One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to contact them. A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what the correct information is. I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just because you haven't been checking your talk page. This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year ago is not likely to check a talk page. I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement. Suggestions/thoughts/objections? -Kat

And it'd cut down on most of the fair-use with no rationale and images like that. (of course, there may be some serial offenders even after that) On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Suggestions/thoughts/objections?

Great idea. Fran On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 20:21 +0100, Will "Sceptre" Noble wrote: > And it'd cut down on most of the fair-use with no rationale and images

> that. (of course, there may be some serial offenders even after that) > > On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I completely agree. Anonymity is not equal to the right to be > > uncontactable > > everafter. > > > > On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we > > > often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account,

> > > only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their > > > talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to > > > contact them. > > > > > > A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact > > > the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them

> > > the correct information is. > > > > > > I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email > > > address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for > > > contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be > > > able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just > > > because you haven't been checking your talk page. > > > > > > This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to

> > > the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint > > > photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to

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On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage(a)gmail.com> wrote: A very strong objection from me. The Wikipedia is gradually getting less and less open and it's really becoming annoying. Already too many common actions require a registration. On English Wikipedia one cannot even create an article without a registration (as if registration meant anything), what in my opinion is a huge blow to our former openness. But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ? This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single contributor while gaining absolutely nothing. We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles, uploading pictures, moving articles, everything. Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On 6/28/06, Oliver Coddington <olivercoddington(a)gmail.com> wrote: address one to accounts, considering Of course, were we to do this more people would simply edit without an account. You already are not able to upload without an account. But I think the more important consideration is this, how often do we need to email a few-edit account... vary rarely, perhaps only once to tell them that their account is expiring. Drive by image uploaders, on the other hand, provide incomplete copyright information in a majority of cases. It's not reasonable to expect new users even uploading ones to be experts at our requirements, even when we make a strong effort to inform people prior to upload. As such I support this feature. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Whether all new users should have to register e-mail addresses is a further debate, but seems the next logical step. Again there are obviously pros and cons to such a thing, and I think if such a system were ever introduced you would have to allow only registered users to edit Wikipedia (which in the present climate is never going to occur).

One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to contact them.

Gaining nothing? [...] Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.

On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage(a)gmail.com> wrote: The cost is anything but small and from the experience with licencing issues on Wikipedia I've had so far I'd guess the gain is purely theoretical. * It is a privacy problem * It is a serious loss of openness * Many people won't be uploading images if it requires email registration

* Even if people do register, it won't be possible to contact most of them: ** Most normal people who would get such an email, wouldn't understand what the heck is this all licencing thing about or simply wouldn't care. About the only people who get the licencing are Wikipedians and Open Source geeks. And they do not need compulsory email confirmation. ** People tend to automatically delete all emails from people they don't know as spam. So even if the email gets through it's likely to get ignored.** Many people have special email addresses for all the registrations that they never actually read *** Like I never do compulsory registrations using anything else than spambob ** People are switching email addresses all the time. Half-life of valid email address is very short.

So it's two email addresses that would need to be confirmed... until single user login is implemented. (This is really coming, right? Right?) I don't see that as an unreasonable barrier. As for "unnecessary" -- well, the project hasn't fallen apart thus far without, but there are a lot of unnecessary things that are still a win.

On 6/28/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell(a)gmail.com> wrote: The best proof is knowing the password :-).

