Hi Erik:
Thanks for your comment. I noticed your comment at [[1]] so hope they are related.
Yes; making proper attributions and satisfying all license requirements are a bit complicated and time consuming. See my proposal at [[2]].
I requested the help of CC team; but didn't get any response so far.
I requested the help of the WMF legal; Luis Villa (WMF) commented that "Yup, I understand - it is a difficult situation, and we'd like to help. But interpreting the license obligations for the public is also tricky for us, so we're working on it. " [[3]]
Any further help is highly appreciated.
Regards, Jee
Links:
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Peteforsyth#Some_recent_speedie.... ..
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Propose_to...
3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LuisV_(WMF)#Attribution
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is the behavior of a certain core set of Commons admins; time and time and time again we have it reported here, we see it on Commons. While not lawyers, they attempt to be extraordinarily demanding when it comes to "legal" accuracy. Far more than the actual WMF lawyers have required, incidentally.
Yes, agreed. Deletion is frequently applied in an overzealous manner based on arbitrary interpretations and lack of nuance. It would be appropriate to more frequently apply tags like {{Disputed}} and to rely more on social contact to resolve incomplete metadata, rather than aggressively purging content in the fear that a single byte of potentially non-free content may infect the repository.
It is correct that I proposed Commons as a repository of freely re-usable media -- indeed, that is a key characteristic which distinguishes it from other sites and services, as others have pointed out. I think it's absolutely crucial to maintain that aspect of its identity. I worry that the creation of any kind of non-free repository would dramatically alter the incentive structure for contributing to our projects. Especially when negotiating releases of large collections, it will be much harder to argue for free licensing if it becomes trivial to upload and re-use non-free files.
But maintaining that commitment requires that we also maintain a capacity for nuance in how we enforce it, or we turn into a club of zealots nobody wants to be part of rather than being effective advocates for our cause. That includes understanding that some situations in international copyright law are ambiguous and unresolved, that some files may present a minimal level of risk and can reasonably be kept unless someone complains, and that copyright on all bits that make up a work can be difficult to trace, identify and document comprehensively and consistently. Moreover, it should include (in policy and application) an emphasis on communication and education, rather than deletion and confrontation.
In that way, the problems in the application of Commons policy are not that different from the problems in the application of policy on Wikipedia. It's just that Wikipedians who are used to operating under the regime of Wikipedia's policies frequently get upset when they are subjected to an entirely different regime. Their experience is not that different from that of a new user whose article gets speedied because the source cited to establish its notability doesn't quite cross the threshold applied by an admin.
In my view, it would be appropriate for WMF to take a more active role not in the decision-making itself, but in the training of and support for administrators and other functionaries to ensure that we apply policy rationally, in a manner that's civil and welcoming. That goes for these types of deletion decisions just as much as for civility and other standards of conduct. WMF is now organizationally in a position where it could resource the consensus-driven development of training modules for admins across projects to create a more welcoming, rational environment - on Commons and elsewhere.
Erik
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