We just never gave the programmers a good set of requirements for the
uploader.
On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Larry Sanger wrote:
> > I agree 100% that this is a problem. Last night I deleted several dozen
> > files that someone had overwritten as being (obviously) inappropriate for
> > Wikipedia articles. I was a little concerned from the beginning that
> > having virtually no restrictions on the upload function would have this
> > effect, so it's not too surprising that this is happening.
>
> >From a general, Wiki-philosophical-social aspect, it is interesting
> that the upload function gets abused, while general Wiki pages do not.
Actually, there's a good reason for it: the images aren't obviously linked
to anything in any article. This is an ABSOLUTELY essential piece of
information to have: what articles *use* the image in question? If no
article uses an image after 24 hours, perhaps we should delete the image
(or put it in a queue to be deleted by a human). So, the point is,
without a context, unless some image is at face value obviously worthless
to any Wikipedia article (e.g., porn advertisements), it's difficult for
us to tell whether an image really is appropriate for the 'pedia. It
would even make it easier for us to determine whether an image is
copyrighted.
One way around this would be to attach images to unique articles, so that
the uploading of an image would be logged in a particular article's
history. I don't know if I like this suggestion, though, I'm just
throwing it out there for your consideration.
Here's another thing we need in that upload form. We should ask people to
choose: (1) I have created this image and release it under the GNU FDL (or
contribute it to Wikipedia); (2) I personally certify that this image is
public domain (if checked, add a text box requiring that a source be
given--a URL or else a book title, say); (3) other? If none are checked,
then the uploader wouldn't accept the article.
Under some schemes we might want (1) to require that the uploader identify
which article the image is going to be used in, and (2) to check that the
image title is linked to from that article. But (1) might be done
automatically, I guess...
Doing these things would remove a fair bit of the abuse. It would
certainly make it a lot easier for the community to act as a check on the
abuse.
> Perhaps the uploads should be visible in the RecentChanges list?
They already are, sort of--but each one individually should be, which
isn't the case now.
> Perhaps there should be a "view other versions" for each upload?
Maybe--would prevent people from uploading porn in place of legit images,
for instance.
> Perhaps a Wikipage in the upload: namespace for each uploaded object?
Maybe...?
Larry