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.
I've spent some time over the years convincing public figures that we need official pictures released for articles, rather than relying on fan (or publicity or staff) produced pictures. Because of my own experience in the academic, computing, political, and music industries, I've had a modicum of success.
I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them. From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.
This week, one of the commons administrators (Yann) ran a script of some sort that flagged hundreds of pictures for deletion, apparently based on the proximity of the word facebook in the description. There was no time for actual legal analysis, at a rate of more than one per minute. The only rationale given was: "From Facebook. No permission."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sharon_Agu...
In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook." Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.
A bot posted a link to the notice on the en.wiki talk page that used the photo, where in turn it appeared in my watchlist.
Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."
That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable. Self-justifying strawman argument.
In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file. A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself. The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!
After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
Then, minutes later, another administrator, Béria Lima, deleted the photo without waiting for the official 7 day comment period to expire. That indicates collusion, not independent review.
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.
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.
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.
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.
5) We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
If there's a better place to discuss this, please indicate.
I concur with WASs appraisal of the situation, and agree that the policy sounds like it needs to be formalized -- or if it already exists and was merely flouted, that that situation needs to be cleared up.
I specifically concur that a complaint ought to be necessary.
Cheers, -- jra
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Allen Simpson" william.allen.simpson@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, info@wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 9:11:08 AM Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists 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.
I've spent some time over the years convincing public figures that we need official pictures released for articles, rather than relying on fan (or publicity or staff) produced pictures. Because of my own experience in the academic, computing, political, and music industries, I've had a modicum of success.
I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them. From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.
This week, one of the commons administrators (Yann) ran a script of some sort that flagged hundreds of pictures for deletion, apparently based on the proximity of the word facebook in the description. There was no time for actual legal analysis, at a rate of more than one per minute. The only rationale given was: "From Facebook. No permission."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sharon_Agu...
In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook." Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.
A bot posted a link to the notice on the en.wiki talk page that used the photo, where in turn it appeared in my watchlist.
Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."
That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable. Self-justifying strawman argument.
In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file. A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself. The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!
After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
Then, minutes later, another administrator, Béria Lima, deleted the photo without waiting for the official 7 day comment period to expire. That indicates collusion, not independent review.
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
If there's a better place to discuss this, please indicate.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 11/12/11 9:46 AM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
I concur with WASs appraisal of the situation, and agree that the policy sounds like it needs to be formalized -- or if it already exists and was merely flouted, that that situation needs to be cleared up.
I specifically concur that a complaint ought to be necessary.
Thank you.
I've done a bit of research today, and the formal complaint process specifies "Sue Gardner, Designated Agent Wikimedia Foundation".
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:General_disclaimer
The deletion policy process is buried in the box at the bottom of the "Disclaimer" page. You'd have to know to look for it.
Moreover, there is a "permissions-commons@wikimedia.org" (mentioned nowhere in the deletion request itself nor deletion policy) for granting permissions via the "Open-source Ticket Request System" (OTRS). That has a many months backlog.
We've got to stop administrators pretending to (quoting Yann) "protect the authors' interests." In this case, protecting the photographer against the picture's owner. The administrators *MUST* stop acting as self-appointed legal agents.
That way lies madness, and significant legal liability. It is not an administrator's responsibility. If you take that position, the Foundation could be liable for any failures to detect violations.
There are a lot of problems with the activities of deletionists, starting with the assumption that somebody who contributes to W is an active W user, and is monitoring their contributions against the activities of deletionists. A lack of prompt response is taken as proof that their claim (no matter how wild) is true.
It's time to start requiring a working email address. Either that, or reign in deletionists. Do we have a mechanism for this (I think we do but haven't tried it)? Or if not a working email address (I understand that would be controversial in the large) then a notification system that works across services. Like sending an SMS, or twitter, or g+ posting, or fb message. On Nov 12, 2011 9:11 AM, "William Allen Simpson" < william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:
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.
I've spent some time over the years convincing public figures that we need official pictures released for articles, rather than relying on fan (or publicity or staff) produced pictures. Because of my own experience in the academic, computing, political, and music industries, I've had a modicum of success.
I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them. From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.
This week, one of the commons administrators (Yann) ran a script of some sort that flagged hundreds of pictures for deletion, apparently based on the proximity of the word facebook in the description. There was no time for actual legal analysis, at a rate of more than one per minute. The only rationale given was: "From Facebook. No permission."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sharon_Agu...
In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook." Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.
A bot posted a link to the notice on the en.wiki talk page that used the photo, where in turn it appeared in my watchlist.
Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."
That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable. Self-justifying strawman argument.
In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file. A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself. The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!
After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
Then, minutes later, another administrator, Béria Lima, deleted the photo without waiting for the official 7 day comment period to expire. That indicates collusion, not independent review.
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
If there's a better place to discuss this, please indicate.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 11/12/11 10:23 AM, Russell Nelson wrote:
There are a lot of problems with the activities of deletionists, starting with the assumption that somebody who contributes to W is an active W user, and is monitoring their contributions against the activities of deletionists. A lack of prompt response is taken as proof that their claim (no matter how wild) is true.
