Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/FURG

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Urgent proposal to temporarily suspend CSD-I6

I'm not sure whether or not this is the right place to flag this, but I have just put up the following request at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion.

Bearing in mind

  1. The enormous sudden number of "missing fair use rationale" notifications that have been put out by BetacommandBot in the last few days,
  2. open division and debate here on talk WP:FAIR as to what the appropriate (and even the current) standards for book covers, media covers etc actually are,
  3. urgent - but far from complete - efforts at talk WP:FURG to develop model rationales for standard use cases (eg album covers on album articles, logos on logo articles, screenshots),
  4. the widespread confusion on this issue, and just what the bot is asking for, evidenced at WP:VP and othe talk pages for the bot and its owner,
  5. the legal importance of high-quality rationales, preferably based on legally checked models, because low-quality rationales will br pilloried by anti-commons zealots like the so-called Progress and Freedom Foundation, and could even constitute criminal incitement to copyright infringement,
  6. the wide level of anxiety amongst ordinary wikiusers right across en wikipedia that this is causing,

I propose that it would be appropriate to suspend CSD-I6 (Speedy deletion of images without fair use rationales) temporarily, at least until items (2) and (3) above have become more resolved.

Cases like this one [screenshot from "Rebus"], where an image was deleted two hours after the bot slapped a tag on it, are particularly inappropriate at this time; and arguably not appropriate for Speedy on this timescale at all.

CSD procedures are supposed to be non-controversial. In the current circumstances, CSD-I6 does not fit that brief. Jheald 12:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm for it, but I do want to point out that you probably have more time than you think, because with a huge backlog, it'll take admins a long time to work through it. Betacommandbot should have been run with a lower edit rate. Mangojuicetalk 12:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I think suspending the bots rampage till the matter is sorted out, rather than suspending policy enforcement, is whats required here. That would not clog up the categories, and still buy us time to sort out whether boilerplate rationale for cover arts and the like is acceptible. --soum (0_o) 12:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Additional reading material here and here. And, for the record, I think temporarily blocking the bot until this is all sorted out was a good call. -- Seed 2.0 12:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think Jheald's suggestion of temporarily suspending I6 is the better call. The fact is, these images exist on Wikipedia in such a way that violates policy. The bot is doing nothing more than tagging those images. If we suspend it, we are left in the dark as to the images that fall into this category. Suspend I6, fine. Suspend the bot? That's not a solution that supports our policies. --Durin 12:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Tagging the article will fill up categories. There is lot of discussion going on whether boilerplate rationales for cover art suffices. If it is agreed that a templated rationale, rather than individual rationales, is enough, then we will have a long backlog of inspecting and undoing the tagging. --soum (0_o) 12:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
As I have argued at greater length below, we should hold off stampeding the users with these tagging notices until we are 100% clear what we want them to do, and whether or not we can offer them standard rationale texts for standard rationale usages - eg "Purpose: displaying the primary means of visual identification of a record album in an encyclopaedic article on that album. For a detailed rationale for why this should be considered acceptable fair use, see [standard off-page link]".
Until those questions are clear - specifically until there is consensus resolution and legal confirmation on items (2) and (3) in my original request above, we should pause. Jheald 00:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Admins who carry out speedy deletions presumably have brains in our heads (I know sometimes that could be considered a controversial position). An image tagged for speedy deletion but which is worth keeping can be left for a few hours (or days) while someone writes a fair use rationale for it. An image that's obviously bogus (e.g. fair use galleries, celebrity pic stolen from a wire agency because someone thought she looked cute in that photo, etc.) can be deleted immediately. Removing the ability to delete outright theft in fair use clothing because we might have some worthwhile images that nobody has written a rationale for yet is Very Silly. It's clichéd. One day, if formulated in a less wordy fashion, your proposal could even rank up there with such wonderful sayings as "cutting off your nose to spite your face", "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", and of course the evergreen "doing something very silly for no good reason but the best of intentions because you're a silly sausage". fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 13:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the "brain in their heads" presumption is not always true. I recently undeleted an image to which the rationale was added after the bot tagged it, but the user who wrote the rationale didn't remove the tag. Well, an admin deleted the image even though the rationale was right before his eyes. There are so many of those images that admins delete them without thinking (no brain involved). This has got to stop. At any given time there should be less images available for speedying.  Grue  14:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fuddle, that would remain possible under CSD I7. Jheald 16:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't. There are images on the Wikipedia servers with correct "fair use" tags, but which are used (and used exclusively) in a fashion that cannot be supported by a fair use rationale. They do not come under I7, but they are still quite clearly bogus, and I don't accept that this should be ignored because we think maybe some of BetacommandBot's tagged images are salvageable, given the time to think up a rationale. Cheers, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 16:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
CSD I7 applies to any bad fair use claim, not just a bad fair use tag. Quote: "Media that fail any part of the non-free content criteria and were uploaded after 13 July 2006 may be deleted forty-eight hours after notification of the uploader" Unquote. Jheald 23:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the biggest problem. Originally, the CSD criterion only mentioned {{fairuse}} and {{fairusein}} by name. The criterion was changed without discussion for the stated purpose of applying it to all of the fairusein2, fairusein3, and other non-content-specific tags. I have tried on multiple occasions to get it changed back without success. When you're dealing with a logo or screenshot, there isn't a whole heckuva lot that you can say that isn't already on the tag itself. In any event, when it is a pro forma requirement, we should absolutely not be deleting these images. I think, instead of suspending I6, we should just change it back to the consensus version. I6 should apply only to {{fairuse}} and other tags like that - the generic rationale on a {{logo}} tag should be sufficient to avoid speedy deletion. --BigDT 13:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've always wanted to say "the consensus version", and I'll bet you have, too. It's rather enjoyable. I might say it again: "the consensus version". Ahem. I haven't investigated the consensus or lack thereof for the change, so am not qualified to comment (I just delete dodgy images and don't delete the maybe-not-dodgy ones; does that make me fascist?). I'm with you on the logo thing, because I'm not smart enough to come up with much more to say about logos, either. But screnshots? Ick, no. Something being a screenshot is not, eo ipso, sufficient for it to be kept — not even close. We need to say why this particular frame is important to us, why we think it is worth stealing, how we intend to use it, how we do not intend to use it. The screenshot tag is by no means sufficient, and we should not encourage the view that it is. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 13:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
A movie/video screenshot does need individual rationales. But album or book cover art, or software screenshot is mostly used for the primary function of visually identitying the subject of an article, and uses more or less a generic rationale. Thats why templating the rationale can be done in these cases. If something else is needed, anyone can add further reasons. --soum talk 13:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Software screenshots, album/book cover art, etc., are still copyrighted works that we are taking. We need to explain why. Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon will have their covers displayed for different reasons than those that apply to Beautiful Garbage, and we need to say why. The grapevine that delivered the Good News of "oh, such-and-such images are always fair use" is faulty (see Chinese whispers for the antecedent of the famous Wikipedia Broken Telephone effect).
Unlike many of my fellow admins, I bear no grudges against those who don't understand our fair use policy, or the need to keep the reins tight on non-free images. This is mostly because I'm smarter, more attractive, and better-smelling than most of my colleagues, but also because I have plenty of image uploads in my own Wikipedia history that aren't 100% compliant; most (hopefully all) have since been deleted. We're all newbies at one time, and even experienced editors have aspects of the project they don't fully understand. However, I never complained when my images were deleted, or my understanding proved faulty; because I was wrong. Those bleating that fair use rationales are unnecessary and that deleting stolen images is excessive are wrong now. They are faced with a choice: they can say, "Oh, we're wrong. Whoops," and fix the problem or stay out of the way; or they can choose the more popular but ultimately destructive path, and turn the air blue with frustrated complaints that the Internet is supposed to be a free-for-all. It's a difficult choice, but I am confident that Wikipedians will make the Right Choice. Cheers, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Use of small enough thumbnails of album covers in articles on the albums will generally be complementary use rather than substitutive use to sales of those albums, so *will* be okay law-wise, quite generally. It's the pictures of historical events which are far more questionable. Jheald 00:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot blocked

