Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 June 20

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

< Wikipedia:Templates for deletion | Log

< June 19	June 21 >

1 June 20, 2006

[edit] June 20, 2006

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Redirect to Db -> Db-reason Maybe one of the template gurus can make this look nice without a default reason, but it's insane to delete this one, also, the redirect will encourage the habit of putting reasons, which isn't bad, and if fixed, wouldn't force it either. -- Drini 19:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Delete

Template:Delete (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
I'm well aware that this template has been the source of TfDs in the past. However I think that the template should be deleted. I say this after having had to correct an editor tonight who used this template, but not only that replaced a db-bio template with it. We seem to be sending out mixed messages, on the one hand saying don't use this template, but on the other actually having it. I understand all the arguments that have been presented before, regarding the extra time it can take RC patrollers to add reasons, or that admins in the end have to evaluate a reason. Yet, the evidence suggests that the vast majority of RC partollers do now use db templates, and that I would imagine that it makes admins jobs that bit easier having a good indication of why the page is a CSD before even reading the article. Wisd e n17 19:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep for two reasons;

the db-whatevers are not easy for the rest of us to remember.
If the reason for speedying a page is not obvious by inspection, it probably shouldn't be speedied. (It may be a proper and unanimous xfD, but that's another story.) Septentrionalis 19:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment WP:SPEEDY has a very useful list of templates to use, and your second point is surely a reason for deletion. If you can't see a template that fits, or can't associated the problems of the article with a speedy deletion reason then you should either prod it or AfD it. So by having to put a reason it can eliminate unnecssary speedies (to an extent) and so surely you've just provided further reason to delete it? (SomeStranger has beaten me to commenting on your reasoning) --Wisd e n17 20:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Septentrionalis, I think your second reason for keeping it is actually a reason to delete. If the reason for speedying is not obvious then it should go to xfD. It should not have an ambigious template placed on it that leaves more work for an admin later who either has to make a decision or just ends up putting the article in an xfD.--SomeStranger^(t) 20:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- But no form of speedy nomination should be used when the reason is not manifest; this one at least brings the problem out into the open. How about a no-include tag: Use only when reason for speedying is obvious by inspection? Septentrionalis 20:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment I had to laugh - deleting the delete template? LOL. Anyway, I vote to either redirect it to {{db-reason}} (require a brief explanation) or depreciate it instead of outright deleting it. Hbdragon88 21:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- Reply to above Comment a redirect to db-bio would be pointless as this tag currently applies to all speedy deletion criteria, which obviously extend beyond A7. --Wisden17 21:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  - Oops, sorry, db-reason, not db-bio... Hbdragon88 22:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Redirect to db-reason per Hbdragon88, easy to remember. --E ivind ^t ^@^c 22:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I've several times proposed that this be deprecated based upon the "give me a reason" and "db|reason is easy" before. As long as no one is using it, the relative merits of redirection vs. deletion aren't clear to me. Delete unless I understand why to . - brenneman ^{L} 00:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Strong keep — as I've said in the previous TfDs before, the necessity of having a {{delete}} template is crucial. Even if not popular or well-used, it still is criticial and integral. First, almost every single Wikipedia has a speedy deletion template at Template:<delete>, where <delete> is in the local language. Deleting this from the English Wikipedia - the largest one - would simply make it inconsistent, and make it difficult for people to find who are less familiar with the English Wikipedia to tag an article for speedy deletion. Someone who mainly edits, say, the Turkish Wikipedia won't know to tag something as {{db-bio}}; they'll instinctively tag it as {{delete}}. In addition, as I've argued many other times before, the template is also useful for RC patrollers. Even if not widely in use, forcing people to spend more time to add another template instead of using this one is a waste of time; not everyone has all the delete templates memorized, including the often-cited {{db-reason}}, and forcing them to search for a new template when this one conveys the exact same message and does the job appropriately is excessive. Finally, we must keep in mind that Wikipedia is not paper. Even if something is depreciated, we usually don't delete it. (Not that I agree that this template is depreciated, but that's another debate.) Deleting it would be akin to deleting a part of our history - it has played a long and important part in the development of Wikipedia, and there's simply no reason to delete it just because it's not used as much. Sorry for my long comment... Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- Comment Your point about foreign Wikipedias using this template then begs the question why do we not propose it for deletion on foreign Wikipedias (I'll take a look at the French one today then) any takers for the Turkish one? With regard to the extra time it takes to add a reason, as I said in my nomination that seems a weak point. The number of people who currently use this template is minimal, and as I also said in the nomination WP:SPEEDY contains a handy list of deletion tables at the bottom of the page. I'm sure this won't have changed your mind at all but it is worth considering.--Wisd e n17 10:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- Comment lol, I had the same complaints with image tags not being the same when I tried to tag an image on the French Wikipedia. A long and important history - and so what? Do we cut-and-paste to move pages anymore? No. Do we continue to use {{fairuse}}? No. Wikipedia doesn't keep things for archival reasons: when somethinb better comes up, the old thing is replaced. But I think the administrators have enough to deal with on CSD - why make them guess at what the problem is? It might be obvious to me but not to the next administrator that happens to be looking at it. The db templates should be used as much as possible so administrators can delete or keep faster. Hbdragon88 20:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete and move db-reason to take its place per Flcelloguy's concerns. — Philwelch t 08:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete because better alternatives ({{db|...}}) are available. ais523 16:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Look what it says on the criteria for speedy deletion page. "{{delete}}, {{d}}: Request Speedy Deletion, without providing a reason. This template should not be used." Why on earth do we need a template for which its only use is now prohibited? Now, I would normally say "fine whatever just keep it" but in this case people still use the template although it says not to. What easier way to prevent this from happening exists than to simply delete or redirect the template.--SomeStranger^(t) 16:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep. For someone who only occasionally nominates something for speedy deletion, it is much easier to remember 1 template than all the db-foo's. If {{delete}} is removed, it is more likely that that someone won't bother to mark the article at all than that he will look for the correct SD template, which would be a loss for Wikipedia. As Septentrionalis says, if it is unclear why the article should be speedied just by looking at the article itself, it probably is not a speedy at all. (Redirection to {{db}} would be fine too, as that template has more or less the same result when called without a parameter.) -- Eugène van der Pijll 21:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- Comment But the point is you don't need to remember all the fancy pre-formed templates. All you need do is put {{db|reason}}, that is hardly that hard to remember, is it? It just seems that we are sending out conflicting messages, as pointed out above, by on the one hand saying don't use this, but on the other actually having it (it's almost like a temptation). --Wisden17 22:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
  - My point is we should make it as easy as possible to nominate something for speedy deletion, because we can use all the help we can get to get rid of all the crap here. And {{delete}} and/or {{d}} is easier than {{db}}, and easier by far than db+reason. If we don't want to send out conflicting messages, undeprecate {{delete}}. Eugène van der Pijll 22:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- Comment There are quite a few CSD reasons that aren't clear by just looking at the page. Copyvios, duplicate images, reposted material, afd not deleted, hisotry merger, and contributions from a banned user are all not-so-obvious speedy deletions. Hbdragon88 02:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep Deleing this template will mack holes in pages history and comfus people that use this thenplate by redirect it plesering port of Wikipedia history. I thank the ony good resom to delet this themplate is do to the fac that some good article got delet by this template**My Cat inn @ (talk)** 17:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Redirect to {{db-reason}}. The first logical thing to think when looking for a template to ask admins to delete crap is "delete". As this template is deprecated, we shouldn't use it, but that doesn't address the problem of newbies not finding the correct template and going with their first instinctive guess. The best way to solve it is by redirecting the template, which has the side effect of forcing the tagger to provide a reason. If the reason they give is bad, well, we still do the same amount of work that we would need to do if there weren't any reason provided, because we would need to analyze whether the article is a speedy-deletion candidate in both cases. Also, if someone is required to give a reason, then that gives an added incentive for the tagger to read WP:CSD. Tito xd^(?!?) 18:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Redirect to db-reason per Titoxd. Seems like forcing someone to provide a reason will do no harm, and can do good (and perhaps force people to learn the CSD categories quicker.) Grand master ka 19:57, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was moved to SfD. SomeStranger^(t) 20:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Dvd-stub