Kat Walsh wrote: Hoi, People who contribute a picture once are not vandals. It is ridiculous to suggest this The rules of the "game" have increasingly become more restrictive and pictures that used to be acceptable are no longer considered acceptable. I have in the past uploaded uploaded pictures with permission. I had added a message about the original author at the time. Then came thumbs and these messages went, some time later people decided to check permissions could not find them and deleted stuff. I found it out after I signed on to that project after some time. Because of the elegance in which people the Commons "community" decide that it is their way or the high way, I became in many ways less interested. People insist that it is not feasible to discuss changes to Commons policies with the projects in advance and, that it is sufficient to restrict this discussion to intimi.. This seems to me reminiscent to one of those tribes that ultimately moved into Africa in AD400 or thereabouts. I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the same however the number of material that you still want to check increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem is not what is depicted. By talking about it as if there is a crisis, you make it a crisis; it seems as if we are at war.. I am not convinced AT ALL. Thanks, GerardM _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: Please please please let it be so! After having to mark several thousand bad uploads for deletion, and realizing it was just a tiny percentage of the total problem, I'd agree to anything that would stop the deluge of sh!t. I think it's hard for people who haven't worked on image cleanup to realize how much grunt work is created by the hundreds and sometimes thousands of bad uploads that accumulate each and every day. Stan _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the same however the number of material that you still want to check increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem is not what is depicted.

I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions. GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem with actual numbers (won't you Greg?) =) As to Tomasz' statements, I am equally interested in hearing what data, if any, could be marshalled support your broad assertions. They don't strike me as valid, though I could be proven wrong. I have doubts that will be the case. Erik's point is well taken; the deletionists have the better argument as far as Commons goes, so I lean in his direction on that point. I do know that there is still a lot of garbage in Commons nevertheless. I still don't see, especially in the case of single login, how providing an email address is a net loss for those who upload images. Nobody has answered why the balance should tilt in favor of single-uploaders rather than established users. On 6/28/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Kat Walsh wrote: > >> On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw(a)users.sf.net> wrote: >> >> >> >>> But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ? >>> This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single >>> contributor while gaining absolutely nothing. >>> >>> We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users >>> have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles, >>> uploading pictures, moving articles, everything. >>> Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal. >>> >>> >> Gaining nothing? It hurts users for us not to be able to contact them. >> Text usually stays, as a fact in an article can be found and supported >> by a source even if it is not the same source the writer used. But an >> image? If we cannot find the original and do not know where it came >> from, it must be deleted. That's a pretty big loss, I think, both for >> Wikimedia not being able to use it and for the original contributor >> who sees the effort they spent to upload and place it gone to waste. >> >> This isn't intended to stop vandalism, though it may slow it; any >> vandal can register an account with an email address also. It is >> intended to help good-faith users who want to contribute media. We >> need to be strict about enforcing proper tagging and licensing of >> images; we cannot budge on that. But it is a sad loss to delete things >> simply because they didn't understand the procedure and we don't know >> how to reach them. >> >> Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and >> does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive. >> >> -Kat >> > Hoi, > People who contribute a picture once are not vandals. It is ridiculous > to suggest this > > The rules of the "game" have increasingly become more restrictive and > pictures that used to be acceptable are no longer considered acceptable. > I have in the past uploaded uploaded pictures with permission. I had > added a message about the original author at the time. Then came thumbs > and these messages went, some time later people decided to check > permissions could not find them and deleted stuff. I found it out after > I signed on to that project after some time. Because of the elegance in > which people the Commons "community" decide that it is their way or the > high way, I became in many ways less interested. > > People insist that it is not feasible to discuss changes to Commons > policies with the projects in advance and, that it is sufficient to > restrict this discussion to intimi.. This seems to me reminiscent to one > of those tribes that ultimately moved into Africa in AD400 or thereabouts. > > I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the > problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes > up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the > same however the number of material that you still want to check > increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily > forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are > working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to > remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem > is not what is depicted. > > By talking about it as if there is a crisis, you make it a crisis; it > seems as if we are at war.. I am not convinced AT ALL. > > Thanks, > GerardM

Hoi, A proposal is discussed that suggest that something "needs" to be done. This need is not substantiated but it is assumed to be there. The idea of a bell-curve is an argument that Jimmy used in one of his presentations to point out to alarmists that there is a perceived crisis but not much of an actual crisis. However, given the volume of pictures that end up on Commons, I can understand and sympathise with the people who deal with this to some extend.