Only a not very descriptive message on the Talk page:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sharon_Aguilar#File:Sharon_Agui...
And that message isn't very helpful for a novice user, a busy musician who happens to be on the road at the moment (according to her twitter).
It's time to start requiring a working email address.
I asked Yann, "Did you use the email link on the User page?"
Apparently not. I checked, it's working. She responds, albeit with single line iPhone messages. She has no idea what to do, and no time to do anything about it.
Of course, it's only a musician who appears at major concert venues around the world. Surely, she can afford to pay her publicist to handle it (she has one). But do we expect all public figures to pay experts to keep track of this?
Besides, do we really want some other person to pretend to be her? (I've told her I won't. But I'll help her through the process -- when she has time. That probably won't be soon enough.)
Can you imagine what a member of Congress might think? I can....
or reign in deletionists.
On that day alone, Yann nominated 164 entries in ~2 hours (09:47 to 12:05). Every entry is supposed to have:
* any binding copyright law;
* the applicability of any relevant Commons policies, for example [[Commons:Deletion policy]], [[Commons:Project scope]] or [[Commons:Photographs of identifiable people]]; or
* any relevant facts such as date or place of publication, author, date of author's death and so on.
Nada.
Béria Lima, the closer after 2 days, has been warned repeatedly to wait the full 7 days, according to his Talk page.
We need technical measures to prevent this from happening, or at least provide prompt warning that an administrator is running amok.
And we need to kick off any administrators who violate the rules!
Do we have a mechanism for this (I think we do but haven't tried it)? Or if not a working email address (I understand that would be controversial in the large) then a notification system that works across services. Like sending an SMS, or twitter, or g+ posting, or fb message.
Twitter, G+, FB would be rather public.
An SMS would be good. Facebook provides that.
An email that pages have changed would be good. Wikia sends it weekly.
But in the case of commons, I'm not sure that would be enough. After all, such notification assumes that the uploader is a regular editor. Something coming out of the blue, without links to any policy or any explanation what-so-ever, isn't helpful.
Le 12/11/2011 19:31, William Allen Simpson a écrit :
We need technical measures to prevent this from happening, or at least provide prompt warning that an administrator is running amok.
And we need to kick off any administrators who violate the rules!
That is not a technical issue but a political one.
On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 1:31 PM, William Allen Simpson < william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:
We need technical measures to prevent this from happening, or at least provide prompt warning that an administrator is running amok.
Like what?
Do we have a mechanism for this (I think we do but haven't tried it)? Or if not a working email address (I understand that would be controversial in the large) then a notification system that works across services. Like sending an SMS, or twitter, or g+ posting, or fb message.
Twitter, G+, FB would be rather public.
No more or less public than a posting to the contributor's talk page.
I looked at the code. There's nothing in core to do external notifications. There's a WikiTweet extension, but that's just a twitter-like extension for within MW. It looks like WikiBhasha has JavaScript to share something on Twitter, but that's running in the browser, not on the server which is doing the noticing and sending the notifications.
On 12/11/11 19:31, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 10:23 AM, Russell Nelson wrote:
There are a lot of problems with the activities of deletionists, starting with the assumption that somebody who contributes to W is an active W user, and is monitoring their contributions against the activities of deletionists. A lack of prompt response is taken as proof that their claim (no matter how wild) is true.
Only a not very descriptive message on the Talk page:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sharon_Aguilar#File:Sharon_Agui...
We are open for proposals improving the message. :) I find it quite descriptive: There is a problem and it has been proposed to delete it. If you disagree go here. It's not specific to the exact reason for this file, but that message is translated to hundreds of languages, and there's no guarantee that the user would understand any particular one.
And that message isn't very helpful for a novice user, a busy musician who happens to be on the road at the moment (according to her twitter).
It's time to start requiring a working email address.
I asked Yann, "Did you use the email link on the User page?"
Apparently not. I checked, it's working. She responds, albeit with single line iPhone messages. She has no idea what to do, and no time to do anything about it.
(...)
Twitter, G+, FB would be rather public. An SMS would be good. Facebook provides that.
When users get a message on their commons talk page, they will receive an email informing of that. That requires that they provided an email address on registration (it's optional) and verified it (really easy). Also, they shouldn't have the preference disabled (I think it has been on by default for new users since several years).
An email that pages have changed would be good. Wikia sends it weekly.
That would be email notification for all watchlist items. The load produced by enabling such option could be pondered. Note they can also subscribe to an RSS feed of their watchlist (this probably needs more publcity).
On 11/12/11 6:45 PM, Platonides wrote:
When users get a message on their commons talk page, they will receive an email informing of that.
In my personal experience, that's only true for the *first* message. If you don't check Talk after that, then you don't get any more emails.
In my case, the first message was a welcome. I didn't need to see the welcome. My guess is other more casual users don't bother either, so they won't see any deletion messages.