Template:Dvd-stub (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Orphaned template I discovered some hours ago. It is not being widely used (three articles other than the 8 I tagged before realizing the template was unused), its associated category doesn't exist (Category:DVD stubs), and according to the Stub project, movies are sorted according to genre. [1] ReyBrujo 19:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment Doesn't this discussion really belong at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. This user seems to be new to stub sorting :) I've moved the request to WP:SFD. Valentinian ^(talk) 19:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was KEEP -- Drini 19:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:IndefblockedIP

sheesh .. quick to the draw! There was a clear problem here (as discussed on various talkpages including yours and mine and WP:ANI,) and a solution was required. There is no current template that covers the same ground (ie IP block not username block). Also, policy doesn't actually preclude the statement in nor content of this template. I'd also refer people to Bugzilla 550 --AlisonW 19:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Indefinite is not the same as infinite. Please take note that User:AlisonW = Alison Wheeler, the chair of Wikimedia UK. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 22:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

(In my defence might I be permitted to state that I created and used this template purely in an "I'm a wikipedia editor and nobody special" status!) --AlisonW 22:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep There are certain situations where this is completely appropriate. Static IPs CAN be blocked indefinately due to repeated vandalism, only dynamic ranges cannot be indef blocked. ALKIVAR™ 23:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Policy states: "For dynamic IPs, [vandalism] blocks should last up to 24 hours... For static IPs, blocks should... [be] for a maximum of one month. Prodego ^talk 02:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep, per CSCWEM and Alkivar. Ian Manka Talk to me! 07:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I never use the templates so I have no strong views on their construction. However, as a user of a dynamic ISP it seems to me that the weedy policy on vandals is the basis of the problem, which could be largely obviated by requiring a user name plus 30minutes wait. The constant autoblocks are a pain for me as an experienced user and admin, so I wonder how many potential contributors we lose from AOL who are faced with an immediate block. And all this so we can let the vandals run riot. jimfbleak 09:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep per CSCWEM and Alkivar. --Myles Long 18:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was Delete -- Drini 19:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:RasulGuliyev

Delete per nom --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 19:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was No consensus to delete --William Allen Simpson 17:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:FOTWpic

Template:FOTWpic (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
The actual drawing of a flag, that is in the Public Domain, contains no originality (threshold of originality) and is therefore ineligible for copyright. Mere labor, if not original, is not copyrightable. The FOTW claims are the result of misinformation. --h-stt !? 11:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No opinion (yet). Interested parties might want to take a look at User talk:Lupo#Template:FOTWpic, and also at the German discussion at de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Bildrechte#Bilder_von_Flags_of_the_world. Lupo 11:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

delete ACK H-stt --Historiograf 13:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

FOTW has rights on their images and it was respected here in English Wikipedia. Only some Germans, who are angry now, that I asked there for the same respect for our work, asking now for deletion.

