I have just had to deal with this - AGAIN - and would like to rail for a moment, hoping to provoke discussion to promote change. I posit that this is big enough to deserve a Foundation-wide venue for initial discussion so am including Wikitech-L.
Most of us are probably familiar with the cycle:
Person A on en.wp (or, any project) uploads an image which is apparently public domain or free use by any reasonable standard. It gets put on article X. There is much rejoicing.
Person B later thinks "Oh, this is something other projects might use, and it's 'free', so..." and uploads it to Commons. It then gets deleted at en.wp by a helpful bot.
Person C on Commons later identifies that it fails to be an entirely free piece under the much-stricter Commons rules, due to some factor that A and B were unaware of. Person C nominates it for deletion there. Poof. Gone.
Now, we have NO image, for something that is sufficiently legal under our rules and the law for use on en.wp (and likely, most of the rest of the projects). A delinker bot helpfully comes along and nukes references to the image off the pages that used to have it. Maintainers who miss the bot edit fail to notice that it's gone. Many months or years go along and finally someone notices, and either is an admin and restores the image on en.wp or finds an admin who restores it on en.wp.
Now, for someone who sees images as an integral part of the total READERSHIP value we present, in terms of helping people understand things by drawing their attention and expressing ideas and history in a visual manner, the long periods where we've lost all image are mind-numbingly counter to our core mission. That we've evolved into this cycle due to bureaucratic friction does not make it acceptable.
PROPOSED: This is not acceptable. Something must be done.
SUGGESTED FIX #1: Create a parallel "Uncommons" project, for shared images which meet minimum project legal non-copyvio standards but do not meet the threshold Commons is insisting on (or we have defined Commons to be). This requires coding in the WMF to allow a parallel project as image source, and would require that Commons' deletion process be modified such that deletions for copyright niggles be a shift-to-Uncommons rather than an outright delete.
SUGGESTED FIX #2: Stop deleting things from local projects when they're uploaded to commons. This requires additional diskspace from the Foundation (by some as-yet unknown amount). Ops team - Could you attempt to determine if this would be significant, troublesome, small enough to not be significant, etc?
These are not the only two possible solutions, but they come to mind immediately (and have previously when I thought of this). Additional fix concepts solicited and welcomed.
To suggestion 2:
It makes no difference at all for the discspace if a file gets deleted or not. Since you are always able to restore it it will stay on the server.
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on Commons... No coding needed at all.
Huib
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 9:36 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
I have just had to deal with this - AGAIN - and would like to rail for a moment, hoping to provoke discussion to promote change. I posit that this is big enough to deserve a Foundation-wide venue for initial discussion so am including Wikitech-L.
Most of us are probably familiar with the cycle:
Person A on en.wp (or, any project) uploads an image which is apparently public domain or free use by any reasonable standard. It gets put on article X. There is much rejoicing.
Person B later thinks "Oh, this is something other projects might use, and it's 'free', so..." and uploads it to Commons. It then gets deleted at en.wp by a helpful bot.
Person C on Commons later identifies that it fails to be an entirely free piece under the much-stricter Commons rules, due to some factor that A and B were unaware of. Person C nominates it for deletion there. Poof. Gone.
Now, we have NO image, for something that is sufficiently legal under our rules and the law for use on en.wp (and likely, most of the rest of the projects). A delinker bot helpfully comes along and nukes references to the image off the pages that used to have it. Maintainers who miss the bot edit fail to notice that it's gone. Many months or years go along and finally someone notices, and either is an admin and restores the image on en.wp or finds an admin who restores it on en.wp.
Now, for someone who sees images as an integral part of the total READERSHIP value we present, in terms of helping people understand things by drawing their attention and expressing ideas and history in a visual manner, the long periods where we've lost all image are mind-numbingly counter to our core mission. That we've evolved into this cycle due to bureaucratic friction does not make it acceptable.
PROPOSED: This is not acceptable. Something must be done.
SUGGESTED FIX #1: Create a parallel "Uncommons" project, for shared images which meet minimum project legal non-copyvio standards but do not meet the threshold Commons is insisting on (or we have defined Commons to be). This requires coding in the WMF to allow a parallel project as image source, and would require that Commons' deletion process be modified such that deletions for copyright niggles be a shift-to-Uncommons rather than an outright delete.
SUGGESTED FIX #2: Stop deleting things from local projects when they're uploaded to commons. This requires additional diskspace from the Foundation (by some as-yet unknown amount). Ops team - Could you attempt to determine if this would be significant, troublesome, small enough to not be significant, etc?
These are not the only two possible solutions, but they come to mind immediately (and have previously when I thought of this). Additional fix concepts solicited and welcomed.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on Commons... No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
*-- * *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
I am an admin, it took about five minutes to find the proper file name and undelete it again.
HOWEVER - this was 16 months after it was deleted in the first place.
The imperfect nature of people catching such changes in watchlists is the problem. This means that the delay until local restore can be arbitrarily long on non-super-popular pages.
IF the Commons upload were to include the origin file / project and require the deleter at commons to notify en.wp admins to restore it there, that would solve the problem.
