVN.
The bigger issue here is that this feature would depend on the metadata magic word stuff above which is a bigger change which will likely require a schema change.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I can perform it and commit it myself. Lead time 'depends'. If there are changes in SVN which require a database schema change we'll lag further behind SVN. Right now we're about 3.5 weeks behind SVN.
Oh is that all. 3.5 weeks isn't much. Out of curiosity, how are database schema changes handled? Do you have to write the "ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN" statements yourself, or is there an automated mechanism?
The bigger issue here is that this feature would depend on the
metadata magic word stuff above which is a bigger change which will likely require a schema change.
Yes. That's critical.
Steve
User:Carcharoth wanted me to pass this on:
I agree with you that photo credits should be easier to access - not so much for individual photographers (though that would be nice), but the vast amount of, say, Library of Congress, NASA, and other US government/public institution pictures. Astronomical pics, for example, should always say in the caption what instrument took them, and so on.
Steve
On 30/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
User:Carcharoth wanted me to pass this on: I agree with you that photo credits should be easier to access - not so much for individual photographers (though that would be nice), but the vast amount of, say, Library of Congress, NASA, and other US government/public institution pictures. Astronomical pics, for example, should always say in the caption what instrument took them, and so on.
I'd say the latter case is an editorial matter, not one of attribution per license. Our NASA images are generally public domain in any case; attributions in the captions are because they're interesting and relevant to the article.
- d.
On 10/30/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd say the latter case is an editorial matter, not one of attribution per license. Our NASA images are generally public domain in any case; attributions in the captions are because they're interesting and relevant to the article.
Yeah, I guess there are also cases where the attribution is also like
sourcing it. War photos you would probably want to know which side took the photo, for instance.
So anyway I think we have reached some compromise somewhere between viewpoint #1 and #2: mere attribution on the image page is insufficient (we need better links there), but textual attribution on the article page itself next to the image is excessive.
Steve
On 30/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
So anyway I think we have reached some compromise somewhere between viewpoint #1 and #2: mere attribution on the image page is insufficient (we need better links there), but textual attribution on the article page itself next to the image is excessive.
Yeah. I like the [i] (or in a circle: (i) ) next to the picture.
OTOH, I showed Thebainer's test page to my wife last night (who is User:Redcountess, a frequent Wikipedia user and an occasional editor). "What would you expect from that 'i' there?" "I'd expect more information on the Large White." Um ...
- d.
On 10/29/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Traversing 30k+ revisions to get all the user names who have edited and article with a huge history is not reasonable.
I was actually going to suggest something similar to the "TDS Article Contribution Counter" on the tool server would be reasonable for identifying the top all-time contributors to a major article, but the bookmark i have for that is now giving me a 403-forbidden error. Is this for some reason more of a database hog than say, using interiot's tool to look up the edit count of a user who has made about "30k+ revisions" to various pages?
And even if it is a discouragingly "expensive" task for high-profile articles, here's one definition of "reasonable": a short list of the top five or so contributors (as suggested in GFDL section 4B), which could be cached at an interval proportionate to the total length of the history, i.e. greener articles would allow the "principal authors" list to be re-cached more frequently, something like [[George W. Bush]] much less so.
If in fact I'm hallucinating (must be that gray acid) and meta-data like this wouldn't actually put us any closer to obeying the GFDL, it would at least be interesting for casual research while browsing unfamiliar pages, and doing "&action=history&limit=5000" (or worse, loading one page of 50 at a time) to get an overall response to the mental question "lol, so whose work is this, really?" can be painful.
—C.W.
On Oct 30, 2007 1:48 PM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
And even if it is a discouragingly "expensive" task for high-profile articles, here's one definition of "reasonable": a short list of the top five or so contributors (as suggested in GFDL section 4B), which could be cached at an interval proportionate to the total length of the history, i.e. greener articles would allow the "principal authors" list to be re-cached more frequently, something like [[George W. Bush]] much less so.
Most of the edits to a page with a long history are not by authors.