Here are one more time the arguments for the rights of FOTW:

For your benefit here's an extract of the WIPO copyright treaty, which Germany signed, and to which is therefore legally bound:

Article 2 - Scope of Copyright Protection Copyright protection extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.

This means that the design of most flags may be public domain, which means that anybody can draw them freely, but its expression as a GIF or PNG image is copyrighted by the author of the image.

Furthermore, by your attitude, you and the whole german wikipedia are engaging in illegal activities and you may be pursecuted. Another quote of the same source:

Article 12 - Obligations concerning Rights Management Information

(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention:

(i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority;

(ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.

(2) As used in this Article, “rights management information” means information which identifies the work, the author of the work, the owner of any right in the work, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.

The full text of this treaty can be found at wipo.int.
--J. Patrick Fischer 16:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Fischer: it's no use quoting laws or international treaties. We're all quite aware of them. But you and your German correspondents are talking at cross-purposes. They claim that the FOTW flag images were not copyrightable at all because they lacked the necessary originality. You, on the other hand, obviously and understandably are of the opinion that the images are eligible to copyright. Maybe we could get somewhere if you explained why you believe so. I (as an outsider) have made an attempt to try to see through this at User talk:Lupo#Template:FOTWpic and User talk:Lupo#TfD nomination of Template:FOTWpic, but I don't know whether I'm even on the right track. Lupo 17:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Patrick, either you are completely misinformed or malicious, because your quoted part is severely misleading. Regarding Art 2 only the first line "Article 2 - Scope of Copyright Protection — Copyright protection extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such" is actually from the treaty, the following part from "This means" trough "you may be pursecuted" is an interpretation by someone not named. And it is an interpretation that is not consistent with mainstream judicatur. Please stop using this in discussion. The second article (Art. 12) from the original WIPO treaty is not applicable to our problem here. Please stop using it as an argument, if you don't understand about its scope and intention. Fact is that labour alone, without originality, makes no ground for copyright, and FOTW is not original in their drawings, thus no copyright. This template is misleading and should be deleted. --h-stt !? 18:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear h-stt, I will never understand, why people like you are requesting someone not to use any arguments. If my arguments are wrong, you can tell your arguments and opinons about this and every reader can make his own opinion out of this postings. Or do you want to censor my opinion? --J. Patrick Fischer 09:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

'Keep the template. I am the original creator of the template, and I created this because as a member of the FOTW mailing list and editorial staff, I see a lot of discussion, often heated, about the use of FOTW images on Wikipedia. With some exceptions, the consensus seems to be "No, we do not want our images on there." So, what I did is I created this template, stating that the image came from our website and here is our copyright policy. After several months, it turns out that due to Wikipedia's rules about non-commercial images, it was determined that our images are not supposed to be on here, so the non-commercial tag was added. I don't buy the points that H-stt has stated, since Wikipedia should respect the copyrights of websites, and this will, IMHO, encourage the stealing of images and put them in the public domain. So I want this template to stand, not only as a note saying where the images came from, but also note about its status on Wikipedia. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear ZScout, I will repeat this again and again if needed: You don't have a copyright on the FOTW-flags. They are ineligble for copyright in the US as well as in continental Europe (those are the legal systems I can talk about). This invalidates all your licences, as well as your claims, making this template bogus. --h-stt !? 18:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

While yall sort this out, I'll draw some flags so the amount of FOTW images are reduced as a whole. I still want this template to exist. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

To h-stt: pray, tell why should these drawings not pass the threshold of originality? I must be missing something... (see the example on my talk page). Lupo 19:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

See my short comment on the talk page of the template. The makers of FOTW are proud of their effort to optimize the flags for web use, meaning they try to create a perfect representation of the flag on the screen. This meets the definition of reproduction, and reproduction is just the opposite of originality. --h-stt !? 21:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Zscout, I suggest that you or someone else affiliated with FOTW (someone who has standing) file an OCILLA takedown notice with the Wikimedia Foundation. The WMF legal counsel will deal with the matter directly. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