I suggested there be a special flag to force the sending of a message. AFAICT, that's also the gist of jeblad's:
Add a magic word to enforce "enotif" on specific templates and the whole process shold be a lot more easy to handle than today. [sic]
I'm also suggesting we add phone numbers and SMS. Although I live on email, I've found the younger set live on their phones a bit more than we expected designing SMS long ago.
That requires that they provided an email address on registration (it's optional) and verified it (really easy). Also, they shouldn't have the preference disabled (I think it has been on by default for new users since several years).
An email that pages have changed would be good. Wikia sends it weekly.
That would be email notification for all watchlist items. The load produced by enabling such option could be pondered.
Sure, but the old default was to add each page you created to your watch list. My guess is there are few folks with massive watchlists.
Note they can also subscribe to an RSS feed of their watchlist (this probably needs more publcity).
Yeah, I'd never heard of it.
Note they can also subscribe to an RSS feed of their watchlist (this probably needs more publcity).
Yeah, I'd never heard of it.
More about personalised RSS Feeds for personal watchlists can be found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Syndication
On 13/11/11 01:44, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 6:45 PM, Platonides wrote:
When users get a message on their commons talk page, they will receive an email informing of that.
In my personal experience, that's only true for the *first* message. If you don't check Talk after that, then you don't get any more emails.
In my case, the first message was a welcome. I didn't need to see the welcome. My guess is other more casual users don't bother either, so they won't see any deletion messages.
How did you know it was a welcome message? And why were you so sure that you didn't need to read it (you know, that welcome message actually includes useful information) and it was ok to ignore its content and further ones?
I suggested there be a special flag to force the sending of a message. AFAICT, that's also the gist of jeblad's:
Add a magic word to enforce "enotif" on specific templates and the whole process shold be a lot more easy to handle than today. [sic]I'm also suggesting we add phone numbers and SMS. Although I live on email, I've found the younger set live on their phones a bit more than we expected designing SMS long ago.
I think with smartphones the trend is now getting things on the phone from the internet. Still, I don't oppose giving the option to send a sms on each talk page. Specially if you volunteer to pay that :) Doesn't seem too bad for commons: 600 talk page messages/day*. I would have expected something like the 9217 on enwiki.
* Not really averaged, just today values: select count(*) from revision join page on (rev_page=page_id) where page_namespace =2 and rev_timestamp LIKE '20111113%';
That requires that they provided an email address on registration (it's optional) and verified it (really easy). Also, they shouldn't have the preference disabled (I think it has been on by default for new users since several years).
An email that pages have changed would be good. Wikia sends it weekly.
That would be email notification for all watchlist items. The load produced by enabling such option could be pondered.
Sure, but the old default was to add each page you created to your watch list. My guess is there are few folks with massive watchlists.
If it wasn't on by default, those people you are defending wouldn't have those pages on their watchlist.
Note they can also subscribe to an RSS feed of their watchlist (this probably needs more publcity).
Yeah, I'd never heard of it.
Ideas on where to publicise that are welcome. The first location I think is to add that somewhere on that welcome message you didn't read... :\
On 11/13/2011 06:46 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 13/11/11 01:44, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 6:45 PM, Platonides wrote:
When users get a message on their commons talk page, they will receive an email informing of that.
In my personal experience, that's only true for the *first* message. If you don't check Talk after that, then you don't get any more emails.
In my case, the first message was a welcome. I didn't need to see the welcome. My guess is other more casual users don't bother either, so they won't see any deletion messages.
How did you know it was a welcome message? And why were you so sure that you didn't need to read it (you know, that welcome message actually includes useful information) and it was ok to ignore its content and further ones?
Big welcome messages full of links make people's eyes glaze over. That's not just William Allen Simpson, that's lots of people. They see the headline "Welcome" and a bunch of text and skim it, don't see anything immediately urgent or relevant to their needs, and figure it's kind of like an End User License Agreement or other big walls of text that are not really necessary to read right then, which is usually a reasonable assumption. It seems reasonable to mention and try to fix this user interface & New Editor Engagement issue. And this is related to the work that the Community folks, like Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling, are doing with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:UWTEST
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_A/B_testing
so those might be fruitful places for interested folks to collaborate on fixing this problem.
Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
Big welcome messages full of links make people's eyes glaze over. That's not just William Allen Simpson, that's lots of people. They see the headline "Welcome" and a bunch of text and skim it, don't see anything immediately urgent or relevant to their needs, and figure it's kind of like an End User License Agreement or other big walls of text that are not really necessary to read right then, which is usually a reasonable assumption. It seems reasonable to mention and try to fix this user interface & New Editor Engagement issue. And this is related to the work that the Community folks, like Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling, are doing with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:UWTEST
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_A/B_testing
so those might be fruitful places for interested folks to collaborate on fixing this problem.
Heh, it would be great if some UI testing work could be devoted to find out how to improve the commons welcome message (or at least find their weaknesses).
On 11/13/11 6:46 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 13/11/11 01:44, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 6:45 PM, Platonides wrote:
When users get a message on their commons talk page, they will receive an email informing of that.
In my personal experience, that's only true for the *first* message. If you don't check Talk after that, then you don't get any more emails.
