> Message: 9
> Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:11:08 -0500
> From: William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, info(a)wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <4EBE7E7C.8070708(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I've noticed a problem with overzealous deletionists on Commons. While
> this may be something of a legal and political issue, it's also
> operational and affects multiple *[m,p]edias at the same time.
>
[snip]
>
> There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others
> have had to handle this, it's time for us.
>
> 1) DMCA doesn't require a takedown until there's been a complaint. We
> really shouldn't allow deletion until there's been an actual complaint.
> We need technical means for recording official notices and appeals.
> Informal opinions of ill-informed volunteers aren't helpful.
OTRS? This seems like a social (or potentially a legal) issue not a
technical one.
> 2) Fast scripting and insufficient notice lead to flapping of images,
> and confusion by the owners of the documents (and the editors of
> articles, as 2 days is much *much* too short for most of us). We need
> something to enforce review times.
Again a social issue
> 3) Folks in other industries aren't monitoring Talk pages and have no
> idea or sufficient notice that their photos are being deleted. The
> Talk mechanism is really not a good method for anybody other than very
> active wikipedians. We need better email and other social notices.
Enable enotif for talk page messages by default?
>
> 4) We really don't have a method to "prove" that a username is actually
> under control of the public figure. Hard to do. Needs discussion.
Again a social issue. No amount of technical magic will be able to
solve that issue.
> 5) We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
> confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
That could certainly be a technical challenge, and not a trivial one.
However at the end of the day we can just get a human to compare.
> If there's a better place to discuss this, please indicate.
Commons-l or the VP at commons since these are mostly complaints
against the social practises, not technical issues.
-bawolff