See this link. El_C 12:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocking the bot doesn't deal with our abuse of fair use. This is never going to go away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Secretlondon (talk • contribs)
The point is that there is no consensus on whether there has been an abuse. --Soumyasch 12:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
As far as I understand the bot is just doing the work it was approved to do, tagging images with no fair use rationales as having no fair use rationales. If we want to stop deleting such images pending discussion fine, but why block the bot unless it was actualy misbehaving? --Sherool (talk) 12:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Deleting is done by humans. The need for the tagging is obvious and is such a magnitude that it can only really be done by a bot. Secretlondon 13:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
This thread should be merged with the one above. --Soumyasch 12:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Done. Can you please do something about your sig in the section above? El_C 13:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Done. --soum talk 13:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Thx. El_C 14:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe instead of blocking it, we can get Betacommand to temporarily stop the no rationale tagging? He also tags orphaned non-free images and that is something that is non-controversial and an important need. --BigDT 13:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm the admin who blocked BetacommandBot. I very much agree that fair use images are a mess, but some of the most recent tagging by this bot hit a number of areas where policy is still vague, uncertain, and sometimes contradictory. Until this is at least somewhat addressed, the mass taggings should stop. There is a lengthy discussion of these issues at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#BetacommandBot. The fact that just last month the ArbCom sanctioned BetaCommand for abuse of bot tools is also a concern. It also worries me that even though it has been well over an hour since I blocked the bot, there has been absolutely no response from BetaCommand himself, which leads me to think it might have been running completely unsupervised. - SimonP 13:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

