User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive G

Did you come here looking for something fun to do? Ok, now would be a good time to go speedy delete some images from "Images with unknown source" and "Images with unknown copyright status". According to the new speedy deletion criterion (I just changed it), these can be deleted on sight when they have been on the site for at least 7 days. (7 days to allow the opportunity for the uploaders to provide proper data, although in most cases, I see no particular reason to contact them: more often, people who do this should be blocked from editing, as they represent a legal risk to the project and are not behaving in an intellectually responsible manner.)

I am hopeful that a major push to sort through these two categories with an aim of eliminating everything in them can be completed in two weeks. If this policy change isn't enough to change the direction on these issues dramatically, we'll have to take some further steps to disallow uploads except to people who have somehow earned the right.--Jimbo Wales 14:52, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Is this a reaction to actual legal threats agains the project or just an attempt at a long overdue cleanup? Plugwash 01:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
May I suggest that your instructions above be placed on the en.wikipedia Front Page so that more people can be made aware that this is happening? I might give folks a chance to properly tag some of their images before they disappear. Some users, particularly newbies, may be simply unaware of the importance of proper tags, etc.. Alternately, maybe something can be added to the Upload File page. Cheers. 23skidoo 04:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
This seems a little excessive and prone to causing conflicts, especially without it giving any chance for people to update the descriptions or clarify issues (as a proper copyvio procedure allows). Perhaps a speedy isn't the right way to remove these? As to "... disallow uploads except to people who have somehow earned the right," that can only hurt wikipedia by reducing the number of good images people take and provide. Many new users create an account when they take an excellent photo for an article, then find they can't upload it, even though they have been making other edits already... making them jump through hoops or otherwise not be able to upload easily is going to make them not bother. Bushytails 06:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I do agree that it is preferable to allow new users to continue to be able to upload images, if those images are consistent with policy. However, it is absolutely not excessive to move this category into 'speedy deletion'.--Jimbo Wales 06:39, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Would it, therefore, be sensible to make a technical change so that all images uploaded must have a licence noted? [[Sam Korn]] 10:52, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
The sort of users that upload copyvio in good faith are just lost in the instructions... If we make it mandatory, we'll just get license lottery: They'll pick one at random and we won't know if the selection has any meaning... The simple fact that a user expended the extra energy to stick on a well formed tag is strong evidence that they had some idea of what they were doing. The real solution is to catch these images as they are uploaded, and catch the user on their talk page during the few-day window that they still might be logged into their account. We are currently so far behind that it's hard to get people to partrol new images, perhaps thats now being corrected... I would strongly oppose making a license take mandatory, but I suspect you were looking for Jimbo's view. :) --Gmaxwell 11:08, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
We're already seeing your license lottery scenario playing out with the new form-based license choice at Special:Upload. Take a look at the recent influx into Category:GPL images; {{GPL}} was the default choice for the first two weeks. —Cryptic (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, good point. Well, in that case, how about a new images log? Oh, yes, we already have one: Special:Log/upload. It would be nice to be able to filter users, but you can't have everything... [[Sam Korn]] 11:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
There is also the new Special:Newimages that displays the images as thumbnails. You still can't filter on users, but you might find it useful. --GraemeL (talk) 11:36, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Gmaxwell. Using myself as an example of copyvio in good faith, I uploaded images and just put the generic "fair use" tag on them, because I didn't know it was wrong, I saw other people doing it, I knew nothing about copyrights, and I didn't even know I should be looking for more info regarding policy. I'm wiser now, but how many images have I uploaded? I don't even know. There are numerous images under the generic "fair use" tag, that should really be moved to "Images with unknown source" or "Images with unknown copyright status" (especially any uploaded by me during my early times) I think if it's easy to accidentally "hide" an image behind a generic "fair use" tag, it will be equally easy to do it deliberately. Keeping track of them as they're being loaded might be better, and perhaps something could be put in the image description page to say the image has been looked at and is acceptable, to help prevent image deletion pages being clogged up with nominations for deletion of images that are actually ok. Rossrs 11:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the bottom of Jimbo's talk page, you'll see I'm proposing some new fairuse templates. I thought I'd give Jimbo a chance to object before I start selling it to everone, since he's demonstrated a pronounced hands-on interested in these maters recently. I think you'll find my proposed fair use templates address your concerns (you must specify why it's fair use, and where it can be used). Per the discussion above, I almost think it would be wise to remove all direct mention of templates from the screen and only direct people to the page with instructions (as well as provide the short short guidelines). I'd rather run the risk of a user who didn't get the license right on the first pass being unavailable to answer a question and having to delete the image than have them put in incorrect information and be unavailable, leading to a long drawn out battle over the image. Though I think the new CSD criteria helps us a *lot* here. --Gmaxwell 12:37, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I noticed your proposal after I added my comment above. I think it's a step in the right direction. Anything that makes the rules less ambiguous or less open to personal interpretation can only make things easier. Rossrs 21:24, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

.

There are two issues i can see with doing that.
  1. It makes it more burocratic to introduce finer grained license categorisations as needed.
  2. It leaves the very real possibility that people will choose to mismark an image so the software will let them upload it. Unmarked images are a lot less trouble to find and deal with than mismarked ones.
--Plugwash 11:11, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I was just wondering, do these new changes mean we longer have a need for WP:PUI? Craigy File:Uk flag large.png (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
No, as invalid fair use claims still need to be taken through there. I hope that is Jimbo's next topic to address! [[Sam Korn]] 18:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Ah yes, of course (*nudge, nudge* Jimbo :-P). Craigy File:Uk flag large.png (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2005 (UTC)