Hi all,
As a tangent to the national portrait gallery thing, I though I'd raise something which I've chatted about previously (possibly here, but certainly with various community members) which seems unresolved.
My understanding of the status quo is that when a commons administrator deletes an image, that image remains available to all other commons administrators. In the context of the NPG's request, I thought it was interesting to confirm that even if Derrick deleted all his uploaded images, they do, in fact, remain available to him, and all other 'community' members with the sysop. flag - I'm unsure as to the implications / consequences of this in terms of the NPG action, who presumably would be pretty frustrated if Derrick deleted all the images, and another, perhaps more pseudonymous, administrator, were to restore them all (likely with the support of 'the community' at this point).
I chatted with User:Lar about this a bit here; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lar#permanent_deletion
and gave the example which concerns me more there - which is illegal and potentially illegal images of children on foundation projects. Commons administrators will be able to see an image here;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Brip.jpg&action=edit...
which I considered to be borderline at best, and maybe an illegal image. I consider the fact that I can write 'Commons administrators will be able to see an image here' to be the heart of the problem! I hope the foundation might consider a software tweak of some sort to allow for permanent deletion - along with this tweak I feel sure the foundation staff could propose a sensible set of criteria which would have broad support.
cheers,
Peter, PM.
On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 5:45 PM, private musingsthepmaccount@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
I consider the fact that I can write 'Commons administrators will be able to see an image here' to be the heart of the problem! I hope the foundation might consider a software tweak of some sort to allow for permanent deletion
[snip]
Permanent actions are antithetical to the notion of liberal access. We can be reasonably liberal with our trust because there is so little that can't be undone.
Images with significant legal issues are rare enough that they can be easily handled as exceptions without changing the software at all. The foundation is perfectly capable of fully deleting images and has done so in the past.
I don't see that any change is required.
It's heartening to hear that the foundation has zapped images in the past - presumably because they were potentially illegal?
I'm also heartened by the fact that this isn't actually a huge problem at the moment, so can be managed on a case by case basis - is there a good way of letting someone appropriate know about an image which is rather close to the line? (the follow on from this, of course, is to ask whether or not there's any established policy or practice in this area, and whether or not it 'works' enough of the time?)
I'd be happier still if the image I linked to in my previous post was permanently deleted, which by my judgment would be the best outcome.
cheers,
Peter, PM.
On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 5:45 PM, private musingsthepmaccount@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
I consider the fact that I can write 'Commons administrators will be able
to
see an image here' to be the heart of the problem! I hope the foundation might consider a software tweak of some sort to allow for permanent
deletion [snip]
Permanent actions are antithetical to the notion of liberal access. We can be reasonably liberal with our trust because there is so little that can't be undone.
Images with significant legal issues are rare enough that they can be easily handled as exceptions without changing the software at all. The foundation is perfectly capable of fully deleting images and has done so in the past.
I don't see that any change is required.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2009/7/11 private musings thepmaccount@gmail.com:
It's heartening to hear that the foundation has zapped images in the past - presumably because they were potentially illegal?
I'm also heartened by the fact that this isn't actually a huge problem at the moment, so can be managed on a case by case basis - is there a good way of letting someone appropriate know about an image which is rather close to the line? (the follow on from this, of course, is to ask whether or not there's any established policy or practice in this area, and whether or not it 'works' enough of the time?)
I'd be happier still if the image I linked to in my previous post was permanently deleted, which by my judgment would be the best outcome.
cheers,
Peter, PM.
The image is probably legal in the context of the commons deleted image database.
private musings wrote:
Hi all,
As a tangent to the national portrait gallery thing, I though I'd raise something which I've chatted about previously (possibly here, but certainly with various community members) which seems unresolved.
My understanding of the status quo is that when a commons administrator deletes an image, that image remains available to all other commons administrators. In the context of the NPG's request, I thought it was interesting to confirm that even if Derrick deleted all his uploaded images, they do, in fact, remain available to him, and all other 'community' members with the sysop. flag - I'm unsure as to the implications / consequences of this in terms of the NPG action, who presumably would be pretty frustrated if Derrick deleted all the images, and another, perhaps more pseudonymous, administrator, were to restore them all (likely with the support of 'the community' at this point).
Confirmed. Other commons administrators are able to see and restore deleted images.
I chatted with User:Lar about this a bit here; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lar#permanent_deletion
and gave the example which concerns me more there - which is illegal and potentially illegal images of children on foundation projects. Commons administrators will be able to see an image here;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Brip.jpg&action=edit...
which I considered to be borderline at best, and maybe an illegal image.
Viewing deleted images is really useful for administrator work. Being able to review other admins action is much more important than those "illegal images". I don't care about them. Were an adming account be compromised image permadeleting would be much much worse than him looking through deleted images to sell as porn to embarrass WMF.
I consider the fact that I can write 'Commons administrators will be able to see an image here' to be the heart of the problem! I hope the foundation might consider a software tweak of some sort to allow for permanent deletion
- along with this tweak I feel sure the foundation staff could propose a
sensible set of criteria which would have broad support.
Images can be oversighted to hide them from the sight of administrators.
Images deleted before June 2006 were completely gone. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/32#ZOMG_IMAGE_UNDELETION_WORKS
Except some software failures, all later deleted images exist in WMF with varying access permissions.
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