Or, alternately, we could require that the image be added to all the constituent projects now using the file in article space upon commons deletion (undelete on the origin, add it to the projects for other ones that started using it). Put the onus on commons deleters to do that and make it a policy requirement that they did.
I put wikien-l back in the cc list as these are non-technical proposals and would require ... I guess, commons process. I don't know what the commons list is, and am not on it to be able to post to it.
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on Commons... No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
- d.
On Aug 5, 2013 9:54 AM, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
- d.
+1
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki. That does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for those other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki. That does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for those other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Aug 5, 2013 10:01 AM, "Martijn Hoekstra" martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki. That does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for those other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any
projects To me, its early, early enough to spout nonsense apparently. Let me re try that one. Maybe don't de link it if the image was migrated to commons from one of the other projects.
(the morning is my natural enemy)
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Not delink it when its in use on other projects will leave a lot of broken links on projects. I can't believe that would be something what we want?
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki. That does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for those other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
It would leave a paper trail that editors could use to find the commons image, and hopefully its original source, to go get it from for other projects.
Hmm. Maybe not. Not sure there's enough info there for that. It's late, solve in morning.
-george
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 1:06 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Not delink it when its in use on other projects will leave a lot of broken links on projects. I can't believe that would be something what we want?
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki.
That
does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for
those
other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any
projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Met vriendelijke groet,
Huib Laurens _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Aug 5, 2013 10:10 AM, "Huib Laurens" sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Not delink it when its in use on other projects will leave a lot of broken links on projects. I can't believe that would be something what we want?
Why not? It immediately alerts whoever looks at it that there is something wrong with the image (which there is). Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Unless we would want to fork development and presentation on our projects, but that's a whole different discussion.
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin
restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki.
That
does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for
those
other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any
projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Met vriendelijke groet,
Huib Laurens _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The bot alters a page and alerts people about it on the watchlist. By just deleting the file it can take weeks before somebody even notice that there is something wrong.
Besides that we have maybe 10 project that allow fair-use.... Why do we need to break links at 600+ wiki's for 10 wiki's with a different policy?
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 10:10 AM, "Huib Laurens" sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Not delink it when its in use on other projects will leave a lot of
broken
links on projects. I can't believe that would be something what we want?
Why not? It immediately alerts whoever looks at it that there is something wrong with the image (which there is). Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Unless we would want to fork development and presentation on our projects, but that's a whole different discussion.
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens <
sterkebak@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
> No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin
restore
the
deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki.
That
does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for
those
other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any
projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Met vriendelijke groet,
Huib Laurens _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Aug 5, 2013, at 3:24 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Besides that we have maybe 10 project that allow fair-use.... Why do we need to break links at 600+ wiki's for 10 wiki's with a different policy?
It would be nice if the Foundation and other projects, particularly shared resources, were en.wikipedia compatible.
That's not "all must accept fair use!", but if you keep pissing off english language users, something is wrong.
This has been wrong for *years*...
Particular solutions here should minimize the pain and suffering for all, if at all possible. But I am bringing this up because what we do now is not the minimum point across the projects for that pain and suffering.
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
The bot alters a page and alerts people about it on the watchlist. By just deleting the file it can take weeks before somebody even notice that there is something wrong.
How about the best of both worlds, the bot makes a null edit to alert people who have the article watchlisted, and the link stays broken to alert everybody else.
Besides that we have maybe 10 project that allow fair-use.... Why do we need to break links at 600+ wiki's for 10 wiki's with a different policy?
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 10:10 AM, "Huib Laurens" sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Not delink it when its in use on other projects will leave a lot of
broken
links on projects. I can't believe that would be something what we
want?
Why not? It immediately alerts whoever looks at it that there is
something
wrong with the image (which there is). Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Unless we would want to fork development and presentation on our projects, but that's a whole
different
discussion.
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
wrote:
On Aug 5, 2013 9:58 AM, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com
wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens <
sterkebak@gmail.com>
wrote:
>> Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted
on
Commons... >> No coding needed at all.
> This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin
restore
the
> deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
...if the same filename was used in Commons as in the source wiki.
That
does not solve the "now used on other wikis" problem, however, for
those
other wikis.
That is quite possibly a least-effort trajectory however...
Maybe don't delink it in the first place when it is in use on any
projects
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Met vriendelijke groet,
Huib Laurens _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Met vriendelijke groet,
Huib Laurens _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Ehm, if a file gets deleted 16 months after the move there is still a log entry from the change in the history of the article right?
But if CommonsDelinker should report a list of all deleted files on a wikipage people would be able to check them and restore the local versions when needed?
Secondly we should also learn people what can and what can't be moved to Commons so we won't have the problem also.
Huib
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 9:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 August 2013 08:43, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
Suggestion 3: Restore the file on en.wiki if it gets deleted on
Commons...
No coding needed at all.
This right here. It should be trivial to just have an admin restore the deleted file.
Or, indeed, for the delinker bot to mark it for restoration.
- d.
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