SimonP, its an automated bot, they run unsupervised. It was approved to run automated. The task is technically very simple, —— Eagle101Need help? 13:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Automated bots run unsupervised. Secretlondon 13:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I've struck that comment, but while I agree the task is simple, the policies and legalities are far from straightforward and this probably shouldn't be an automated bot task. - SimonP 13:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
That too when the policies themselves have come under discussion. If templated rationales are allowed, the task of undoing much of the tagging will become an unnecessary hassle. --soum talk 13:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Its quite clear in the policy WP:FUC, but the guideline is not so clear on WP:FURG. —— Eagle101Need help? 13:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm concerned that one of the reasons you blocked the bot was because it was running unsupervised - you should probably read the bot policy before intervening like this. The bot had been authorised and is acting according to policy. It doesn't have admin powers - all deletions are done by humans. We have far too many to do by human, and the actual job is very simple and easily automated. I strongly suggest we unblock the bot. Secretlondon 15:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It is my belief that if you are running an unsupervised bot, you should account for its actions. I.E., when somebody posts a messages about it, reply to them, try to help them instead of throwing a link to a wp policy or removing it as "trolling". While the policies may be clear, their are hundereds of talk pages of editors who do not understand them that have been flooded by your bots warnings. I believe that a task should not be performed faster than you are operator is willing to address the issues with its actions. If you are getting this many issues with it, perhaps the template needs to be worded differently, or their needs to be a better explanation. I support this block because I feel that Betacommand has performed unsatisfactory support of his bot in addressing issues that is evidenced by the mass of concerned posts on his talk page. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Why should a bot manager deal with thousands of questions or complaints about policy? No-one would ever run a bot in those circumstances.. Secretlondon 14:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybye this should not be a bot task then? I believe bots should do non controverisial stuff and it is apaprent that this is controversial due to the large amount of feedback he has received. It would take forever to do it manually but due to the controversial nature, maybye that is the most appropriate way? I am sure there is a better solution. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ive addressed countless users, walked them through how to fix their images, and shown users why their images were tagged. I also ask users to read the talkpage and one archive where these discussions took place. I ask that to avoid being a broken record. Given when I am forced to repeat myself 20 times because users are too lazy to read. before you say Im making personal attacks let me quote one.(because I'm too lazy to search through your talk page, which is full of complaints) I just point them to the right place. as for responding a group of users and I have been working together to inform users. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 14:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I am ok with it if you work to address the issues. Personally, i feel that the template is confusing and that may lead to part of the problem. I guess my partiality to required support of the issues comes from me being a software developer. If I cause confusion because of poor planning, improper documentation, confusing wording or any of a laundry list of issues that I have to prepare for through the design and documentation phases, it is my responsibility to address the issues. THe people with the problems are not the IT people, they are the people who dont understand how it works and it is my job to explain it to them. Then, again I get paid to do it. My comments were meant not to be offensive, however an attempt to provide some constructive criticisms. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
the issue is that many many users dont want to follow our FU policies, and they use templates that they dont read. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 14:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
surely it would be better to have your bot go through and give generic fair use rationales to each group at a time, for instance, album covers first, then company logo's e.t.c.? Ryan Postlethwaite 14:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Would you like me to delete that comment from the page history so it won't show up in your contribs? Just for posterity's sake? Because I'm willing to do so, on human dignity grounds. I have a great deal of respect for you, and I cannot abide to think of you suffering at some point in the future as the recognised author of that suggestion. Cheers, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It's ok, if I make mistakes - I like to them to be on show so I can be laughed at when proven wrong. Well, maybe this time I am wrong so laugh at me! I'm actually not an image expert, never will be one, and think that Betacommand is doing an excellent task with his bot ridding wikipedia of potential copyright infringements - I was just offering a potential solution that obviously now isn't possible. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
<begin broken record> Bots cannot generate valid FUR. as each rationale is specific to each image use.<end broken record> Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 14:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There's no need to be a dick about it. Surely the community can develop a generic FUR that satisfies ech particular type of FU media, I'm no expert, but I reckon we can create them to stop copyright infringements. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
No, we can't. Fair use is not equivalent to GFDL or public domain — it's not just a case of "slap a wordier template on the image page and she'll be right". We cannot say "this image is a screenshot, therefore it's automatically fair use". We say instead: "even though this is not a free image, we need it for use X" - (or uses X, Y, and Z) - "because of A, B, C". If A, B, and C are untrue, we can't use it. If we have a good reason for use X, but not use Y, we can only use it for use X. If in doubt, don't upload. If you don't know what you're doing, don't upload. If you upload something anyway (I'm in the same boat), don't complain when someone points out your mistake. Above all, accept that ignorance is a reason to listen and learn, not to bray in annoyance that people aren't conforming to your incomplete understanding. Cheers, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
This dispute is entirely about fair use, and not about the bot. People don't understand or comply with the law and foundation policy. Neither of those things is optional. Secretlondon 14:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Compliance with the law is not determined by consensus. All of the armchair lawyers, on all sides of this issue, are doing us no good. The Foundation needs to step in with legal counsel to clearly and unambiguously clear up this mess so we can all move on. --ElKevbo 14:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying that without rationales it's not breaking the law - what I'm saying is that a generic template could be used on just about every image that is being tagged for deletion. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
My understanding of fair use differs from yours as I don't believe a generic template suffices. But that's the problem: what we think DOESN'T MATTER. This is an issue of law, not personal opinion. We need to obtain legal counsel instead of continuing to toss around our uninformed opinions. --ElKevbo 15:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The foundation have a policy on fair use - I believe they took legal advice on it. Secretlondon 15:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Then they need to step in and weigh in on this mess of a conversation as either their policy is unclear and misunderstood or it's being ignored. Again, this is a legal issue and we don't decide those by consensus. To allow the community to attempt to decide this issue by consensus is extraordinarily stupid and dangerous, particularly in the precedent that it sets. --ElKevbo 16:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The rationales for album or book cover art is fairly generic. As such, it can be done by a template. --soum talk 14:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree that templatizing FU is not a bot task. It whould however be done manually. Each image reviewed and FU criteria posted. I started but dont have the time. IF everybody chipped it it would be alot easier. I know it is an ugly task and it woudl require alot of hard work. Similarly i feel that there are manyh images out there that if a knowledgable person put the right tag on it, it would be ok and hence bot tagging for deletion does not seem appropriate. The fact is, this is not a black and white situation and it seems like a task not sutied for a bot either way. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
No, it can't. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
This block is silly, the bot was approved and was enforcing both our policy and the laws of the land our servers sit in. He addressed complaints to the point of exhaustion, and the complaints were founded in a lack of understanding of policy. I recommend this bot is unblocked so it can finish its job. (H) 15:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Secretlondon 15:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The block wasnt to prevent the bot from doing its job of enforcing policy. It was done to by us time to re-evaluate the policy. If the bot is allowed to run while the discussion is going on, and if the discussion results in changin policy (agreeing that templating boilerplate fair use rationales is fine) then it would end up wasting a lot of resources tagging and then untagging the articles. --soum talk 15:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Rewrite policy in 24 hours? On what basis? Secretlondon 16:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There is no impending legal-doom over copyright issues on the Wikimedia Foundation, nor is their a politico-legal sword hanging over our heads. The copyright complaints and issues are swiftly dealt through the OTRS. Wikimedia is a not-for-profit organisation that allows any user to edit and upload images. Allowing one user's bot to make fast edits sets a bad precedent for others, and eventually becomes a server hog when all of them want to run their bots faster than the acceptable norms. Burn the straw man of urgency and copyrights. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There seem to be two very different discussions happening on this issue. At Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) there is a near consensus that these edits should stop, while here there is a near consensus to just the opposite. There does seem to be a debate about whether current policy demands a non generic fair use rational for certain images. To me this seems to be a legitimate argument. The fair use rational at Image:BizarreRideIIthePharcyde.jpg has been presented as an exemplary rational for fair use of an album cover, but it still seems to be totally generic. I'm thus going to leave this bot blocked. There is a problem with fair use images, but it is not a crisis. 24 hours of discussion and debate on this issue will do no harm to the encyclopedia and could help clarify some of these issues. - SimonP 15:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