If in fact I'm hallucinating (must be that gray acid) and meta-data like this wouldn't actually put us any closer to obeying the GFDL, it would at least be interesting for casual research while browsing unfamiliar pages, and doing "&action=history&limit=5000" (or worse, loading one page of 50 at a time) to get an overall response to the mental question "lol, so whose work is this, really?" can be painful.
We're already obeying the GFDL in this regard. We list all the contributors. Don't believe the FUD.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Most of the edits to a page with a long history are not by authors.
Yeah, that's why I said "something similar to", but that part was purely speculative as I imagine an edit counter tool to *reliably* measure weight rather than volume would be nigh impossible to code, but at the same time I hope somebody proves me wrong on this.
Either way, I'm still wondering about the TDS tool (for slightly unrelated reasons). Anybody know if it's been moved to a different url or willfully disabled?
—C.W.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
We don't, for the most part, provide inline credit in such cases.
We don't because we don't have a mechanism for it, not because we have chosen not to.
Most of the EB1911 notices have long since been removed. They are
O rly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:191...
(somewhere between 10k and 15k links. I don't know how many there were originally, though.)
Steve
On 10/30/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
In my opinion, the (C) really gives the wrong impression. It will be understood to mean: don't copy this image. Which is exactly the wrong message for an encyclopedia that tries to be Free.
I don't think that's true. Flickr uses a grey "(c)" (backwards?) for the link to licence information. I think the (C) is a good indicator that you shouldn't just pinch the image without thinking. You should stop, check the licence information, then go ahead.
In any case, most Wikipedia images *are* copyrighted. They're also free licenced.
Steve
On Oct 29, 2007 9:36 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think that's true. Flickr uses a grey "(c)" (backwards?) for the link to licence information. I think the (C) is a good indicator that you shouldn't just pinch the image without thinking. You should stop, check the licence information, then go ahead.
In any case, most Wikipedia images *are* copyrighted. They're also free licenced.
A later enhancement could be to actually change the icon (color/orientation) of the C depending on the license status. Green for freely licensed things, reversed C for copyleft things, red C for everything else.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
It's true. Your suggestion is consistent enough. But now you've now taken it out of my ability to impliment. Replacing a single icon is easy. Setting icons for 209 languages is much harder. ;)
Think Wiki. You produce one version. Everyone on a Wikipedia where the "i" is inappropriate can produce their own.
Steve
On 29/10/2007, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Andrew Gray schreef:
I think the fact that we *ourselves* make a point of being discreet about attribution makes it more reasonable for us to go with #1 - as a photographer, I would feel short-changed if the authors were prominently credited but I wasn't, whilst I wouldn't feel offended at being relegated to the small print on p.350 if the authors themselves were in the small print on p.348.
Does that latter distinction make sense?
Not really, 99% of our text is written by Wikipedians, who have no expectation to be prominently attributed; we have taken many of our best pictures from outsiders, many of whom expect more prominent credit to be given.
For what it's worth, that was from the point of view of me-as-an-outsider, not me-as-a-contributor, seeing someone reuse my material. I would feel silly to find that I was assumed to need a higher degree of attribution than the main author, and I can't believe I'm abnormally self-effacing.
They don't care about, and haven't ever explicitly agreed to Wikipedia's internal rules on attribution.
If we require people to care about and explicitly (implicitly?) agree to Wikipedia's practices on attribution (which are, after all, liable to change over time), one wonders why we allow the incorporation of free licensed material at all, or what the point of these licenses in the first place was!
I'm not saying that I don't care what the photographers think, but I don't think we're being unreasonable here.
This isn't an "and attribute me prominently in the following way" license, it's an "and attribute me" license. We can go too far in disrupting the way *our* project works in order to accomodate the hypothetical views of a "silent minority" of contributors - all of whom have chosen to release material under a copyleft license that does allow what we're doing.
On 29/10/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
It's about time we had this debate again. Morally, ethically, legally: what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources, including our own contributors?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page, which can be reached by clicking the image, then attribution information is available to anyone who wants it. Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles. This is the standard used by newspapers, for instance. People who licence their work under "attribution required" licences are expecting a bit more than a begruding source tag hidden behind a mouse click.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense. I feel that if we are not willing to attribute the photo properly, by putting the owner's name at the same level as the photo, then we should bar the use of these kinds of images.
