Hoi, A proposal is discussed that suggest that something "needs" to be done. This need is not substantiated but it is assumed to be there. The idea of a bell-curve is an argument that Jimmy used in one of his presentations to point out to alarmists that there is a perceived crisis but not much of an actual crisis. However, given the volume of pictures that end up on Commons, I can understand and sympathise with the people who deal with this to some extend. Thanks, GerardM
Brad Patrick wrote:
I would be interested to know on what data you rest your conclusions. GMaxwell will back up his statements about the nature of the problem with actual numbers (won't you Greg?) =)
As to Tomasz' statements, I am equally interested in hearing what data, if any, could be marshalled support your broad assertions. They don't strike me as valid, though I could be proven wrong. I have doubts that will be the case.
Erik's point is well taken; the deletionists have the better argument as far as Commons goes, so I lean in his direction on that point. I do know that there is still a lot of garbage in Commons nevertheless.
I still don't see, especially in the case of single login, how providing an email address is a net loss for those who upload images. Nobody has answered why the balance should tilt in favor of single-uploaders rather than established users.
On 6/28/06, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Kat Walsh wrote:
On 6/28/06, Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
But a confirmed email addresses for uploading photos ? This is really way too sick. We would be annoying every single contributor while gaining absolutely nothing.
We should rather get back to the situation where unregistered users have all the options available - editing pages, creating new articles, uploading pictures, moving articles, everything. Having to register doesn't stop a single vandal.
Gaining nothing? It hurts users for us not to be able to contact them. Text usually stays, as a fact in an article can be found and supported by a source even if it is not the same source the writer used. But an image? If we cannot find the original and do not know where it came from, it must be deleted. That's a pretty big loss, I think, both for Wikimedia not being able to use it and for the original contributor who sees the effort they spent to upload and place it gone to waste.
This isn't intended to stop vandalism, though it may slow it; any vandal can register an account with an email address also. It is intended to help good-faith users who want to contribute media. We need to be strict about enforcing proper tagging and licensing of images; we cannot budge on that. But it is a sad loss to delete things simply because they didn't understand the procedure and we don't know how to reach them.
Confirming an email address is a small thing and a one-time thing, and does not require giving up anonymity. I still see it a net positive.
-Kat
Hoi, People who contribute a picture once are not vandals. It is ridiculous to suggest this
The rules of the "game" have increasingly become more restrictive and pictures that used to be acceptable are no longer considered acceptable. I have in the past uploaded uploaded pictures with permission. I had added a message about the original author at the time. Then came thumbs and these messages went, some time later people decided to check permissions could not find them and deleted stuff. I found it out after I signed on to that project after some time. Because of the elegance in which people the Commons "community" decide that it is their way or the high way, I became in many ways less interested.
People insist that it is not feasible to discuss changes to Commons policies with the projects in advance and, that it is sufficient to restrict this discussion to intimi.. This seems to me reminiscent to one of those tribes that ultimately moved into Africa in AD400 or thereabouts.
I also dispute that our problem becomes bigger. I am convinced that the problem is like a bell-curve, as the absolute number of pictures goes up, the percentage of what you consider "problematic" pictures stays the same however the number of material that you still want to check increases. When you confuse this with a growing problem you easily forget the number of files that have been checked. Because people are working hard on this in a best effort way and as we are quite ready to remove material that is in violation of our copyright rules the problem is not what is depicted.
By talking about it as if there is a crisis, you make it a crisis; it seems as if we are at war.. I am not convinced AT ALL.
Thanks, GerardM