In my case, the first message was a welcome. I didn't need to see the welcome. My guess is other more casual users don't bother either, so they won't see any deletion messages.
How did you know it was a welcome message? And why were you so sure that you didn't need to read it (you know, that welcome message actually includes useful information) and it was ok to ignore its content and further ones?
As an example, back in July 2009, my first Talk email (from meta) was rather obviously a Welcome message:
# This is a new page. # # Editor's summary: Welcome! #
When my Talk email showed up from trwiki in August 2009, I'm only guessing it was a welcome message:
$ Yeni bir sayfa. $ $ Açıklaması: Vikipedi'ye hoş geldiniz! $ I could be wrong. I'm also pretty sure I could not read it for that "useful information." :-)
The email notifications were enabled on enwiki more recently in May 2011 (according to its footer/signature section). I don't know about commons, as the footer doesn't say.
What commons (and meta) do say in the body (different from enwiki):
# There will be no other notifications in case of further changes unless # you visit this page. # You could also reset the notification flags for all your watched pages # on your watchlist. #
That's the reason we need a special flag to override.
What mechanism would be best?
I suggested there be a special flag to force the sending of a message. AFAICT, that's also the gist of jeblad's:
Add a magic word to enforce "enotif" on specific templates and the whole process shold be a lot more easy to handle than today. [sic]I'm also suggesting we add phone numbers and SMS. Although I live on email, I've found the younger set live on their phones a bit more than we expected designing SMS long ago.
I think with smartphones the trend is now getting things on the phone from the internet. Still, I don't oppose giving the option to send a sms on each talk page. Specially if you volunteer to pay that :) Doesn't seem too bad for commons: 600 talk page messages/day*. I would have expected something like the 9217 on enwiki.
- Not really averaged, just today values: select count(*) from revision join page on (rev_page=page_id) where
page_namespace =2 and rev_timestamp LIKE '20111113%';
Hey, that could be "unlimited" texting for only $9.99 per month. ;-)
That requires that they provided an email address on registration (it's optional) and verified it (really easy). Also, they shouldn't have the preference disabled (I think it has been on by default for new users since several years).
An email that pages have changed would be good. Wikia sends it weekly.
That would be email notification for all watchlist items. The load produced by enabling such option could be pondered.
Sure, but the old default was to add each page you created to your watch list. My guess is there are few folks with massive watchlists.
If it wasn't on by default, those people you are defending wouldn't have those pages on their watchlist.
True. And the deletionists would still assume the lack of response meant they were vandals.
Note they can also subscribe to an RSS feed of their watchlist (this probably needs more publcity).
Yeah, I'd never heard of it.
Ideas on where to publicise that are welcome. The first location I think is to add that somewhere on that welcome message you didn't read... :\
On 14 November 2011 17:07, William Allen Simpson < william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:
What commons (and meta) do say in the body (different from enwiki):
# There will be no other notifications in case of further changes unless # you visit this page. # You could also reset the notification flags for all your watched pages # on your watchlist
This message is actually not true. Visiting the page is /not/ enough to reset the trigger: you /also/ have to log in! And considering it is only a welcome message, there is no reason to reply, and thus no real reason to log in.
The welcome message might actually be *detrimental* in these cases: if the welcome message is not posted, the next message - hopefully one which requests a reply - will be the one to trigger the e-mail.
One possible way to improve this would be to add information to the url, which links to the user (i.e. add ?token=abcdefg to the url) - but I don't know if this is a good idea in terms of privacy.
Best, Merlijn
On 14/11/11 22:18, Merlijn van Deen wrote:
This message is actually not true. Visiting the page is /not/ enough to reset the trigger: you /also/ have to log in! And considering it is only a welcome message, there is no reason to reply, and thus no real reason to log in.
The welcome message might actually be *detrimental* in these cases: if the welcome message is not posted, the next message - hopefully one which requests a reply - will be the one to trigger the e-mail.
One possible way to improve this would be to add information to the url, which links to the user (i.e. add ?token=abcdefg to the url) - but I don't know if this is a good idea in terms of privacy.
Best, Merlijn
That was the only clear thing to improve I concluded so far from this thread. If we are sending https: links in the emails (which we should), there should be no problem with it. Of course, other wikis should be able to not provide that token for watchlist links. (Although just the normal link pluys a bit of timing is probably incriminating enough)
On 12/11/11 15:11, William Allen Simpson wrote:
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- 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.
We have higher standards than that.
- 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.
Yes, deleting on 2 days was too fast, given that you had concerns over it. That's also the reason it was restored by Odder :)
- 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.
See my other reply about email notification.
- 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.
We have OTRS https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
If there's a better place to discuss this, please indicate.
That's not a problem in this case, as the photo /was/ in facebook. The problem was identifying the prior one.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platonides" Platonides@gmail.com
That's not a problem in this case, as the photo /was/ in facebook. The problem was identifying the prior one.
The point William was making in his original post is that *earlier posting date to Facebook* is not a valid marker for deletion, *either*: the owner of the rights in the photo may -- and in the cases about which he's concerned, very *likely* would -- post the same picture to every "official" page about them, whatever the service.