speedy keep. Nominator does not seem to understand the copyright law as it applies to images of flags. H-sst's own comments indicate that there is original labour involved in the reproduction of these flags by FOTW, who "... are proud of their effort to optimize the flags for web use". In doing this they are putting significant original effort into the creation of the images. Consider this - if images of flags were not subject to copyright, why would FOTW go to such pains to make their own copies? They would simply cut and paste images of flags from elsewhere. Consider too the following analogy: if this is simply a case of reproduction rather than originality, then by the same criterion the recording of classical music, in which orchestras strive to reproduce the efforts of the original composer, cannot be copyright. Neither could any illustrative photographs of paintings - they simply reproduce someone else's artwork. Yet photographs of paintings are in the main copyrighted, despite only being reproductions rather that original items. Look at any website showing images of paintings, and any book of art, and you will see the photographs are copyrighted, despite their deliberate lack of originality. So too are drawings of flags in reference books on flags. Similarly, FOTW's work is copyrighted, and this template is WP's way of consenting to that copyright. If the template is deleted, so too will be the flags, as they will fail to pass WP's copyright restrictions. Grutness...wha? 00:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- Delete. FOTW's effort can either be original, or reproductive, not both. They (quite rightly so) are proud of how good their reproductions are. I think nobody here objects to giving them credit for creating the images, it just doesn't give them copyright. In response to your analogies: With classical music, there is no reproduction other than playing the notes the composer has written down. Anything else is a matter of interpretation, which is original. As for photographs, at least in Europe there are special laws and agreements that make almost any photo copyrightable, except if it's really impossible to make it in any other way (purely 2D reproductions of paintings, for example). —da Pete (ばか) 08:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
  - Reproductions that are composites of multiple base works would probably involve enough creativity to justify copyright. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- "significant original effort": The degree of effort is irrelevant. See Feist v. Rural.
  "if images of flags were not subject to copyright, why would FOTW go to such pains to make their own copies?": Ignorance (or at least knowledge of ambiguity). Why do museums so jealously guard their reproductions' "copyright"?
  
  "if this is simply a case of reproduction rather than originality, then by the same criterion the recording of classical music . . . cannot be copyright.": Classical music is based off sheet music, which can be interpreted in many ways. The same is true for some, but not all, of FOTW's flags. (See 17 USC § 114, in any case, which deals with music specifically.)
  
  "Neither could any illustrative photographs of paintings - they simply reproduce someone else's artwork. Yet photographs of paintings are in the main copyrighted, despite only being reproductions rather that original items. Look at any website showing images of paintings, and any book of art, and you will see the photographs are copyrighted, despite their deliberate lack of originality.": You are mistaken. They claim that they're copyrighted, but avoid the courts like the plague, simply because they aren't. The one time an owner of such reproductions was stupid enough to go to court over it, probably due to incompetent legal counsel, they lost terribly; see Bridgeman v. Corel. Note that almost everything under {{pd-art}} relies on this decision. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

FOTW's images are original web images. At all, the design of a flag and its FOTW image is the same, but a flag is not a web image. FOTW made original web images, which shows how flags look like. --J. Patrick Fischer 09:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I realize that more traditionally "wikilawyering" is a term of abuse applied to arbcom proceedings participants, but we're getting into very dodgy territory if we have to have a moot copyright court just to determine the fate of a template. I can't see that either keeping or deleting is a satisfactory course of action in isolation: we'd thereby either be asserting the validity of FOTW's copyright notice, and the compatibility of its terms of use with our own; or on the other, its invalidity. I'm inclined not to accept anyone's word on this, unless I know for a fact that they make an obscene amount of money as a U.S. IP lawyer, or they're just gotten off the phone to Sandra Day O'Connor (and even then I might ask for five quotes with the intent to take the median). Better just not to touch it with a pole of arbitrary length, unless the foundation's lawyers are willing to take a stance either way. I think Grutness is exactly right, in a round about way: the only satisfactory solution is to delete all images that assert this status, and can't be re-tagged as common-or-garden fair use of some some other sort, and then delete this template. Having disparaged everyone else's not-a-legal-opinion, here's my stab: there's clearly scope and necessity for artistic originality in depicting a flag, at least where the flag is more than a precisely defined geometric shape (for example, where it includes a coat of arms there's generally going to be such scope). Some rulings in the US might make it more dubious if deliberately exactly faithful reproductions, such as a scan or photocopy of a flag or non-copyright image of same. Or perhaps also where the flag is itself essentially "fully specified" in exact shape and colour, as IIRC is the case for the Scottish saltire. Alai 02:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

delete - everything is said by h-stt. We should not support FOTWs copyfraud here. FOTW (and by this the templte) hurt the right of all honest users. --ST ○ 07:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A FOTW-copyrighted flag

These being the "honest users" who would deliberately steal images from FOTW? Like it or not, Wikipedia operates under US law, which makes it clear that these images are being used illegally by Wikipedia. As I pointed out, H-stt's arguments actually support FOTW's clear case here. So if you support "everything said by H-stt" then you too are agreeing that this template must stay if the images are not to be deleted forthwith. As to Alai's point, the Scottish saltire is not fully specified as to shade - and as such the interpretation of that shade by FOTW adds original input into the image, making it doubly covered by copyright. BTW, I should here state that (a) I am a member of FOTW, and (b) I am also a member of an imternational copyrighting association, and as such have a fair working knowledge of the law as it applies in this case. I repeat. The use of these images without this template and accompanying acknowledgement of authorship by Wikipedia violates copyright law. However, Alai does have a point: it is the images themselves that should be changed. Which is the reason why a few of us who are both FOTW and Wikipedia editors are trying to replace the images here with ones that we are making specifically for Wikipedia. Deleting the template would be a bad move though, even if all of the flags currentl;y on Wikipedia that come from FOTW are deleted. the reason for this, is that it acts as a warning not to upload any further FOTW pictures without specific assent from the original creators. If it is deleted and there is no specific mention of FOTW images in WP's image copyright information, people will incorrectly assume that they may take FOTW's images as Public Domain images (which they are clearly not). As such, I would not like to see the template deleted - it should be left as a historical template in much the same way as quite a few other deprecated image copyright templates are. Grutness...wha? 12:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