I absolutely agree with viewpoint no. 2. Furthermore, beyond images, I do think we should have attribution on article pages. It isn't hard for the vast majority of articles. Merely from a copyright point of view, you only need to put authors responsible for substantial original content in the article (i.e. tweakers, sentence/section/structure reworkers, grammer, etc. do not require attribution).
The Wikipedia approach to attribution is morally lax, and even stretching things under the GFDL, despite the content being "free" (the copyright should be displayed even for freely licenced content in any case, it's only PD etc. that don't require a "(c) AuthorX, AuthorY, AuthorZ" notice).
Zoney
On Oct 30, 2007 10:46 AM, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
I absolutely agree with viewpoint no. 2. Furthermore, beyond images, I do think we should have attribution on article pages. It isn't hard for the vast majority of articles. Merely from a copyright point of view, you only need to put authors responsible for substantial original content in the article (i.e. tweakers, sentence/section/structure reworkers, grammer, etc. do not require attribution).
And how the heck do we find them? In many cases they aren't the author of the first revision.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, .. but it's not trivial, and it can't be done automatically (thus my recommendation for a manually editable credits page).
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 30, 2007 10:46 AM, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
I absolutely agree with viewpoint no. 2. Furthermore, beyond images, I
do
think we should have attribution on article pages. It isn't hard for the vast majority of articles. Merely from a copyright point of view, you
only
need to put authors responsible for substantial original content in the article (i.e. tweakers, sentence/section/structure reworkers, grammer,
etc.
do not require attribution).
And how the heck do we find them? In many cases they aren't the author of the first revision.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, .. but it's not trivial, and it can't be done automatically (thus my recommendation for a manually editable credits page).
If you ignore the substantial problem of text migrating from one article to another (admittedly a big deal), then I would have to disagree that it can't be done automatically. It shouldn't be done in real time, but a computer with access to the full revision history could figure out how much of the current text each historical contributor was responsible for, and this could be used to identify primary authors and add their names via a bot. It's not a trivial problem but the existing research efforts on the persistance and evolution of text in wiki articles already largely address these issues.
-Robert Rohde
On Oct 30, 2007 11:18 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
If you ignore the substantial problem of text migrating from one article to another (admittedly a big deal), then I would have to disagree that it can't be done automatically.
You and a zillion other people *say* this. But the results never show.
It shouldn't be done in real time, but a computer with access to the full revision history could figure out how much of the current text each historical contributor was responsible for, and this could be used to identify primary authors and add their names via a bot. It's not a trivial problem but the existing research efforts on the persistance and evolution of text in wiki articles already largely address these issues.
Thus far the results I've seen are confused by moderately complicated compound changes which don't confuse human reviewers.
It's not too hard to produce an analysis which can measure roughly how long a given exact substring has been around. But failing when text is moved and merged/edited at the same time isn't sufficient for attribution.
I'd love to see it.. but I haven't yet. Show me the code.
Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
No? Software change such that from a certain point on any edit will automatically update a credit page. At the same time, start running something that goes through all the non-deleted edits and update the page as well.
Yes, we could just extract the long list of names (including offensive vandal names) from the history, store it, and update it.
What real advantage would this serve over just directing people to the history page? Lack of duplication doesn't seem like enough of a win to justify keeping the extra data.
Most of the people who edit a page aren't authors, certantly not in the copyright bearing sense, and it's unfortunate and confusing that "Throbbing Monster Cock" gets equal attribution for adding the word "the" to an article as an actual author.
On 30/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What real advantage would this serve over just directing people to the history page? Lack of duplication doesn't seem like enough of a win to justify keeping the extra data.
Indeed. No-one seriously objects to not having the full text of the GFDL right there on every page, rather than linked from somewhere obvious.
- d.
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
No? Software change such that from a certain point on any edit will automatically update a credit page. At the same time, start running something that goes through all the non-deleted edits and update the page as well.
Yes, we could just extract the long list of names (including offensive vandal names) from the history, store it, and update it.
What real advantage would this serve over just directing people to the history page? Lack of duplication doesn't seem like enough of a win to justify keeping the extra data.
