[Foundation-l] Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

[Tomasz Ganicz]

2009/11/22 Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>:
> For some applications (though not necessarily all), it might help if
> the OTRS process was replaced by a standard online permission form
> rather than having Wikimedians negotiate with outsiders in the hope of
> getting them to say magic words.
>
> I might imagine a process somewhat like the following:
>
> 1) User identifies some materials they would like to use on Wikipedia.
> 2) They upload copies to some "staging area".
> 3) They use a utility to prepare a standardized permission form for
> the item(s) in question.
> 4) Through Wikimedia they send an email to the copyright holder
> explaining the situation, and asking them to visit the online form to
> give their permission
> 5) Once approved, the materials could be automatically moved to Commons, etc.
>

It sounds interesting however there is assumption that the user knows
that he/she has to go for
permission if the content is not his/her and does not need to do it if
it is his/her own work. However it is not so simple...

What are current copyvio-checking scenarios, which are different for
files and text:

in case of text:
* first of all we just make an automatic assumption that it is orignal
text of contributors and do not bother the user for legal questions at
all -  he/she just click on edit button and can add his/her stuff -
this is what Wikipedia made sucessful
*It works fine as long as someone will find that the user
contribiution is potential copyvio and add ugly warning template to
the article and user's discussion page
* then we just wait for user reaction
** if none, the text is deleted after several hours or days -
depending on the local project policy;
** if yes we start teribble and time consuming OTRS procedure

in case of files upload it works in a little diferent way
*after clicking upload button - there is a lenghty starting screen
pointing to various upload forms different for diffrent types of media
and/or legal status - that screen was developed in order to decrease
the number of copyvio uploads;
*the user must first choose the proper form and than read plenty of
complicated explanation,
*than fill those not-so-friendly or even quite unfriendly forms
askinkg him/her many strange questions, some of them hard to
understand by newbie;
* if he/she is lucky and do everything properly file upload seems to
be sucessful - user is not bothered;
*if he/she made a mistake - for example she/he writes that the picture
is not taken by he/she bu by his/her classmate and uses {{self|GFDL}}
template...
*we put ugly copyvio template and wait for reaction;
** if none the file is deleted;
**if yes we start OTRS procedure;
*some of those forms suggest to send agreement to OTRS if the file is
not yours but you can upload the file ignoring this suggestion

Bear in mind that ugly copyvio template is used no matter if the
user's contribiution is his/her original, but it was found on other
websites not working under free licences or the user has the
permission but  not send it to OTRS or  the user has no permission at
all. It is just because we don't know the legal status of user's
contributon - in case of files upload we just try to ask him/her by
filling all those terible forms used on Commons or other projects, but
it is easy to give a wrong answer or do silly mistake; in case of text
we don't ask, we only warn a little and then we perform "seek and
destroy" style approach

So, the replacing current ugly-copyvio-template -> OTRS scheme for
something else must take into consideration various scenarios which
are currently handled by that scheme in quite often teribbly
unfriendly style but anyway it is at least handled.

So, the point is that we must "seek and destroy" copyvio and on the
other hand we want to stay friendly, try to assume goodwill, and try
to remain to be "just click and edit" wiki project...


-- 
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html