After all of this: I looked television the last days and I saw a lot of people using a FOTW-copyrighted Flag. So please be consequent and write a letter to the german governement and tell them, not to use the german flag anymore, because now you are the legal owner of its copyrights. --ST ○ 14:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You clearly don't understand what I said, as you have missed the entire point of this discussion - the flag itself is not copyrighted. But images that have been drawn of that flag are. None of the people at the world cup deliberately downloaded images from FOTW and waved those images. They either bought or created the flags for themselves. Doing that does not breach copyright. Neither would Wikipedia editors creating images of flags for themselves. What does breach copyright is using the images directly, which is theft, pure and simple. Grutness...wha? 00:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I've no objection to keeping reworded as a historical/deprecated template with no definitive assertion on the copyright status of the image, certainly not "the keep and preserve intact as a masterly wrought legal construct and compromise" argument previously deployed. The Scottish flag does indeed have an official colour (though admittedly this is fairly recent); and how did we get to "doubly protected": I see no at all convincing (much less forcing) argument that it was singly-protected in the first place, certainly not under under US law. Likewise the German flag: completely defined in both shape and in colour. The idea that two processes with the same end result (give or take jpg artifacts and the like) could have different legal statuses recollects Borges more than it does any copyright principle I'm aware of. Whether a saltire with a field of Pantone 301 or 299 could be "original" I won't venture an opinion on, except that I'm fairly confident that both sides are relatively safe in opining away, since no-one in their right minds is ever going to litigate on such a basis, so the precise claims at issue will never be tested, and thus we have only differing analogies and case law cites. Alai 19:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Some flags, I agree, are copyrightable. Many from FOTW are, many are not. Therefore, the "noncommercial" clause of the template should be removed, because it's not applicable to all the flag images.

Might I suggest, incidentally, that FOTW file an OCILLA takedown notice with the Wikimedia Foundation? Its legal team can then handle this case directly. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep. The German users who are leading this campaign do not know what they are talking about. Some images of flags are not copyrightable as they are simple representations of geometric shapes. Things like the French tricolore and the German flag without the coat of arms come to mind. However flags which are more complicated, like the German flag with the coat of arms or the Californian state flag, most certainly can have copyright protection applied to image of them. The border line is sometimes difficult to find (for example is an image of the British union flag protected by copyright?) but a lot of cases are clearly on one side or another of it. This template is a valuable marker for images which violate Wikipedia policies and need to be dealt with. Ignorance of the law if not an excuse, but on Wikipedia we not only see ordinary ignorance but wilful ignorance in many cases. Wilful ignorance is even worse and people who are deliberately and wilfully ignorant of copyright law need to be banned from editing Wikipedia on the grounds of serious breach of terms and conditions. David Newton 16:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Das Problem ist einfach beschrieben: Bei FOTW handelt es sich um eine Bande von Rechtsbrechern, die die Allgemeinheit um das PD betrügen. --ST ○ 16:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Das Problem mit this message is that most people here don't speak German. Please provide a translation. David Newton 17:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

something like: The problem is: FOTW is a gang of right crusher, which fraud the public around the PD. --ST ○ 17:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest banning ST for this.--Mevsfotw 16:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

For saying the trouth? If you spend the time and read you'll find out, it is. --ST ○ 17:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

You are accusing FOTW of fraud. That is a very, very, very serious accusation which leaves you open to suit for libel. I suggest you retract your statements immediately. David Newton 23:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that ST's accusation is based on facts. In de:Wikipedia:Vermittlungsausschuss/Problem FOTW zwischen Steschke und J. Patrick Fischer he quotes a decision of the District court Munich against FOTW (1995, Sep 21st Az: 7 O 1384/95) in which the court states that FOTW violated §§ 3, 5 UWG; I trust ST that he quotes the court decision correctly. So we have a court convicting FOTW because they broke the law. In this case his statement "FOTW is a gang of right crusher" is not more than the statement of a verifyable fact. At first, I was a somewhat concerned about his harsh comments against FOTW members, too, but knowing about this specific court decision things turn out in a different light. --Proofreader 00:04, 24 June 2006 (UTC) ST just corrected himself in de WP saying that there is no such decision against FOTW and that he made a mistake. This makes my comment above of course obsolete. May any reader draw his own conclusions from this. --Proofreader 00:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that we both try to keep this civil, and to avoid any suggestion of legal threats. Alai 03:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not threatening since I'm not the injured party and thus would not have capacity to sue. David Newton 22:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

While our own page puts it in more narrow terms, MeatBall:LegalThreat makes the case why "allusions to legal action" are a bad idea, whether intended as, or technically consist of, threats per se. Alai 01:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Copying a coat of arms, provided your sole goal is to make as precise a copy of the original as possible, requires substantial expertise but is nonetheless not creative according to what precedent exists. If you try to make it look better than or otherwise different from the base image, or if you're trying to combine multiple base images, your work is then subject to copyright. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