I think if such a system were ever introduced you would have to allow only registered users to edit Wikipedia

On 6/28/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf(a)gmail.com> wrote: with Sure, I think the most compelling bit of backup is the anecdotal one which every person who has deleted images on Enwiki can tell you: we are unable to get answers to basic questions for many images and must delete them. Does anyone here who's done a substantial amount of image patrolling on enwiki disagree? It's easy to produce examples, just look for at orphanbot's deleted edits. However, I like numbers... they can mislead but they can also be food for thought. Keep in mind we don't current recommend that anyone use the email this user to contact inactive uploaders simply because few of the images which are eligible for deletion have a confirmed user. There were 57,472 images uploaded to enwiki in march. *21,000 come from uploaders with confirmed emails. *36,472 come from uploaders without confirmed emails There were 30,981 total images deleted on enwiki in march. *5,149 were uploaded by users who had confirmed emails. *25,832 were uploaded by users who did not have confirmed emails. I wanted to give stats on what percentage of deleted images came from users who had recent editing activity, but query is too expensive to answer off hand. I think the policy makes sense based both on my experience and based on the numbers. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

However, I like numbers... they can mislead but they can also be food for thought. Keep in mind we don't current recommend that anyone use the email this user to contact inactive uploaders simply because few of the images which are eligible for deletion have a confirmed user. There were 57,472 images uploaded to enwiki in march. *21,000 come from uploaders with confirmed emails. *36,472 come from uploaders without confirmed emails There were 30,981 total images deleted on enwiki in march. *5,149 were uploaded by users who had confirmed emails. *25,832 were uploaded by users who did not have confirmed emails. I think the policy makes sense based both on my experience and based on the numbers.

Surely nobody is prepared to argue that where we are talking about an image stream measured in dozens of thousands, the yield is so pathetic, and the immediate reduction in problem uploads can (theoretically) be cut by a [[insert adjective here]] amount, we ought not consider the change? 5 out of 6 deletes comes from a non-email-enabled user? Geez... My position is geared to support the community. Here it seems a substantial amount of editing time and effort can be refactored favorably to ... (b) increase communication (mere ability to communicate!) with presumably new contributors (WP:Newbie)

One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to contact them. A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what the correct information is. I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just because you haven't been checking your talk page. This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get in totuch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year ago is not likely to check a talk page. I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement. Suggestions/thoughts/objections? -Kat

One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to contact them. A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what the correct information is. I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just because you haven't been checking your talk page. This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year ago is not likely to check a talk page. I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement. Suggestions/thoughts/objections? -Kat

Now what would be REALLY good to slow down problem uploaders would be if we could block users from uploading, only ( see http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4995 , my baby!). Seems like it could be really handy on en.wp too. Because copyvio image users do not also tend to be copyvio text users, that's my observation.

I don't think this is as clear cut as you think it is. In the case of requiring users to register to start articles, and we had solid evidence that our openess was actively harmful- pace Siegenthaler. I've seen no reason to believe that our current level of openness w/r/t images is actively harmful, and not merely a nuisance on the level of vandalism by IPs.

On 6/28/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote: The practice of deleting with extreme prejudice is the best tool we have today on enwiki. It is, at least somewhat, effective. However deletion creates a lot of opportunity for tension in the community, there are a lot of people who would like to keep their favorite image at any cost, at least any cost short of them figuring out the copyright status themselves... The status quo has become socially harmful, so we must reach out for more middle ground approaches which do not compromise our legal and ethical obligations or the fundamental goals of our project. When I can demonstrate that I've make a more complete attempt to avoid deleting an image a reasonable person should expect to have a more calm response. We have previously used email contact in some cases to verify licenses but since around 80% of deleted images do not have an email contact it's not possible currently to institutionalize the behavior and gauge its effectiveness. I am unsure exactly what level of image upload reduction there will be but based on the impact that the removal of anon editing had on the creation of new articles I would not expect much if any at all. I must also point out that whatever reduction does occur will almost certainly be strongly biased in favor of reducing the uploads of images which we would be subsequently deleted. Thus it would only take a small number of rescued images to offset any reduction in the rate of good image uploads. A question for the list, is anyone aware of a single other site which is even semi-popular and accepts images uploads without an email confirmed account? It's is my thought that such a request has long since been the norm on the Internet, and as a result will not pose a substantial or unexpected hurdle for our users. The fact that one of the internet stock photo sites we've we've taken images from on commons has confirmed emails will likely save hundreds of free content images from deletion. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