that image was not one that i really think is a strong rationale. Ive pointed to others with far stronger rationales. with that one image I was asked for an album cover. (after looking into over 100 images I found a one that was at least simi-useable) and that is why I used that image. I never said it was perfect but for album covers it was the best I found for examples. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 15:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, if that's not any good either than what would be? Could you write a strong fair use rationale for the use of a particular album cover in a particular article? If not, do you believe they should all be deleted? Haukur 16:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess more admins read here than one of the random village pumps.. I'm not going to wheel war but you don't appear to know much about bots or about images.. Secretlondon 15:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Did you misplace this comment? Haukur 13:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
No - it's been 'misplaced' Secretlondon 18:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I am at a loss to understand why this bot was blocked. It was running as authorised doing its approved purpose at an acceptable speed. The reason entered in the block log is "Bot not responding to criticisms", which is clearly absurd when dealing with an automated account. It seems to me that were it not an Arbitrator who had made the block, it would have been reversed by now. Is there actually any reason for the Bot to remain blocked? The tagging should continue - anything tagged today will not be deleted for a minimum of 48 hours after the uploader is notified. WjBscribe 17:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The original blocker appears not to have known about automated bots. Secretlondon 18:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Why there cannot be a generic template for fair use claims

I posted this at the village pump too, but it ought to be seen here aswell since the argument about this is seemingly the basis for the block.

Fair use is a legal doctrine that may be used as a defence against a claim of copyright infringement. Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally. In practice it's often possible to reasonably anticipate where a claim of fair use will be successful, typically by analogy with cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, and as such, the use is commonly regarded as "kosher", as it were, while still technically being illegal.

This reality raises a couple of issues. Since fair use is a defence, it's necessary to be able to explain on what basis your use falls within that defence. Since the defence applies only to particular uses of a work, you need to be able to make such an explanation for all of your uses of the work. And since claims fall into the "kosher" category by being based on solid analogies with existing cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, you need to explain the analogy you have employed, by reference to the specific fair use factors that apply to the particular work and the particular use in question.

There is no boilerplate fair use claim to be used against copyright infringement, just as there is no boilerplate claim for, say, self-defense in a murder trial, or for an estoppel claim in a breach of contract suit. Fair use claims may be very similar to each other, but that only reflects that the particular analogy being employed is strong (or at least popularly thought to be strong).

