I completely agree. Anonymity is not equal to the right to be uncontactable everafter.
On 6/28/06, Kat Walsh mindspillage@gmail.com wrote:
One of the big problems with checking and tagging images is that we often cannot contact the uploaders -- they register an account, maybe only to upload, and then they never log in again, never check their talk page, didn't provide an email address, and you have no way to contact them.
A lot of images are deleted because we simply have no way to contact the uploader who didn't provide a source or a license to ask them what the correct information is.
I think it would be a big step forward to require a confirmed email address in order to upload images. It's a not a large hurdle for contributors, no minimum time or edit count -- just that we must be able to contact you, and then if we cannot, we're sure it's not just because you haven't been checking your talk page.
This would also make it far easier for reusers of our media to contact the contributors to confirm! Wikimedia gets many requests to reprint photos and often we have to say that we simply do not know how to get in touch with the copyright holder -- someone who last edited a year ago is not likely to check a talk page.
I hear it said that this would be an easy feature to implement.
Suggestions/thoughts/objections?
-Kat
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