My first choice is to keep as a source-indicating template only. Remove any statement about copyright, because the copyright claim is bogus. Please see Bridgeman v. Corel:
In this case, plaintiff by its own admission has labored to create "slavish copies" of public domain works of art. While it may be assumed that this required both skill and effort, there was no spark of originality -- indeed, the point of the exercise was to reproduce the underlying works with absolute fidelity. Copyright is not available in these circumstances.
The entire point of the endeavor is to emulate a preexisting work as faithfully as possible, and no copyright is generally available under those circumstances. Mere digitization is not sufficient to grant copyright. See also Feist v. Rural: "originality, not 'sweat of the brow,' is the touchstone of copyright protection". (My second choice is to delete, if the result would otherwise be "keep as noncommercial license".)
However, some images from FOTW do involve creativity. In particular, where exact shades or shapes are not standardized, if the shades or shapes are chosen by the digitizer based on multiple images plus personal preference, that's clearly sufficient creativity to merit copyright. Those would be covered by copyright, without doubt. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- Ok, based on the above comments; yall have issue with the copyright notice, but not the sourcing. Ok, what I did is removed the copyright message, but still kept the link on the useage of the FOTW images. I still have the noncommercial tag, since our images are still non-commercial/educational use only, which Jimbo has disallowed since May of 2005. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for this edit. It is a step into the right direction. But from the point of free content I think we should aim at a clear statement with the intention to free all the flag drawings for any purpose and to dismiss the noncommercial claim, because it is based on wrong assumptions. FOTW simply isn't in the position to limit the use of their drawings in any way. --h-stt !? 08:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we're clear by now that that's your position. However, what I can't see is how you expect anyone to act on that basis, unless a) FOTW suddenly agree with it, b) the foundation's lawyers explicitly agree that's a position they're happy to stand by, or c) you yourself take legal action to establish this is indeed the case. As none of these seem to be happening in a hurry... Alai 13:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In matters where there is doubt as to whether something is copyrighted, either the Foundation steps in, or the community decides according to established policy. This doesn't change just because someone actually objects. The only difference is that the complaining party can bring the Foundation's attention to it readily, if they choose to do so; if they don't, it's the community's decision as always. There is no mandated "automatically cave upon request unless you actively file suit in our behalf" policy on Wikipedia. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

We may be talking somewhat past each other here, as I don't quite follow how this relates to my comment, and the last sentence I'm not sure I understand at all. I'm not suggesting that the community shouldn't make determinations about the presumed copyright status of anything, on a case by case basis: I'm saying that it's dangerous to try to make blanket determinations of the status of whole classes of images (like "pictures of flags", or "images taken from FOTW"), which both "wings" of this discussion are inviting us to do. And if we were to do one or the other, to act under the presumption that no image of a flag is copyright is a) wrong as I understand it, and more legally problematic than to act as if all images of flags were copyrightable (which is also wrong, as I understand it). Alai 02:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete by preference, but I'm not against keeping it with the speedy tag on it. The main problem that I see with it is that we haven't had a clarification on the copyright status of drawings of flags, so until we do I don't think we should be encouraging people to upload flags from a source that doesn't want their flags used for commercial purposes when it often isn't hard to either find a PD version of it or create something yourself. JYolkowski // talk 19:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
- And what was said above is what we are trying to get at. The amount of images we are dealing with right now is around 450 (if you want exact numbers, then it is 454 at last check). While yes that is a lot of images, but given some time, that number will be reduced greatly. For example, I draw these flags. I managed to replace about 20-30 flags since this debate started. Thats 20-30 more flags in the public domain, by me, without any fuzzy copyright issues to deal with. There are more people like me doing the drawing bit, and we managed to knock down the number of FOTW images by a lot (granted that we do most of the flags in SVG now). Folks, just relax. We are going to draw more, though I am not sure how many I will knock out this week. Also, many of the flags that were also in here were just used for galleries or lists, and not articles, so those were knocked out. There are websites, like Vector-Images.com, that allow for their PNG flag images to be used commercially, and they focus a lot on Russian-related flags. That will allow you to have many flags related to Russia, and from a free source. Just work with me and we will not have to deal with this issue much longer. BTW, the reason why this debate has started at EN is that a similar discussion is happening at de.wikipedia.org. (For comparison, I counted only 19 images on German Wikipedia, with many images uploaded to the Commons). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 07:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I invite anybody here to help improve and/or correct Wikipedia:Copyright on emblems, which I've written in an attempt to preserve this for future reference. Lupo 08:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete Misleading and unhelpful--Brownlee 11:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the question seems to be quite simple then: If FOTW uses colors different from those of the actual flags, then they have a copyright for them. But I don't quite see why that should be the case or if it were the case and let's say FOTW offers a Union Jack with a pink cross instead of a red one, then WP of course wouldn't use it because we depict reality and not creative deviations from reality. When FOTW claims that their flags differ from the actual ones, then they don't actually offer the real flags of the world and then they wouldn't be of any interest for us. If on the other hand they offer the real flags, they have no copyright for them. Right? Delete. --Proofreader 12:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was Delete WP is not a tv guide indeed, and this do has potential of becoming misleading if it-s not watched forever-- Drini 17:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Australia primetime ten