Executive summary: since fair use is a legal defence, you need to explain how it applies in every case, and this means there can be no boilerplate claims. --bainer (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, when I, a humble Wikipedian with no legal training, go in and add the same basic rationale (mutatis mutandis) to 100 government logos that are all used in the same way, each in a single article, I am doing something that could just as well be done by a bot and/or a template. So either I am wasting my time because these rationales are somehow invalid, or I am wasting my time because this is a job that could just as well be automated. If we really need to have FU rationales that can stand up in a court of law for each of these images, then it should go without saying that they must all be deleted. -- Visviva 15:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
No. That is not true. Only people that know and understand fair use policy should write the rationales, maybe. But you do not need to be a lawyer to do it. That is overkill. The problem is that people that do not understand our policy are objecting to being notified about it. If they do not understand it they need to back off and let others deal with it.
Every time we have one of these discussion more users get educated on the topic and can help out. That is a Good Thing! FloNight 15:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
"Only people that know and understand fair use policy should write the rationales", then we should create a category for wikipedians who understand fair use and redirect the bots messages to them, not the uploaders, isnt it? --soum talk 16:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Or don't upload unless you know what you are doing? You did read that stuff before you uploaded non free media, right? Secretlondon 16:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Many of the images being tagged and deleted now were uploaded years ago. Most of the ones I'm seeing on my watchlist are trivially obviously OK, and also trivially easy to do without (logos, etc.)... which is making me wonder whether it's worth my time or anyone else's to do all of this busywork that Wikipedia's newfound prominence has brought upon us. -- Visviva 16:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The basic point is, and Bainer will correct me if I've misunderstood, that while a lot of valid fair-use rationales might very well appear to be almost identical, you still have to evaluate each and every instance to ensure that the "boilerplate rationale" is actually applicable. You cannot simply say "OK, every image tagged with this-or-that-template can use this-or-that-rationale" because you have to verify that each and every image tagged with that template conforms to the terms of the rationale. The whole point of having the bot is that we have a huge number of images with no rationale or tags at all and it would simply overwhelm any reasonable number of human editors to attempt to catch them all. Bots are simple creatures which don't skip entries in a list because they're tired or bored: this task is ideal bot-work. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - for example, I've been using a fair use rationale which can be seen on this image for example (Hope Is Important.jpg) which only involves changing the name of the album it comes from. However when I was going through doing this, I found lots of covers that were (for example) big hi-res scans which didn't conform with the template - that's just one reason why it can't be automated. EliminatorJR Talk 16:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
So it would perhaps seem that a template is OK, as long as it is not bot-applied? -- Visviva 16:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
You also need to state why it improves the article. The article should reference the image in some way. In the article write "This album cover was made by Mr. Smith the artist. blah blah blah" The image significantly improves the article because of XXXX. The article should talk and comment about the image. We don't steal images so that we can stick it in an infobox and not make full use of it. Keep in mind these images are not ours. —— Eagle101Need help? 18:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't conflate theft with copyright infringement. Using accurate and legally correct terminology is particularly important in this discussion. --ElKevbo 19:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The issue of making sure what fair use templates/rationales say is actually true, however, is a separate problem. A user could write a rationale saying a photo is low-res when it's really not just as easily as they could paste in an inaccurate template to the same effect. The solution to that problem, in my view, would be a template that is applied, followed by a review process. (Like the flickr review process, e.g., at the commons.) Calliopejen1 12:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There are large classes of non-free images used in exactly the same way and for the same reasons. We need to have guidelines for editors who have uploaded fair use images of the most common classes. We cannot just tell people to write their own rationale, since most people don't know how to and will write bad rationales. There are many images where the rationale cannot possibly differ by anything else than what article the image is used in. One such standard case is a company logo on the page about that company, when the text does not discuss the logo design specifically. The guideline should either say what the fair use rationale in that case should look like, or instruct editors to remove those logos. We are currently working on the former. --Apoc2400 01:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Support Apoc. For a detailed rebuttal, setting out why the headline for this section is wrong, see the case for a standard rationale for album cover-art thumbnails previously posted at VP, which sets out why systematic use of album cover thumbnails on album article pages is entirely compatible with U.S. Law, the Foundation resolution, and with Wikipedia policy.
See also the current discussion Critical commentary on album covers at the talk page for WP:FAIR. Jheald 04:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I am a copyright lawyer and I disagree with this analysis. First, whether fair use is not copyright infringement or merely a defense to copyright infringement is not a relevant distinction when deciding how and when images can be used. Either way fair use a copyrighted image is legal, and if a lawsuit were to arise the lawsuit would be non-meritorious and subject to dismissal or Wikipedia's success at trial according to the usual court process. There are a wide variety of contexts, such as reproducing a corporate logo when discussing the corporation, or reproducing an album cover when discussing the album, that are so widely accepted as free use that there is nothing more to say about the matter. Certainly there are few absolutes in law and one can imagine an exception to every rule. But the existence of exceptions does not negate the importance of having a rule. Forcing non-lawyer to write a legal justification for their use in these situations on a case by case basis certainly does not add anything. It won't make the images on Wikipedia any more likely to be legal and it will not help Wikipedia defend any copyright infringement claims. Moreover, it is not good copyright practice. Other institutions that routinely include fair use images do not handle their copyright policies this way. A newspaper, for example, will set out a policy for its editors on how and when they can reproduce corporate logos as part of a story. Once that is decided the reporter does not have to justify the use. He or she merely ascertains that it fits within the policy. It is best to set up a policy, probably at the institutional level for Wikipedia in consultation with its general counsel, on various categories of image uses and then to create uniform templates. For example, one template that encompasses all of the album covers when discussing the album. If there is a sub-distinction, such as articles that comment on the cover art, or discographies, those can be different templates or variables within the template. That way if Wikipedia is ever sued, or the law changes, or Wikipedia changes its mind on the issue, it can quickly sort through and remove images that should not be there instead of having administrators review each one on a case by case basis. Wikidemo 22:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to see the rationale requirement as a Wikipedia policy issue, not a legal one and I wish people would stop getting so chaught up in legal stuff (it is generaly fairly safe to use most of this stuff). Wikipedia policy permits a great deal less than the law becuse we are a free content project. Anyting not available under a free content license is to be used only minimaly, and only when it's nessesary in order to make a deacent article. That's why rationales are required (or so I believe), we want people to stop and think and carefully explain why they believe it is nessesary and within policy to use a non-free image every time they add one, not because we think it will make us safe from a potential lawsuit, but because non-free material is supposed to be the exception on Wikipedia and exceptions need to be justified. In a lot of cases the explanations will be near identical, but we should still require them to be provided in order to discourage mass uploading of non-free material that is not needed .--Sherool (talk) 23:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
That's a fair position, but if that's the case then (1) instead of "fair use" rationalizations we should be making wikipedia policy rationalizations with respect to each image, and (2) we still ought to have categories of what is or is not okay. Do we really want to make uploading images difficult just for the sake of making uploading images difficult? Wikidemo 05:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the BetacommandBot issue and fair use policy

