Debate over non-free images heats up
In continuation of the story the Signpost ran last week about featured lists, discussion began Tuesday, involving more than two dozen editors, on the administrators' noticeboard. It concerns the inclusion of fair use images in lists such as that of Family Guy episodes, and the general undertakings of the Episode list WikiProject.
Last month, after noting its effect on the nominees for featured list status, Tompw initiated discussion about modifying the featured list criteria to exclude non-free content from lists. It was aimed mainly at lists for television series which contain a screenshot from every episode. Most in support of the changes stated that screenshots could be used on the articles for individual episodes, but need not be used in episode summaries, which generally contain only one or two sentences about specific episodes. Several editors 'strongly' opposed the modifications, citing various things, including the lack of usability of a screenshot for piracy. Others said screenshots simply made the list more visually appealing and an easier recognition of a given episode, without reading the summary. Discussion on the page continued through April.
On April 30, ESkog removed all of the images from List of Family Guy episodes, claiming a lack of fair use in his edit summaries. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous user reverted the change, but ESkog restored his version some three hours later.
The images in this fair-use image gallery are continually re-added by anons and other editors who seem not to appreciate our fair-use policy which explicitly prohibits decorative uses such as this one.
ESkog regarding List of Family Guy episodes
The anonymous user again reverted the change, after which ESkog made mention of the issue on the administrators' noticeboard. At this point, administrator Ryulong quickly reverted to ESkog's imageless version and protected the page, saying, "fair use violations aplenty." The original posting by ESkog and note of protection at the noticeboard has since sparked nearly 40,000 words of discussion. In it, he described the inclusion of a screenshot for every list as a "decorative fair-use gallery". Cburnett was very unhappy with the change and quick protection by Ryulong, calling it an obvious endorsement of his preferred version. He also accused Ryulong of taking the administrative action of protection against a page to which he was involved in editing. Also troublesome was the definition of "decorative"; several users sided with ESkog and maintained the philosophy that listed screenshots should not be included.
Cburnett queried as to the amount of time that was spent ridding the Family Guy list of non-free images, when other lists, such as that for Naruto, were allowed to retain them. Ryulong then swiftly made his first edits to that list, three of which were formatting-related. The other was a reversion of the restoration by Someguy0830 of Zscout370's removal of the screenshots.
There are 15 featured List of X episode pages. Five of them are currently fine and look like any other featured list, sparsely illustrated if at all. The remaining, however, are overloaded with decorative non-free images. Start your vacuums.
Peregrine Fisher appeared to be the main advocate for non-free image retention. He initially questioned the poor location of the discussion, and later tried to shed light on the decision that had been made regarding a proposed amendment to Wikipedia's fair use criteria. Discussion continued for a number of hours, concerning the number of editors required to achieve consensus, followed by numerous reminders that the discussion was not strictly a vote. Later, WAS 4.250 proposed that smaller (icon) sized images should be used, but the proposal was quickly dismissed. Administrator Cyde Weys, a major contributor to the discussion, said that he had taken the initiative in deleting images that had been orphaned since their removal from various lists.
Gmaxwell provided a list of articles that were featured, but had episode screenshots. The most notable were those of The Simpsons, a series for which there are eighteen seasons. Future Perfect at Sunrise and Picaroon9288 removed the non-free screenshots from these lists. For a number of the other lists, users who were unaware of the discussion on the noticeboard, reverted the image removal. Early Tuesday, Cyde created a page on which lists that have had their screenshots removed are to be added. Several users have since assisted in the massive removal of the images, sparking minor edit wars at various locations; a number of episode lists were temporarily protected because of disputes that arose from the removal of images, which involved multiple editors.
Consensus, or at least a general acceptance of the policy and the subsequent image removal effort, began to emerge Wednesday. Cburnett, who initially was unhappy with the immediacy of the matter and lack of consensus, praised editors for dealing with the issue in a professional manner. Hard feelings finally turned against Wikipedia's vague fair use policy for non-free images. Regarding long-term solutions to the problem, Crotalus horridus proposed a separate Wiki exclusively for popular culture. The forked site would continue to license text under the GNU Free Documentation License, but there would be a much less restrictive use on non-free content. The proposal generated discussion, but was considered unfeasible.
Discuss this story
There's so much content to read through on this issue guys, so, add what you can. --Phoenix (talk) 22:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Two minor nitpicks
Two minor points.
Probably using another example would solve both points neatly. List_of_One_Piece_episodes was discussed several times around that point in the discussion, as it had 300 non-free images. This is a minor enough change to the news piece that I'll leave someone else to do it.. :)--Gmaxwell 15:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Misses the most important point
The article misses the most important point: that the gratuitous overuse of non-free images is being rectified on all "List of" articles. See User:Cyde/Cleaned up lists for a list of the ones we've cleaned up thus far. As you can see, it is a rather large undertaking. --Cyde Weys 19:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
template edit
The article should comment on the eventual removal of images at the source: from the templates used to create many, if not most of the episode list articles. THAT is what attracted the most attention wiki-wide.Circeus 05:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Appeal for help from interested parties
On my watchlist I have over 1100 pages to which I have contributed--from a single comma to full articles. During the past two years I have uploaded hundreds of popular culture images, making daily uploads at times. Some of these pictures are the result of hours of searching in order to find the perfect and relevant image.
Over 700 of these images have been designated as needing fair use rationale and will vanish from Wikipedia in a few days simply because there's no way I can add rationales to that many pages in a week's time. What is needed is a team of people dedicated to saving this material from banishment by adding fair use rationales. Please help if you can. Thanks. Here is a link that shows what is about to vanish from Wikipedia. Pepso 05:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Formatting changes
Phoenix2 said:
(thanks, but no thanks...there's no need for the change really)
Okay, cool - it just didn't occur to me that the crashing text illustrated below was part of the intended look! ;) -Pete 18:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]