"It was posted on Facebook first" a) doesn't mean that it was 'stolen' from Facebook, and b) wouldn't give Facebook any right to have anything to say to us about it any -- posting pics to FB grants FB no legal rights or standing.
Cheers, -- jra
On 11/12/11 6:50 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 12/11/11 15:11, William Allen Simpson wrote:
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- 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.
We have higher standards than that.
Apparently not, as they weren't followed -- by two administrators whose Talk have other examples of similar misbehavior.
The standard should be an actual complaint by a copyright holder. Not a notice by some administrator trolling for supposed violations.
- 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.
Yes, deleting on 2 days was too fast, given that you had concerns over it. That's also the reason it was restored by Odder :)
Serendipitously after I complained here and on other lists.
[...]
- 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.
We have OTRS https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS
Which isn't referenced in the deletion notice, deletion discussion, Commons:Deletion requests (above the discussion), Commons:Deletion policy, nor much of anything else.
And doesn't actually prove any more than posting the license on the photo in the first place. It's for folks granting a license *after* somebody else posts the photo....
That's the description in its own documentation.
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
That's not a problem in this case, as the photo /was/ in facebook. The problem was identifying the prior one.
No, a *similar* (smaller) photo was on facebook. But the reference in commons wasn't to the photo, it was merely her own facebook page. That triggered something in the script/search that Yann used.
I'm sure he didn't find the similar photo, as it was no longer visible. He'd have had to search back 63 wall photos (I just checked). It took me over 10 minutes to find, and I knew it was there somewhere.
Yet we know he didn't spend 10 minutes, because he posted several deletion pages per minute:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Deletion_requests/20... ... (cur | prev) 10:43, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,989 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:OficialBrenda.png) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:41, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,936 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sharon_Aguilar.jpg) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:41, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,882 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Multiply-inbox.PNG) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,828 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Besoos_tu_web_amiga_beso_a_beso.pdf) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,757 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:SIN_GRIFO.jpg) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,708 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:155094_135868846466246_135863459800118_171912_5041206_n.jpg) (undo) ...
On 11/12/11 8:19 PM, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 6:50 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 12/11/11 15:11, William Allen Simpson wrote:
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
That's not a problem in this case, as the photo /was/ in facebook. The problem was identifying the prior one.
No, a *similar* (smaller) photo was on facebook. But the reference in commons wasn't to the photo, it was merely her own facebook page. That triggered something in the script/search that Yann used.
I've checked and it's only 553 KB on facebook, and 8.35 MB here. By no stretch of the imagination is it possible to have been copied from facebook.
My guess, as I'd stated in the discussion:
Did you actually check the dates and times of posting in two places? Or did you simply search for the word facebook, and nominate a large number of photos for deletion?
I'm sure he didn't find the similar photo, as it was no longer visible. He'd have had to search back 63 wall photos (I just checked). It took me over 10 minutes to find, and I knew it was there somewhere.
Yet we know he didn't spend 10 minutes, because he posted several deletion pages per minute:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Deletion_requests/20... ... (cur | prev) 10:43, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,989 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:OficialBrenda.png) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:41, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,936 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sharon_Aguilar.jpg) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:41, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,882 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Multiply-inbox.PNG) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,828 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Besoos_tu_web_amiga_beso_a_beso.pdf) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,757 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:SIN_GRIFO.jpg) (undo) (cur | prev) 10:40, 7 November 2011 Yann (talk | contribs) (5,708 bytes) (Listing Commons:Deletion requests/File:155094_135868846466246_135863459800118_171912_5041206_n.jpg) (undo) ...
Out of curiousity, I just checked the post before Aguilar: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Multiply-i...
Yann posted: "From Facebook. No permission." No rationale. Nada.
Refers to: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Multiply-inbox.PNG
That says: "Multiply, Social Networking, Alternatives to Facebook" and is used to illustrate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiply_%28website%29
Obviously, he didn't even look at the photo. It's not "from Facebook."
He's a fraud. All of his deletion requests should be denied. I'm formally asking that he resign or be removed as administrator.
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 4:45 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
Obviously, he didn't even look at the photo. It's not "from Facebook."
He's a fraud. All of his deletion requests should be denied. I'm formally asking that he resign or be removed as administrator.
This list really, really isn't an appropriate venue for requesting an administrator's resignation. Please try to keep the discussion here on topic and focused on *technical* issues, we're on wiki*tech*-l after all. The desysopping drama paragraph above is probably the most blatantly non-technical one in this thread, but there are plenty of examples of paragraphs and even entire posts in this thread that look like they could have (and probably should have) been sent to commons-l instead of wikitech-l.
Roan
On 11/13/11 2:57 PM, Roan Kattouw wrote:
This list really, really isn't an appropriate venue for requesting an administrator's resignation. Please try to keep the discussion here on topic and focused on *technical* issues, we're on wiki*tech*-l after all. The desysopping drama paragraph above is probably the most blatantly non-technical one in this thread, but there are plenty of examples of paragraphs and even entire posts in this thread that look like they could have (and probably should have) been sent to commons-l instead of wikitech-l.
