Interesting approach, Jonathan and I like it! I totally agree that a big part of the problem is that it is invisible to most users (and even most editors of most projects). Having the files be searchable on a Wikimedia website would definitely help. The reason why one can't use the files found on such a website for Wikimedia projects must be very easy to understand though, or we will just end up confusing people. 

We talked a bit in the past also about hosting images with URAA-restored copyright in Canada, because the rule-of-the-shorter-term is still not something most people understand. The whole problem about files being on the English Wikipedia that can't be used anywhere else remains extremely annoying. Just making a whole NC area would be good. The fact that no one feels the pain of missing images they can't see, makes this whole problem very difficult to discuss and solve, so I agree that making the files visible would be nice. It would also be a nice easy way to ask rightsholders for permission, because you could just send them a link. Now there is just nothing to see.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 9:32 PM, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Antanana, Your problems with war make all our problems seem trivial in comparison. I wish you and your compatriots peace, and if that isn't available good luck.

Dear Maarten, Though I have hundreds of thousands of edits on commons the Russavia v WMF battle does not involve me. As a volunteer I choose what I contribute time to, and I do not choose to spend my time looking for edits that may be by Russavia. Unless you are an RFA candidate it should be possible to stay out of such battles and only involve yourself if you choose to be involved.

I think it would be helpful if we could build a non-commercial annex to commons for files that are NC but would otherwise be useful. This would mean that NC files could be moved there from commons rather than simply deleted, and in the very long term all those files would move to commons as and when the NC limitation expired. This may seem a longterm investment, but it would make it easier to make the case that classifying things as NC limits their use, and it would make our projects more open by enabling all editors to see files moved and deleted for being NC. Someone might even come up with a "plus NC" search tool that runs across both commons and the annex. This would be especially useful if we could come up with a dual license NC and open for images that are "freedom of panorama NC" until seventy years after the death of the architect or sculptor, then cc-BY-SA when only the photographer's rights need be considered.

There is a broader issue re the maintenance of bots, in the last couple of years we have gone through a series of events that have lost us many bots, the migration from toolserver to labs, and then various changes to the WMF systems. This latest issue reminds me of an old problem, article writers can start an article, leave or unwatch it and others will change it, especially if all the change needed is to replace an outdated template. But we are not so good at maintaining bots, even if the original developers have left the source code. We really need a bot adoption team, even if that requires getting a chapter in a low wage country such as India or Armenia to get the WMF to fund a bot adopter who will adopt bots that editors want to use but the original developer is no longer volunteering to maintain.

Regards

Jonathan Cardy


On 28 Jun 2015, at 12:57, attolippip <attolippip@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Jane, Maarten,
Dear all,

I am actually sorry that some of you get depressed and dissapointed
Please do not give up. Well, it is easier, I agree. But other things are to be taken into consideration

For example, a whole lot of you do not have war going on in your country. And we have
We lose people, the best people maybe, as they are acting on their dreams, and people are to have dreams to move on
We lose cultural and natural monuments. Because of war and because of simple negligence

This wooden church has got burned just because [1]. And as the war is going on, we are not sure if people (surely not our state) can spare enough resources to get it rebuilt. We are lucky to have its image before the fire [2] and WLM is to be 'blamed' here

This natural monument is called Balka Ploska [3]. The images were uploaded during Wiki Loves Earth contests [4].
In 2002 this cute animal - Hemiechinus auritus - was discovered there [5], and it it a very rare animal in our country
Balka Ploska got burned because of war [6]...
You can rebuilt a cultural monument (to some extent of course), but it is kind of impossible to restore nature...
Well, we do have some positive video coverage from Chernobyl Exclusion Zone [7]. We actually received a  wildlife reserve thanks to the nuclear disaster. There are wolves there, foxes. They are not afraid of people [8]

What I am awkwardly trying to tell you all here, is this: please consider the things from different points of view
The hardships are going to to exist everywhere. That's a given
But do think that you can make the difference here, I believe.

Photos can be uploaded locally. Used locally. We are going to have 'a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge'. Just need more time and efforts

Anyway thank you for everything done up to this moment. It matters

P.S. ErfgoedBot (I believe) matters a lot for people outside the Wikimedia Commons

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1rUccd_0E8
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A6%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B2%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%97_%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%96_130727_5132.jpg
[3] https://uk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1931998
[4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Balka_Ploska
[5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berkah.13.Kookherd_%D9%83%D9%88%D8%AE%D8%B1%D8%AF.jpg
[6] https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zbSMscEgA8nQ.k3-ikECY7sf0
[7] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32452085
[8] http://www.radiosvoboda.org/media/video/26975013.html

Best regards,
antanana
ED of Wikimedia Ukraine

2015-06-28 14:02 GMT+03:00 Jane Darnell <jane023@gmail.com>:
Wow - I didn't know Russavia was still active on Commons, but there you have it - blocks only are effective at banning relative newbies. I am sorry to read about your lack of motivation, but frankly, with the direction things are going in the European Parliament at the moment with FoP I see bad times ahead for WLM in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. I find the whole process that Julia Reda has been going through quite upsetting to watch from the sidelines. Even though I know she has lots of supporters I have been amazed at the attacks on her judgement, her program, her party, and her work. In the Wikiverse I have always gravitated to the areas where I feel my edits are likely to last the longest. I don't want to spend any effort on things that *might* land in the waste bin when there is so much to be done that is public domain no matter how hard you try to stuff it into closed systems. Thus my motivation for WLM this year has dropped drastically since the publication of the copyright harmonization report.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Maarten Dammers <maarten@mdammers.nl> wrote:
Hi,

I've been running ErfgoedBot [1] since the start of Wiki Loves Monuments. ErfgoedBot still runs on old pywikibot compat code that will break soon [2]. I could invest time in updating the bot and I have been considering doing that for quite some time, but I realized I just don't have the motivation for it. Commons has become a toxic place dominated by a small group of very vocal users. These users don't seem to accept that Russavia is banned and to try to turn everything into "Commons community" vs "WMF" battle. I don't identify with that and I don't feel like investing time in a project where this behaviour is acceptable.

Maarten

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ErfgoedBot
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2015-June/001178.html


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