[WikiEN-l] A Solution to the Image Problem

[John Lee]

Stan Shebs wrote:

>Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>  
>
>>When we say "that's policy", what we're *really* saying is "because I 
>>and a few other people said so".  Learning the *reason* why we do 
>>things, so that a) we can do them properly, and b) we can explain them 
>>to others, is vital.
>>
>>    
>>
>The image use policy page said all that three years ago when I
>started at WP, and it still does; I didn't have any trouble
>understanding it after working on WP for a couple weeks. The
>upload page has all manner of links and warnings, which link
>to even further explanations, eventually going back to first
>principles for those that want to learn all about copyright law.
>
>While I want to assume good faith in all of this, in actually
>looking through a random swath of recent untagged uploads, the
>explanations that come to mind are either that we have many
>editors with the IQ of a turnip, or they are deliberately
>ignoring the policy and explanations we're putting in front
>of them. Whichever the case, their uploads are not helping
>build the encyclopedia, and we need to stop making excuses
>for them.
>
>Stan
>  
>
I agree here. I want to AGF, and perhaps in a number of cases, yes, the 
editor is just acting in good faith. But I've seen a number of cases -- 
even on Commons -- where the uploader just wanted some pictures for his 
article. Take, for instance, the images on [[Michelle Kwan]], which are 
all licenced under the GPL and yet are sourced from Encarta or some 
Tripod webpage -- neither of which mentions *anything* about the GPL. 
Numerous images previously used on the article as fair use were taken 
down (for what reasons, I know not) and replaced with these ostensibly 
"free" images. I suspect this is more common than we might think. I 
browse the celebrity articles quite often, and I keep seeing this game 
of musical chairs going on with the images because they're fair use. 
Each time the image gets replaced with either an image lacking 
source/licence data or another fair use image -- in either case, the 
image will end up deleted after a while, and the cycle will repeat. Is 
it any wonder that fans get fed up and start blatantly lying to us about 
the copyright status of images?

Then there are some cases where you just have to AGF but also yell "what 
the bloody hell were you thinking?" at the uploaders. For instance, 
there's an image of [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]] on Commons tagged as public 
domain because of age when it wasn't even taken 50 years ago. (And I 
really doubt Malaysian copyright law provides for such a short period of 
copyright.) And then we have a number of images tagged with a template 
identifying them as PD because they are a work of an employee of the 
Malaysian Prime Minister's Office. Only problem is that there's 
*nothing* to show that this assertion is true. The Malaysian PM's site 
is copyrighted by the Malaysian government, with all rights reserved -- 
and I doubt it wasn't created by employees of the PM's Office.

These mistaken taggings are more worrying, IMO, because they tend to 
come from active editors who just don't know any better. For most other 
cases I think it is reasonable to AGF, but most images with copyright 
problems *are* uploaded by throwaway accounts or people who blatantly 
lie to us. These are the two main problems (from my experience): good 
and active editors simply not knowing better, and throwaway accounts/bad 
faith editors uploading just any old damn image -- and in some cases 
tagging it incorrectly as free.

Having said that, I do think that it might be a tad over-reacting to 
make it extremely complicated/impossible for new editors to upload 
images. The problem is that the only good way to tell if someone is 
acting in good faith and at least knows something about our policies is 
by how long that editor has been here and how many edits that editor has 
made. Pretty much anything else is subject to gaming, as Mark 
Wagner/Carnildo has pointed out.

John