Sorry, I was merely noting what I was doing there. It was not intended to be a request here. Merely a point that underpinned the need for technical preventative measures to help ensure that runaway editors don't massively delete, or at least are caught somewhat more easily before much damage is done.
I am not subscribed there. It does appear to have been around since late 2004, and in part "to debate required technical enhancements, ...."
This list has been around somewhat longer. ;-)
On 13/11/11 02:19, William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 11/12/11 6:50 PM, Platonides wrote:
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
That's not a problem in this case, as the photo /was/ in facebook. The problem was identifying the prior one.
No, a *similar* (smaller) photo was on facebook. But the reference in commons wasn't to the photo, it was merely her own facebook page. That triggered something in the script/search that Yann used.
Which could be a javascript link to a bigger version.
I'm sure he didn't find the similar photo, as it was no longer visible. He'd have had to search back 63 wall photos (I just checked). It took me over 10 minutes to find, and I knew it was there somewhere.
I'm just evaluating that comparison utility you proposed. Please elaborate with meticulously detail how that would work, not just "some kind of".
Yet we know he didn't spend 10 minutes, because he posted several deletion pages per minute:
AGF he could have been led there from a google images search, or compiled before creating. You're probably right, but Yann actions being wrong don't relate on how that "tool of some kind" should work.
If someone reports something (s)he thinks is an error, even if the wording seems insulting, there are usually something important in the report. Don't attack what you think is wrong about the report, try to figure out whats the root cause behind it, neglecting the insults.
Something happen and the outcome was less satisfactory for at least one of the involved users. Why was that so, how can thing be changed? In this situation there are known errors that occur fairly often. A serious company would ensure that such errors would not impact normal operation, especially if those errors has an impact on their customers.
The uploader is the customer in this situation, and as such the likelihood of this uploader returning back to fix the situation or reupload the same or a similar picture at a later time drops very fast when the communication is harsh and unfriendly.
Sorry but going for a flamewar against the messenger in a situation like this is a loosers game. Forget mistakes, forget insults, find solutions!
John
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:44 AM, John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
If someone reports something (s)he thinks is an error, even if the wording seems insulting, there are usually something important in the report. Don't attack what you think is wrong about the report, try to figure out whats the root cause behind it, neglecting the insults.
Something happen and the outcome was less satisfactory for at least one of the involved users. Why was that so, how can thing be changed? In this situation there are known errors that occur fairly often. A serious company would ensure that such errors would not impact normal operation, especially if those errors has an impact on their customers.
The uploader is the customer in this situation, and as such the likelihood of this uploader returning back to fix the situation or reupload the same or a similar picture at a later time drops very fast when the communication is harsh and unfriendly.
Sorry but going for a flamewar against the messenger in a situation like this is a loosers game. Forget mistakes, forget insults, find solutions!
I'm sorry, but if "hey, you'd better go there-and-there" is already a flame war in your opinion, then I really wonder how you ever survived your first week at Wikipedia.
Forwarding geni reply at commons-l.
On 12/11/11 16:00, geni wrote:
On 12 November 2011 14:34, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: William Allen Simpsonwilliam.allen.simpson@gmail.com Date: 12 November 2011 14:11 Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists To: Wikimedia developerswikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, info-AeOJrEpdGNeGglJvpFV4uA@public.gmane.org
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.
I've spent some time over the years convincing public figures that we need official pictures released for articles, rather than relying on fan (or publicity or staff) produced pictures. Because of my own experience in the academic, computing, political, and music industries, I've had a modicum of success.
I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them. From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.
Problem is a lot of cases of fans doing the same thing. We prefer people to go through OTRS under the interesting assumption that people are less likely to lie via email.
This week, one of the commons administrators (Yann) ran a script of some sort that flagged hundreds of pictures for deletion, apparently based on the proximity of the word facebook in the description. There was no time for actual legal analysis, at a rate of more than one per minute. The only rationale given was: "From Facebook. No permission."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sharon_Agu...
In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook." Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.
Given the number of people who copy celebrity pics from random places on the web it does matter.
A bot posted a link to the notice on the en.wiki talk page that used the photo, where in turn it appeared in my watchlist.
Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."
That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable. Self-justifying strawman argument.
I'm not seeing a strawman argument.
In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file. A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself. The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!
In practice the situation can be far more messy with the actual copyright being potentially split among up 4 different people/groups (the photographer, the celebrity, the celebrity's management, any show they happen to be appearing on at the time).
After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
Yann is sticking to the OTRS route which you were trying to sidestep. Given that you were arguing at cross purposes there is a reasonable case to be made that it had no utility.
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others
Have business models based on their users breaching copyright on a massive scale. They are from our point of view only of interest in terms of what not to do.
have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- DMCA doesn't require a takedown until there's been a complaint.
We are trying to build a free content database. Not a "no one has gotten around to issuing a DMCA takedown notice yet" database. Photobucket is that way.
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.