Quick querry

Any objections if this was to be moved to a subpage? El_C 16:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do, it'll only get longer, if previous discussions over this are any indication. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Doing so now. El_C 17:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not the bot

The bot was approved on 31 May 2007 for the actions of tagging fair use images missing rationale. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 5. The bot runs, as most bots do, unsupervised. The bot operator, contrary to some people's opinions, is responsive to queries. Further, he has asked several people to monitor the bot's talk page to respond to queries as they come. The bot operator has been responsive to feature requests. The bot has occasionally had bugs but has generally been bug free. It has been acting in accordance with policy, tagging images appropriately. --Durin 16:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the bot. It does not look into the licensing tag to see if a rational has been given for their usage, see User_talk:BetacommandBot#Disruptive behaviour. This was also noted by User:Morphh on Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#I'd support disabling this bot
--Philip Baird Shearer 17:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree - this bot is extremely disruptive. Many of the images have the Fair Use rational given in the licensing tag itself. License violations can be addressed through the normal process. This nit picky stuff can be address through the improvement process GA & FA. There are no easily identified examples for adding the rational for each type of image. This needs better organization to make this extremely simple for the everyday editor. Heck.. I've been here for 2 years and have read all of these policies and I'm still confused on what is needed. Morphh (talk) 13:47, 06 June 2007 (UTC)
The licensing tags are not a fair use rational. The tags expressly say that they require a rationale as well. A person must explain why the image is necessary to be included in specific articles. There needs to be a statement to the effect of "and I assert that the use of this image in article X is fair use because". The image should then only be used in article X. Its not enough just to use a tag that says "its a logo" or "its a screenshot" there must also be a justification of why its use in the article(s) it appears in is necessary. WjBscribe 17:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Can the bot tell what is or isn't a valid fair use rationale? What would it see when it found a gibberish summary "Glit Glort Bleeble Durp" isn't a rationale, but would the bot know that? DarkAudit 20:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
In that case the bot would not tag. It errs on the side of caution. All its looking for is the lack of text other then the Template:Non-free whatever templates. —— Eagle101Need help? 20:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Where is it written that the text embeded in a licensing tag may not be used to provide the information for to a fair use rational? --Philip Baird Shearer 21:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Have you actualy read any of the non-free tags lately? Most if not all of them have a "to the uploader" section near the bottom where it says pretty clearly that a seperate rationale needs to be added for each use of the image. It's been there for a while too. --Sherool (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
We ought to ascertain which of the rationale templates, if any, are sufficient fair use justifications standing on their own without additional commentary beyond citing which articles they apply to. In some fields like album cover art and corporate logos, bare templates are enough to comply with Wikipedia policy (if not the misguided guideline). If such a template is not sufficient but could be, the template should be updated. In other fields like reproducing a portion of a painting or photograph, it is unlikely that the template could be sufficient on its own. The bot should leave the first category of templates alone and tag only images falling into the second category. Until we sort through this, the bot is making a lot of busy work for people and not doing much to help WP comply with copyright law. Wikidemo 22:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not the fair use policy

Quite a number of users insist that the policy regarding fair use rationales is in dispute. Dispute and disagree are not the same and carry significantly different connotations. Dispute implies the policy can not be applied because it is questionable if the policy is valid or not. Disagree implies the policy is accurate, but is not accepted by the person in disagreement. In the former case, we come to consensus on how to proceed. In the latter case, we educate, then warn, then block. These are entirely different cases.