The best idea I've heard in awhile. On 6/28/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On 6/28/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >>As for requiring email address... eh. They are typically just as >>throwaway as a wiki account. I have no problem with the current method >>of deleting with extreme prejudice. By deleting such images WP is not >>missing much. >> >> >The practice of deleting with extreme prejudice is the best tool we >have today on enwiki. It is, at least somewhat, effective. However >deletion creates a lot of opportunity for tension in the community, >there are a lot of people who would like to keep their favorite image >at any cost, at least any cost short of them figuring out the >copyright status themselves... > > >

WiktionaryZ do use a diffrent set of babel-templates then most Wikipedias. 2006/6/29, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella(a)yahoo.it>it>: > Hi Berto, > > yes, I already thought about it. I need all the templates downloaded in > a file (did/do not have time right now to do it, but I wanted to do the > same) - then I can easily use the bot to upload them. > > Ciao, Sabine > > Berto schrieb: > >> Hi! >> >> is there anyway to import babel templates? (say from wiktionaryZ, with >> > the > >> level-5 convention, too). They do not need any translation at all, so it >> looks pretty stupid to do it manually. >> >> Bèrto

Yes, it's much wider. Why should I import an older tool version, since I am to start now? Bèrto

Yes, it's much wider. Why should I import an older tool version, since I am to start now? Bèrto

However, what's the situation with accounts that provided an email address which has never been verified because it was supplied before validation started and the user didn't bother afterwards?

Account merging will be done based on e-mails (as you can set your password based on emails) because you can't compare passwords (due to the salt). The merging by password will be done if your local and global account have the same password when you login. Not really automatic. See the evil-plans for more info.

On 6/29/06, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote: It is to afford them more respect when we contort our policy to minimize effort for them while maximizing the effort for our more established editors. I have a hard time listening to people who make loud an emotional complaints about exclusion when we talk about registration, because it's patently untrue. Registration excludes no one. If you want to argue on the basis of more complicated editing/uploading dissuading new people from discovering the joy of contributing then I can follow that argument.. But to claim that we're discussion a policy of exclusion? Thats just trolling. We should discontinue using the word 'anonymous' for non-registered users, because they are among the least anonymous users on the system.

I don't think this is as clear cut as you think it is. In the case of requiring users to register to start articles, and we had solid evidence that our openess was actively harmful- pace Siegenthaler. I've seen no reason to believe that our current level of openness w/r/t images is actively harmful, and not merely a nuisance on the level of vandalism by IPs.

If you want to be nice, you have to listen to the arguments of others.

When you use tools in stead of communication I agree, the point is that the Commons community has in the past deliberately, pointedly and repeatedly indicated that they are not interested in informing and discussing proposed change to the Commons policies prior to aking that change

On 6/29/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: The right place to discuss Commons policy in a multilingual community with over 600 wikis are the Commons forums and mailing list. Everyone is free to participate there. If policy is not discussed in the right places _on_ Commons, then this is a failing of the Commons community. But cooperation also means participation. Imagine that we didn't have separate wikis, and only a single big one. Surely the right place to discuss image policy would be the pages about image policy? The separation of Commons and other projects is essentially one that only exists in our heads, with the exception of separate accounts and some minor user interface issues. Commons is simply the section of the Wikimedia community that deals with multimedia. And of course these people develop policies and practices around multimedia. If you disagree with these policies and practices, _get involved_. Virtually all the active members of the Commons community also have a "home wiki" where they are active. It is not some separate entity. It is a subset of the Wikimedia community. Erik

So about 40% of useful contributions come from users without confirmed emails, and we would be throwing them away ?