The obvious comeback asside. The waiting for a complaint method is inconsistent with our goals to create a free content image collection and weaken our hand against illegitimate complaints. A key reason we can shrug off the likes of the NPG and remain somewhat credible is that we are somewhat paranoid about IP issues.
- 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.
This is commons not en. We try to keep bureaucracy down to reasonable levels (257 admins and 10 million images its not like we can afford to do otherwise).
- 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.
- 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.
We generally fall back on OTRS.
- We probably could use some kind of comparison utility to help
confirm/deny a photo or article is derived from another source.
Mostly a mix of tineye, checksums and mark 1 human eyeball. The best commercial tech I'm aware of is PicScout and I suspect our tactics do a better job.
On 11/12/11 7:36 PM, Platonides wrote:
Forwarding geni reply at commons-l.
On 12/11/11 16:00, geni wrote:
On 12 November 2011 14:34, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you David. I didn't know about Yet Another Technical List.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: William Allen Simpsonwilliam.allen.simpson@gmail.com Date: 12 November 2011 14:11 Subject: [Wikitech-l] Overzealous Commons deletionists To: Wikimedia developerswikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: ...
I also ask them to create an official user identity for posting them. Since Single User Login (SUL), this has the added benefit that nobody else can pretend to be them. From their point of view, it's the same reason they also ensure they have an existing facebook or linkedin or twitter account.
Problem is a lot of cases of fans doing the same thing. We prefer people to go through OTRS under the interesting assumption that people are less likely to lie via email.
Silly assumption. Insulting to the folks who create user accounts.
And OTRS isn't mentioned anywhere.
In this case, timestamps indicate the commons photo was posted before the facebook photo, and the facebook version is somewhat smaller, so there's not even the hint that it was copied "From Facebook." Besides, many public figures also have facebook accounts, so it shouldn't matter that a photo appears in both places.
Given the number of people who copy celebrity pics from random places on the web it does matter.
Do they register user names as the celebrity?
Do they put licenses on the pics stating that they own them?
And do you (geni et alia) call everybody a liar by default?
Then, despite my protest noting that the correct copyright release was included, the administrator (Yann) argued that "The EXIF data says that the author is John Taylor. The uploader has another name, so I don't think he is allowed to decide a license."
That appears to be post-hoc explanation, as the facebook one obviously wasn't applicable. Self-justifying strawman argument.
I'm not seeing a strawman argument.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Straw_man
To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
In this case, as is usual in the most industries, the *camera* owner appears in the EXIM file. A public figure who pays the studio for headshots owns the picture itself. The photographer would need the public figure's permission to distribute the photo!
In practice the situation can be far more messy with the actual copyright being potentially split among up 4 different people/groups (the photographer, the celebrity, the celebrity's management, any show they happen to be appearing on at the time).
Doubtless. And you (geni) aren't qualified to decide, as you are not knowledgeable about any of these facts in any case.
After pointing out the nomination didn't even remotely meet the deletion policy nomination requirements (that I cited and quoted), this administrator wrote: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
Yann is sticking to the OTRS route which you were trying to sidestep.
Yann made no mention of OTRS.
I sincerely doubt you (geni) have an OTRS ticket for each and every image, and delete any image without one.
Given that you were arguing at cross purposes there is a reasonable case to be made that it had no utility.
Stuff and nonsense. He refused to post the required elements of the deletion request. He wrote nothing substantive.
There are a number of obvious technical issues. YouTube and others
Have business models based on their users breaching copyright on a massive scale. They are from our point of view only of interest in terms of what not to do.
Please stop regurgitating tripe. That's not an accurate description of their business models -- and probably legally actionable.
They have well-paid lawyers. Certainly, those (like geni) who refuse to follow legal requirements are destined to destroy the project.
have had to handle this, it's time for us.
- DMCA doesn't require a takedown until there's been a complaint.
We are trying to build a free content database. Not a "no one has gotten around to issuing a DMCA takedown notice yet" database. Photobucket is that way.
If the Foundation decides it wants to provide the service of guaranteeing the content is "free" (for some definition of "free"), then it's also legally liable for failure.
Better to have formal processes that meet legal requirements and follow precedent.
Heaven forfend that you find any of the politicians whom I got to post their photos. They won't take kindly to deletionists.
People stop the flame war, try to design a solution! What would avoid the problem, and still make it possible for the commons admins to do their job properly. Everybody knows they screw up from time to time, its no help if you keep yelling at them. Been there, done that, didn't help a bit.
Why did it fail this time and what can be changed that makes it less likely to fail in the future. Is there any easy quick fix, and is there any larger changes to the overall process.
John
* John Erling Blad wrote:
People stop the flame war, try to design a solution! What would avoid the problem, and still make it possible for the commons admins to do their job properly. Everybody knows they screw up from time to time, its no help if you keep yelling at them. Been there, done that, didn't help a bit.
Why did it fail this time and what can be changed that makes it less likely to fail in the future. Is there any easy quick fix, and is there any larger changes to the overall process.
Tell uploaders, if they upload images published elsewhere without clear licensing information, especially if the images have been created pro- fessionally, to coordinate their uploads with OTRS; tell others to avoid starting mass-deletion efforts without carefully coordinating that with the community in a suitable forum first. That would seem sufficient.