Presumably each author would only be listed once on the credits page, as opposed to possibly hundreds or thousands of times on "the history page". That alone makes a credits page much more useful than "the history page".
Most of the people who edit a page aren't authors, certantly not in the copyright bearing sense, and it's unfortunate and confusing that "Throbbing Monster Cock" gets equal attribution for adding the word "the" to an article as an actual author.
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
But when someone makes a significant edit to a page, they would be attributed automatically by default (they could opt-out of this, I guess).
On Oct 30, 2007 1:21 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Presumably each author would only be listed once on the credits page, as opposed to possibly hundreds or thousands of times on "the history page". That alone makes a credits page much more useful than "the history page".
Sure, so the one time vandal gets equal time to the person with thousands of edits. I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
Hm. How about an editable part, then the image credits. Then a big list of all names which excludes anyone listed in the editable part. The big list could have vandal names hidden by sysops (bots?), and people who have opted-out are hidden.
But when someone makes a significant edit to a page, they would be attributed automatically by default (they could opt-out of this, I guess).
Perhaps make the minor edit flag into a per edit opt-out flag. If all your edits are marked minor you are hidden in the credits page by default. Otherwise you can go hide yourself.
On 30/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
Hm. How about an editable part, then the image credits.
Conceptually, we probably ought to include template credits here as well...
On Oct 30, 2007 1:36 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Conceptually, we probably ought to include template credits here as well...
It's unusual for templates to contain really significant copyright bearing text, of course there is layout and code and blah.
We should probably make the decision that our templates are all public domain, apply that to the edit screens for that namespace and hope that it will someday be true. ;)
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 30, 2007 1:21 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Presumably each author would only be listed once on the credits page, as opposed to possibly hundreds or thousands of times on "the history page". That alone makes a credits page much more useful than "the history page".
Sure, so the one time vandal gets equal time to the person with thousands of edits. I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "equal time", but the list could always be ordered by number of edits, so at least those with the most edits get their name on top.
If the one-time vandal is reverted, a bot could always go through and remove reverted editors.
But otherwise, yeah, I don't see listing the same name over and over again as an advantage.
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
Hm. How about an editable part, then the image credits. Then a big list of all names which excludes anyone listed in the editable part. The big list could have vandal names hidden by sysops (bots?), and people who have opted-out are hidden.
I'd find that acceptable.
But when someone makes a significant edit to a page, they would be attributed automatically by default (they could opt-out of this, I guess).
Perhaps make the minor edit flag into a per edit opt-out flag. If all your edits are marked minor you are hidden in the credits page by default. Otherwise you can go hide yourself.
Sounds good to me.
I like this idea -- as a (hidable?) section of the history page, not as a replacement for it... authorship is a significant part of the history; from a GFDL and attribution perspective, one of the most important ones. SJ
On Oct 30, 2007 1:14 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/30/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 30, 2007 1:21 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Presumably each author would only be listed once on the credits page, as opposed to possibly hundreds or thousands of times on "the history page". That alone makes a credits page much more useful than "the history page".
Sure, so the one time vandal gets equal time to the person with thousands of edits. I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "equal time", but the list could always be ordered by number of edits, so at least those with the most edits get their name on top.
If the one-time vandal is reverted, a bot could always go through and remove reverted editors.
But otherwise, yeah, I don't see listing the same name over and over again as an advantage.
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
Hm. How about an editable part, then the image credits. Then a big list of all names which excludes anyone listed in the editable part. The big list could have vandal names hidden by sysops (bots?), and people who have opted-out are hidden.
I'd find that acceptable.
But when someone makes a significant edit to a page, they would be attributed automatically by default (they could opt-out of this, I guess).
Perhaps make the minor edit flag into a per edit opt-out flag. If all your edits are marked minor you are hidden in the credits page by default. Otherwise you can go hide yourself.
Sounds good to me.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Finding ways to explicitly note edits as vandalism -- something we already do for a decent percentage of vandal edits -- offers a simple way to remove them from author lists.
SJ
On Oct 30, 2007 12:34 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 30, 2007 1:21 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Presumably each author would only be listed once on the credits page, as opposed to possibly hundreds or thousands of times on "the history page". That alone makes a credits page much more useful than "the history page".