Change to list oriented template --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 19:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment This could be a good way to navigate between current articles on a certain station. As long as the template is well updated factual innacuracy shouldnt be a problem. However it will require more maitnence on articles that include it as shows will be added and dropped. However, it would be better if there was a more list oriented template, to reduce the amount of maintenance needed. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 19:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep as per larsinio's comment. --JD^talk_email 08:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment As long as there is one or two members keeping an eye on changing programs and timeslots, there is no reason for this template to be deleted. I would kindly offer to keep it up to date as possible. If the template does get deleted, would the nine and seven templates get deleted as well? Lakeyboy 22:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete per policy WP:NOT a TV guide. ~ trialsanderrors 22:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete This article relates to Big Brother and not Ten's entire programming schedule. Wouldn't a list of all the shows in the franchise and the days and times they are shown suffice? BrightLights 04:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep This article is not just about Big Brother. Sure, it might dominate the prime time viewing on network ten at the moment but that doesn't mean it relates only to big brother. There is many network ten shows with this infobox explaining if the show is currently on air in prime-time and when it is screened. There is no stable reason for deletion. Lakeyboy 02:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep Good resource for Network Ten articles. User who remarked it is Big Brother related is misinformed. Please look at things carefully before commenting. Does not breach said WP:Not Rule either. - Mike Beckham 09:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
DELETE A link to the Ten network's own programme guide would ensure accuracy without wikipedia contributors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.136.100.176 (talk • contribs).
Comment If this is deleted, Template:Australia primetime nine and Template:Australia primetime seven should probably be deleted as well. - Super Sam 08:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was delete Danube countries, keep the other -- Drini 21:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Danube, Template:Danube Countries

Template:Danube (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Template:Danube Countries (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Not quite sure this templates are useful. Especially now that we have List of tributaries of the Danube. I don't why would anybody want to have a template where he/she could see main tributaries to the Danube. I think this templates just overcrowd the pages they're on, and the same info can be easily accessed on speciffic pages. I don't think information in this templates is informative enough to have it's own template --Dijxtra 08:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep Danube, Delete Danube Countries as redundant. I just merged country and city info into Danube and added it to the city articles, most of which are not overcrowded with nav boxes (not so sure about the countries). In any case, this nav box does what all other nav boxes do: Let the reader easily jump between related articles without returning to the list. ~ trialsanderrors 08:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep {{Danube}}, it's useful to easily browse through Danube-related articles, but we really have to decide what is a major tributary and a major city. Delete {{Danube Countries}}, redundant. Todor →Bozhinov 10:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- I just changed all country inclusions to {{Danube}}, so {{Danube Countries}} is now orphaned. On deciding what is major, I considered pop. 100,000 for cities and 200km for rivers unless there are other reasons to include them (Passau should be in for history/geography, Krems probably shouldn't). ~ trialsanderrors 16:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep {{Danube}}. Delete {{Danube Countries}} per above. —dima ^/sb.tk/ 16:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete from country articles. The previous one was a fairly useless footer creep for country articles - but in the current form, it's simply obnoxious. Horrible misuse of navigation boxes on country articles that always needs to be curbed. --Joy [shallot] 18:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- If you want to remove them from country articles go ahead and do it. This is the discusson whether the templates should be kept. There are also ways to change the appearance of templates to avoid "footer creep". ~ trialsanderrors 18:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  - I'm sorry, but that sounds a bit silly, since it was you who merged the two matters by merging the templates. You created this strange situation without asking anyone or following Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries guidelines. If you were bold enough to do that, be bold enough to fix it yourself. --Joy [shallot] 12:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
    - Why would I want to do your bidding? That doesn't even make sense. If you think the status quo should be changed, and it's within your abilities, change it. ~ trialsanderrors 17:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete More large navigation templates of links; a permanent nuisance. This is better-looking than most, and please write me if it is redesigned before closure. Septentrionalis 20:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep - Danube is important river and should have it's tamplate Avala 20:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete Both Danube and Danube Countries should be deleted. I don't see any added value in including them in the articles about cities where Danube flows through. --dusoft 16:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
{{Danube Countries}} should definitely go, the presence of a river is not a major navigation-worthy characteristic of a country; {{Danube}} may be useful on some articles, possibly tributaries (so keep) but not on cities; for settlements what about something like {{Severn from Llandrinio to Ironbridge}}? This is a potentially useful navigational template on an article. Linking together a couple of the major cities on the Danube with the main Danube template is really a little daft - that kind of thing can be done through the category system anyway. A more comprehensive list of settlements along the course of the river, broken up into little bits along its course, and connecting articles on settlements with those settlements just up- or down-stream actually adds something valuable navigation-wise to articles as far as I can see. It can't be dealt with via categories (alphabetical order) and can't even easily be navigated via a "list of settlements on the Danube" (if you are interested in the next town up- or down-stream to navigate "along" the river, you'd have to locate the current settlement in the list). Just a simple, comprehensive, stage-by-stage series of navigation boxes would (1) reduce page cramp, (2) eliminate subjectivity about "important" cities and (3) provide a really neat way of navigating more obviously linked articles. There is no good reason on the Vienna article to link to Ulm, or Ruse! And especially not to Moldova or Prut! But there would be a good argument to link it to, say, Bratislava and Linz and the settlements in between either way. It would be pretty cool to be able to take a "tour down the Danube" by navigating the articles; there is no doubt at all the Danube is a major feature of the settlements on its banks (unlike being a major feature of the countries it flows through). TheGrappler 07:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment The country links go to the "Geography of..." entries now where there is significantly less clutter. I don't quite follow your argument in favor of succession boxes, which have the same inclusion criteria problems, and provide far less information on roughly the same footprint. ~ trialsanderrors 02:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I'll have a stab at explaining myself better. The guiding principle is that navboxes are not primarily to provide information, they are there to provide useful/relevant links. Why is it relevant to the Vienna article that the Prut and Iller are tributaries of the Danube? It's not; anybody interested in that information would go to the Danube page, or the list of tributaries of the Danube. The link to Moldova is just as superfluous. What about the links to Ulm, Regensburg, Vukovar, Ruse, Tulcea? These are clearly more relevant to an article about Vienna: they are links to other cities which share a major characteristic. But the arbitrary nature of the selection detracts from the usefulness of the links. Around the Vienna area, the path of the Danube goes Bratislava - Hainburg - Vienna - Krems - Dürnstein - Melk - Greinburg - Linz. Now, isn't a link to Hainburg or Krems or Grein more relevant than a link to Tulsea or Ingolstadt? Anybody who is interested in "What other major cities lie on the Danube?" could just have clicked on the Danube link in the text. Anybody who is interested in "Where on the Danube is just upstream or downstream from Vienna?" won't find an easy answer; giving them a navbox with those towns and cities (and other settlements along the river between Bratislava and Linz we have articles for) would be very helpful, producing a useful way of navigating articles (along the river) that can't be replicated using categories and is far more relevant as a navlink for an article like Vienna than "Moldova" or "Prut" would be. A succession box would be stupid (how to decide which settlement either side to link to? That could be arbitrary) but what about something like:

	Danube between Bratislava and Linz (heading downstream)	edit
Bratislava \| Hainburg \| Vienna \| Krems \| Dürnstein \| Melk \| Ybbs an der Donau \| Greinburg \| Linz

Or with confluences included too:

	Danube between Bratislava and Linz (heading downstream), tributaries (full list) in italics	edit
Bratislava (Morava joins) \| Hainburg \| Vienna \| Krems \| Dürnstein \| Melk \| Ybbs an der Donau (Ybbs joins) \| Greinburg \| Traun joins \| Linz

This wouldn't be arbitrary in the way that a succession box (or conversely, the "major" cities only option) would be; also it takes up far less space than the current template! TheGrappler 16:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

From parsing the boxes you tried to include I guess your point is that the relevance of local info trumps the relevance of global info. I tend to disagree, but that's an edit conflict that shouldn't take place in the TfD. The same goes for your comment that the three types of info should not appear in the same navbox. ~ trialsanderrors 18:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a TfD issue because a space-hogging navbox that can not provide useful navigation should be deleted. Since any navigational template could change significantly in usage, purpose and form, discussing these points is not merely editorializing. TfD is often inherently a form of content dispute (look at some of the other TfDs). Templates sometimes only survive TfD as a result of editorial changes arising from a consensus that in a previous form a template is unacceptable and should be deleted. If the sole purpose of this template is to lie at the bottom of articles on cities then it needs to be either radically amended or deleted. The issue is not "local trumps global" or vice versa but about usefulness of navigation and overclogging articles. It is obviously irrelevant to an article about Vienna that the Prut is a tributary of the Danube, or that the Danube also flows through Moldova, so it is silly to include this information: it is better provided elsewhere and it is easy to navigate to that information anyway if you wanted it! Personally, I think {{Danube}} may be useful on articles specifically about the Danube, like Danube itself, as well as articles like Danube Tourist Commission, International Commission for the Protection of the Danube and List of bridges across the Danube (even if they are redlinks, they really ought to be articles). So I think {{Danube}}'s purpose should be restricted, maybe only to core Danube articles and potentially articles about tributaries. Alternatively, {{Danube}} could be rescoped as a template to be used on Danube and the city articles, and just restricted to cities on the Danube as its content. The mock navboxes I inserted above were merely illustrations that there are alternative ways of presenting navboxes for city and town articles that provide clear, relevant navigation and do not reproduce information that may be found trivially elsewhere. My interpretation of the way this TfD is going is that there is consensus that either {{Danube}} needs to change in usage (probably to be used in less articles) or to change in scope (removing a lot of the links). TfD debates are inherently "content plus purpose" disputes. There's nothing wrong with a template called "Danube" (contrast to CfD or AfD, where "Category:Automobiles available in a shade of yellow" or "My best mate's house" are goner's on title alone) but its contents could be anything from being a navbox for tourist attractions or bridges along the Danube, to a list of cultural references to the Danube. Currently it is a big fat template stuffed full of links to all kinds of things and it is ticking off people who watch over articles it is appearing on. That is why it is at TfD, and that is why its current content and purpose are relevant. TheGrappler 19:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

You might want to look into changing your screen resolution if it appears as a big fat template in your browser. But in any case, if you feel so strongly about it I'll happily take it off my watchlist and let you do with it whatever you want. Have a nice day. ~ trialsanderrors 19:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep Danube, Delete Danube Countries; looks rather pretty.--Brownlee 11:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was Redirect -- Drini 22:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:SCOTUSRecentCase

Template:SCOTUSRecentCase (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
This template is now obsalete due to the creation of Template:SCOTUSCase3, which has parameters to include this and other Templates all in one. Assawyer 06:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete per nom. Postdlf 13:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 19:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. --Kchase02 T 08:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The result of the debate was Delete -- Drini 19:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:NRV

Delete Nope. This is more or less what WP:PROD is for... Especially bad about this template is saying that removing it without a "permissible reason" could "result in a ban". That's unacceptable for a few different reasons. Grand master ka 05:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete. WP:PROD does this much better, without the implied snub to the article creators. -- The Anome 15:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete per above --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 19:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete: Not policy; not civil. If we redirect to {{prod}} this will be back. Septentrionalis 20:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Delete No redeeming value. ~ trialsanderrors 22:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/e/m/Wikipedia%7ETemplates_for_deletion_Log_2006_June_20_15f9.html"