On 11/12/11 10:43 PM, John Erling Blad wrote:
People stop the flame war, try to design a solution! What would avoid the problem, and still make it possible for the commons admins to do their job properly. Everybody knows they screw up from time to time, its no help if you keep yelling at them. Been there, done that, didn't help a bit.
Why did it fail this time and what can be changed that makes it less likely to fail in the future. Is there any easy quick fix, and is there any larger changes to the overall process.
It failed because:
(a) An administrator (Yann) used a script to post hundreds of deletion requests that happen to mention the word facebook, without verifying that they were in fact copied from facebook. Also, posted more than one per minute, leaving no time for examination, and without any rationale required by deletion policy.
(b) When policy was cited, Yann stated: "I see that discussion with you is quite useless."
(c) A mere 5 minutes later, another administrator (Béria Lima) deleted the file, appearing to collude with the first administrator instead of providing independent review. This second administrator has several other complaints on his Talk about not waiting 7 days to close as required by policy.
(d) Other deletion requests on the same date without comments have not been deleted. That is, folks who respond are punished.
My solution is (renumbered):
(1) Use the reviewed flag to indicate each file has had a look. Only obvious copyvio may be removed, as is policy for speedy deletion.
(2) Once reviewed, no deletion without a formal DMCA complaint, registered with the Foundation Designated Agent.
(3) Log the date of the deletion request in the database. Prevent deletion until the 7 day (configured) review time has expired.
(4) Throttle fast scripts from posting deletion requests, just as we do now with moves. No administrator exception.
(5) Add a new WORD or function that ensures an email notice is sent for users who haven't checked previous Talk changes.
(6) This email notice should be done upon setting the deletion request log and actual deletion of watched pages as well, no weekly bundling.
(7) Add an optional phone number for SMS messages instead.
(8) Link the OTRS (or something) to the SUL user for any needed verification. Keep the email address hidden in the OTRS, just as in the user database.
(9) Be able to handle diffs from outside sites, for checking that files are identical or have minor changes.
(10) Better process documentation.
(11) More stringent steward imposed penalties for violations.
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 4:43 AM, John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
People stop the flame war, try to design a solution! What would avoid the problem, and still make it possible for the commons admins to do their job properly. Everybody knows they screw up from time to time, its no help if you keep yelling at them. Been there, done that, didn't help a bit.
Why did it fail this time and what can be changed that makes it less likely to fail in the future. Is there any easy quick fix, and is there any larger changes to the overall process.
I would say there's two things that I would have liked to see changed, which would have minimized drama in this case: 1. In large scale deletion proposals, the person proposing the deletion should still personally check each image to see whether it applies. This should not be kept to the people objecting or the person closing the deletion request. In this case it would have meant that only those pictures were proposed for deletion where Facebook was mentioned as the source of the picture, rather than every picture on which the word occurred - and even for those, a quick check of Facebook to see whether it wasn't likely that there were correctly licensed pictures there. 2. No copyright paranoia. If someone comes with a believable story that an image on Commons is correctly licensed, like in this case William's "I know this uploader and it's the celebrity in question", this is sufficient barring evidence of the contrary. Do not delete pictures because 'they could be a copyright violation' but only because 'they are likely to be a copyright violation'.
On 11/13/11 4:21 AM, Andre Engels wrote:
I would say there's two things that I would have liked to see changed, which would have minimized drama in this case:
- In large scale deletion proposals, the person proposing the deletion
should still personally check each image to see whether it applies. This
Agreed. According to the current policy, that's what they are already supposed to be doing. The problem we have is a few administrators (and potentially anybody else) spamming out hundreds per day each, without doing actual checking.
should not be kept to the people objecting or the person closing the deletion request.
Administrators are supposed to be the cleanup crew. We're not supposed to be cleaning up after administrators.
In this case it would have meant that only those pictures were proposed for deletion where Facebook was mentioned as the source of the picture, rather than every picture on which the word occurred - and even for those, a quick check of Facebook to see whether it wasn't likely that there were correctly licensed pictures there.
We've seen this problem before with page moves, and with category deletion, and with other disruptive processes. We added technical measures to regulate them.
Looking at nearby days, I'm seeing these runs of 300 per day. Consequently, they have a huge backlog to review.
With no real checking by an "independent" administrator, and no real opportunity for the copyright holder to be notified or respond.
As Russ Nelson mentioned early in this thread:
# A lack of prompt response is taken as proof that their claim # (no matter how wild) is true.
- No copyright paranoia. If someone comes with a believable story that an
image on Commons is correctly licensed, like in this case William's "I know this uploader and it's the celebrity in question", this is sufficient barring evidence of the contrary. Do not delete pictures because 'they could be a copyright violation' but only because 'they are likely to be a copyright violation'.
Agreed. This is partly a "social" change. But I proposed a technological enforcement mechanism, because it's virtually impossible for any human to monitor. Most of us don't have the time. Linking actual complaints to the deletion process would be helpful in forestalling this guessing behavior.
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