The policy governing the actions of this bot is Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion I6. Is this a valid policy? Quite simply, yes.

The policy came into existence on the CSD criteria on 6 May 2006. It was added to the CSD criteria by administrator Stifle subsequent to discussion on the issue [1][2]. It should be noted that this discussion was simply implementing what was already considered the norm. As of November of 2005, the page Help:Image page contained "Non-free images that do not include both a fair use tag and a detailed fair use rationale will be deleted!" [3]. This was even predated by a change in Template:Restricted use conducted in October of 2005 requiring a rationale be provided [4]. This was done under the auspices of Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use. Discussion regarding these issues was extant at least as early as August of 2005. Based on this, this policy certainly did come into existence after substantial discussion and work among a large number of people working on fair use issues on Wikipedia. It was not, as some have criticized, done by a select few and forced upon the rest of Wikipedia. This policy was further substantiated by the March 2007 resolution of the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees where they said "(fair use images) are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale".

I am not a lawyer, and with no intention of putting words in the mouth of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, I believe this policy descends in large part from 17 U.S.C. § 107 which states that "In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use" (emphasis mine). Thus, our policy asks we provide rationales explaining the purpose and character of use for each particular case. --Durin 16:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a (temporary, fixable) problem with the fair use policy, because at the moment there is difference of opinion as to what rationale is sufficient to justify eg an album cover image on the page for that album. While there is difference on such a point, there is a problem with our fair use policy. Jheald 16:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
And as already stated, a difference of opinion about a legal issue should be settled by consultation with legal counsel and not by discussion amongst editors who are not legal experts. Stop the madness! :) --ElKevbo 16:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but until that question is resolved, it does not make sense to stampede users into taking a particular action which may turn out to be incorrect. Jheald 16:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
That's perfectly reasonable assuming that we are indeed moving to resolve the question. --ElKevbo 16:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, on both legal and quality control grounds, fair use rationales should be as standardised as possible. We should pause, until this standardisation has been achieved, and signed off by legal experts - eg the Stanford Fair Use centre. Jheald 16:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The only fair use rationale that would really matter legally is one contained in multi-page legal brief responding to an infringment complaint. It is extremely unlikely than any fair use rationale we provide will ever reach that standard of length and complexity. It is also unlikely that any lawyer would ever "sign off" on any attempt we might have to create standard reasons as that creates unnecessary liability for the lawyer and is likely to be legally unsound. Even when the WMF had a general counsel he avoided participating in most copyright disputes as it was not in the WMF's interest to preemptively engage copyright concerns. Dragons flight 17:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The danger is that a transparently inadequate, or misleading, rationale could be portrayed as deliberately incitement to others to copyright infringement. We must make absolutely sure that rationales published on this site cannot be portrayed in that light. Jheald 18:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
This is weird. I looked at the November 05 revision of Help:Image and it looks like the part about "Non-free images that do not include both a fair use tag and a detailed fair use rationale will be deleted!" wasn't REALLY there at the time. I looked at the revision via th edit box and there was no trace of this. Most likely a bug caused WP:FURG (currently transcluded into the page) to appear to be transcluded in the oldest version of the page. Funpika 21:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the sheer number of images

This policy, though extant for a considerable amount of time, has gone only loosely enforced. Literally thousands of images have been deleted under CSD I6 prior to this bot becoming functional. Yet, these thousands of deletions have been a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of images used under fair use at Wikipedia that lack a fair use rationale. It is only now, when a bot is enforcing the policy by appropriately tagging the images, that people are raising issue with the policy.

The outcome of the bot's actions has been 27282 images still extant tagged for deletion under CSD I6. This creates a huge amount of work, whether it be for adding/fixing rationales for the images or reviewing/deleting the images under CSD I6. As of this writing 20582 images, or 75.4% of that set, remain tagged for deletion.

There are people who very upset and terrified at the prospect of 20582 images being deleted. It is perhaps illustrative to note that in reviewing the last 5000 deletions, 3750 have been for images. Of those, just 6 were due to violating CSD I6. That said, a considerable number of these images may soon come under deletion as seven days begins to expire from when this bot began activity. This is, effectively, today. --Durin 16:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The scale of the issue makes the development of standardised, legally checked rationales even more important. Rationales should be mass produced and quality checked to standard patterns. These are not things that users should be being encouraged to brew up on their own, untrained, in 10,000 different ways -- particularly not, when they are adressing standard use-cases. Jheald 16:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Jheald, you have spoken long and hard on the concept of boilerplate fair use rationales. Please do not take over every section of this page for your purposes of arguing favor of them. There is a section for this. Please use it. --Durin 17:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, look, it's pretty damn hard to get through 27282 images before someone comes along and deletes them, so we are pretty much encouraging people to just put up a generic fair use template for all the album covers they see or all the logos they see as fast as they possibly can. --64.5.88.54 03:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Had it been done correctly since the beginning, we would not have this problem now. Focus on the images articles you are used to work with, and let the others there. There are users who are adding generic fair use rationales around, but just as we caught thousands without them, in the future we will catch thousands of them using bad rationales. Freedom cannot be evaded ;-) -- ReyBrujo 03:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Generic fair use rationales are appropriate, if the usages are appropriate and generic. Jheald 03:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll argue my position in favor of boilerplate templates elsewhere. But whether a boilerplate template is enough or not, shouldn't we tag images with a limited number of boilerplate categories for what they are and how they are used? It sure would help if, for example, we could quickly find every photograph of a product, every product label, every piece of album cover art, etc. That way, if and when there is a lawsuit or a policy decision WP can quickly sort through the images to decide what needs flagging or deletion. And editors / administrators can concentrate on a particular type of image within their area of expertise. Hundreds of thousands of images with free-form editor-generated legal rationales is a big mess. Whether you believe those rationales should stay or go, adding some kind of category or other tag would help. Wikidemo 22:46, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, categorization does happen in most (perhaps all?) cases where the "non-free" templates are used. For example {{Non-free album cover}} adds the image to Category:Album covers. --GentlemanGhost 17:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of the character of use of fair use in articles

