On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Hell, just create a tag called "ok for linking" and people can set it on a case by case basis when needed, evaluating the arguments. But I don't honestly see much difference between saying "Only link if the image doesn't require easily accessible attribution, and be honest" and saying "You can only link if the image has been set with this tag, and be honest when you set it".
There is a huge difference between ignorance and malice. "Oh I see how to get an image to do what I want.. lets just add this option tada!" or "I'll flip every possible knob until I get the result I desire" is vastly different from "Hey, lets screw over those wikipedia folks".
We need the right infrastructure to quickly locate usage, and the handy information needed to evaluate that usage. Ideally we'd also like a system thats hard to accidentally abuse... where people won't just copy some other image link and create a copyright problem. This is where set this tag makes sense, because it's a place where we can include BIG BOLD TEXT that explains when you can and can not set the tag.
I don't care what exact form the tools take as long as they are sufficient.
I'd be satisfied with a solution which stored an attribute in the imagelinks table that indicates when the link is a 'no copyright details' link, so long as that was coupled with a transcluded tag via policy it would be simple enough to run a daily query which reported the newly no-attribution-tag-needed tagged image and images used without attribution without the tag.. And then from that data send flaming bot death^W^W^W polite re-education to people using it in the wrong places.
I'm sure you think that I'm being stubborn expecting there to be problems with this... but I am speaking from experience. We've had huge problems with people using non-free images as decorations on their user pages, and those images are easy to detect (i.e. already meet all the criteria I'm asking for here)... but when there are hundreds added in a week it can be hard to keep up.