Sure, so the one time vandal gets equal time to the person with thousands of edits. I guess we'll have to disagree on this one.
I think a semi-automated credits page would make the most sense. So "Throbbing Monster Cock" would get attribution by default, but this attribution could be removed manually (or in some cases, by a bot). Likewise, names could be manually added for copy/paste moves or whatever.
Hm. How about an editable part, then the image credits. Then a big list of all names which excludes anyone listed in the editable part. The big list could have vandal names hidden by sysops (bots?), and people who have opted-out are hidden.
But when someone makes a significant edit to a page, they would be attributed automatically by default (they could opt-out of this, I guess).
Perhaps make the minor edit flag into a per edit opt-out flag. If all your edits are marked minor you are hidden in the credits page by default. Otherwise you can go hide yourself.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 30/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
No? Software change such that from a certain point on any edit will automatically update a credit page. At the same time, start running something that goes through all the non-deleted edits and update the page as well.
Yes, we could just extract the long list of names (including offensive vandal names) from the history, store it, and update it.
As an aside, someone once suggested (and I think coded up a demonstration) for "hiding" vandal usernames - they'd be quietly removed from history pages, etc, and marked as [vandal] or [blocked user] the like. The main reason to do this was to avoid all the cruft on Special:Listusers, but it could help here...
On 30/10/2007, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
If you ignore the substantial problem of text migrating from one article to another (admittedly a big deal), then I would have to disagree that it can't be done automatically. It shouldn't be done in real time, but a computer with access to the full revision history could figure out how much of the current text each historical contributor was responsible for, and this could be used to identify primary authors and add their names via a bot. It's not a trivial problem but the existing research efforts on the persistance and evolution of text in wiki articles already largely address these issues.
Simpler solution:
1. Change "History" to "History and credits". 2. Include image histories on the history page.
- d.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, .. but it's not trivial, and it can't be done automatically (thus my recommendation for a manually editable credits page).
No? Software change such that from a certain point on any edit will automatically update a credit page. At the same time, start running something that goes through all the non-deleted edits and update the page as well. Then and only then do one display a link to the credit page. The speed of any program that go through the history of all the articles can be adjusted to run over several weeks / months at a rate the server can cope with. No one is seriously (I hope) suggesting that any change will need to be made overnight.
(One will need to take into consideration what happens when pages that was deleted when the program did its run are then undeleted after the credit page goes live.)
KTC
A week or two ago, Steve Bennett wrote:
...what are we required to do to meet the "attribution required" aspect of certain free images we acquire from Flickr or other sources...?
Viewpoint #1: Provided the information is available on the image information page... Viewpoint #2: The attribution should be more visible, such as beneath the image in articles.
Personally I am of viewpoint #2, and feel that we are short-changing photographers who generously release their work for virtually no recompense.
Personally (and I hope I'm not sounding snide here, I'm honestly not trying to be) I feel that a license that requires attribution is not really a free license, in the same way that fair-use and use-by-permission are not free licenses.
Certainly, we should attribute images where it's convenient to do so (e.g., at the very least, on the image page). But if we feel compelled to bend over backwards to do something more, or worse, if we permit attribution-required licensors to compel us to bend over backwards, it seems to me we're denying ourselves precisely the same freedom we attempt to ensure ourselves by disallowing fair use and used-with-permission.
On 11/11/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Personally (and I hope I'm not sounding snide here, I'm honestly not trying to be) I feel that a license that requires attribution is not really a free license, in the same way that fair-use and use-by-permission are not free licenses.
That's a reasonable point of view. If most people agree, then we should not use those images. We can't have it both ways: use free images that require attribution, then not really attribute them properly.
Certainly, we should attribute images where it's convenient to do
so (e.g., at the very least, on the image page). But if we feel compelled to bend over backwards to do something more, or worse, if we permit attribution-required licensors to compel us to bend over backwards, it seems to me we're denying ourselves precisely the same freedom we attempt to ensure ourselves by disallowing fair use and used-with-permission.
Yep. IMHO a "credit: Mr Foo" in the caption is not bending over backwards.
Other peole have indicated that that's too much, and they'd prefer an aggregated list of credits at the bottom of the page. That's reasonable too.
Steve
On 11/11/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Yep. IMHO a "credit: Mr Foo" in the caption is not bending over backwards.
Other peole have indicated that that's too much, and they'd prefer an aggregated list of credits at the bottom of the page. That's reasonable too.
credit:Mr.wetriffs.com however may be less than ideal.
On 11/11/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/11/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Yep. IMHO a "credit: Mr Foo" in the caption is not bending over
backwards.
Other peole have indicated that that's too much, and they'd prefer an aggregated list of credits at the bottom of the page. That's reasonable too.
credit:Mr.wetriffs.com however may be less than ideal.
Can you be more precise than "less than ideal"? Do you think
all URLs should be banned as "attribution"?
In any case, what exactly would Wikipedia be doing with photos of electric guitars in showers...
Steve
On 11/11/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Can you be more precise than "less than ideal"? Do you think all URLs should be banned as "attribution"?
This is the thing - even though many don't think we should have a caption, we all agree that if we do, "Image - Joe Smith" is a perfectly acceptable attribution. How do we feel about nicknames? Usernames? Community attributions? URLs? Any or all of the above with deliberately inflammatory phrases?
The community is going to have quite strong differences of opinion on this one; I can see a lot of people strongly against attributing with anything that isn't a real name, for example, and that's not a particularly unreasonable position - but one which would make this very hard to implement.
In any case, what exactly would Wikipedia be doing with photos of electric guitars in showers...
Give us five years and we'll have a portal on it!
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 13:56:24 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
The community is going to have quite strong differences of opinion on this one; I can see a lot of people strongly against attributing with anything that isn't a real name, for example, and that's not a particularly unreasonable position - but one which would make this very hard to implement.
And what do we do about people who currently upload and add pictures *with* a namecheck, and also add links to their personal website? How do we tell the difference between vanity, trying to get *your* name on the FA, and a genuine desire to help Wikipedia?
Guy (JzG)
On 11/12/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
This is the thing - even though many don't think we should have a caption, we all agree that if we do, "Image - Joe Smith" is a perfectly acceptable attribution. How do we feel about nicknames? Usernames? Community attributions? URLs? Any or all of the above with deliberately inflammatory phrases?
Oh noes - we might have to do this thing called making a policy based on consensus.
The community is going to have quite strong differences of opinion on
this one; I can see a lot of people strongly against attributing with anything that isn't a real name, for example, and that's not a particularly unreasonable position - but one which would make this very hard to implement.
We already attribute images to the US Army, which personally I find much
more offensive than "Joe's Awesum Internet Arkive" for example. Yes, this matter needs to be discussed and resolved. No, the existence of the issue isn't a showstopper.
This really comes back to the basic issue: If we're not willing to properly attribute images, why are we using them? If someone insists on being attributed as "wetriffs.com" next to the image itself, and we're not willing to do that, then we don't use the image. We don't use it and attribute them some other way.
Steve
On 11/11/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
We already attribute images to the US Army, which personally I find much more offensive than "Joe's Awesum Internet Arkive" for example. Yes, this matter needs to be discussed and resolved. No, the existence of the issue isn't a showstopper.
We attribute NASA in NASA images even though we don't have to credit them at all, because the source of the image is almost always of actual article interest. Place, time and photographer are frequently going to be things of interest as article content and well worth putting in the caption for that reason.
- d.
On 11/12/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
We attribute NASA in NASA images even though we don't have to credit them at all, because the source of the image is almost always of actual article interest. Place, time and photographer are frequently going to be things of interest as article content and well worth putting in the caption for that reason.
Yep, so we can distinguish between two kinds of attribution: 1) Attribution because we have to 2) Attribution because we want to
Type 2 will presumably be more verbose.
Steve
On 11/11/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Can you be more precise than "less than ideal"? Do you think
all URLs should be banned as "attribution"?
Because we don't need spam links in image captions
In any case, what exactly would Wikipedia be doing with photos of electric guitars in showers...
Steve
Nothing. That would just be how the person who provided the image of the presidential candidate asked to be credited.