One of the hotly debated derivative points in this dispute has been the character of use of images. The chief area of dispute in this has been the use of album covers on articles regarding a particular album. What constitutes fair use? Is it enough that the cover serves to identify the subject or must the article critically discuss the album cover?

There is considerable case law regarding this. In Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342 the circuit court stated in its ruling "it is as clear, that if he thus cites the most important parts of the work, with a view, not to criticise, but to supersede the use of the original work, and substitute the review for it, such a use will be deemed in law a piracy". Further, it states "There must be real, substantial condensation of the materials, and intellectual labor and judgment bestowed thereon; and not merely the facile use of the scissors". It seems from this ruling that it is insufficient to simply cut and paste material from one location to another and call it fair use. One must have a purpose relating to the use of that image that requires intellectual labor and judgment. The mere redisplay of an album cover, while serving to identify a subject, does nothing to satisfy this requirement. It is upon this point that boiler plate templates for fair use rationales fail.

Attempts have been made at various points to create boilerplate templates. One example exists at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use rationale. The problem is that a boilerplate template can not foresee how a particular work will be used within a particular article defend its use as fair use, given that the mere re-display of a copyrighted work does not constitute fair use.

To give an example; one could craft a fair use rationale regarding the cover of the first album that used holography (in 1980, by the way) indicating that the display of the image of the cover is important within the context of the album's article because the article discusses the album cover being the first use of a hologram in such media. That fair use rationale would obviously not apply to any other album cover; there can only be one first. Now, if a boilerplate fair use rationale were used, it would fail to identify why this cover was used in the album's article because it would not indicate the fair use rationale being that it was the first holographic album cover and the article discusses that point. Note that [[5]] says "Fair use is decided on a case by case basis".

The key issue currently in play is whether a work is transformative or merely derivative. One editor in this debate has pointed to Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc. as evidence that redisplaying images of album covers is transformative if it appears on an article about the album as it serves an identification purpose. However, the ruling in that case covers a person searching for a given product/page and aiding them in doing so. If a person goes to an album, they've already gone there. The image does not aid them in getting to the article. A different case must be made for the transformative nature of the use.

Is it sufficient that an image simply serve to identify the album? We can debate this endlessly. In doing so, we will achieve nothing. Short of a judge ruling on the matter, we simply do not know. Therein lies one of the chief problems in displaying album covers on album articles without any associated discussion about the album cover; ending up in court over this (whether we win or lose) is extremely expensive and likely to threaten the very existence of Wikipedia.

Some people call this paranoia, and note that the Wikimedia Foundation has not been dragged into court over anything, much less fair use. This defense is weak on the face of it. That something has never happened before does not by itself mean it can not happen. There are droves of lawyers whose sole career purpose is copyright law. All it takes is one with a client who is mad at Wikipedia for a perceived violation of fair use. Just one.

Clearly, the safer case is that we simply do not just identify a work, but also discuss the work as suggested in the Folsom v. Marsh ruling. Yes, this does mean that huge numbers of album covers would not be legitimate fair use on Wikipedia. Note that this is the default case on most language Wikipedias, where fair use is not allowed at all. Viewing this does not infringe on our ability to produce a high quality, reproducible, free content encyclopedia. In fact, very much the opposite; our work here becomes more reproducible for any purpose. --Durin 16:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so the case here is in identifying if a fair use rationale is valid. In support of a templated rationale, what if we use some semantic markup to (let a bot) decide? For example, if an album cover image is used in {{Infobox Album}} and nowhere else, a boilerplate rationale will suffice. That usage would hardly be ambiguous. --soum talk 16:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. The fair use rationales for most album covers are simply the same justifications written out in many different ways. What better use of a template than to replace disparate variations of the same information with a centralized version? Λυδαcιτγ 22:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Durin, at what point is the cover art to an album the "most important parts of the work"? And how, by illustrating an article on the album, do we "supersede the use of the original work". You've already stated you are not a lawyer, maybe, and I say that as someone who has agreed with you on a number of issues, you should ease off attempting to do a lawyer's job. Now you're on stronger ground when you say "a boilerplate template can not foresee how a particular work will be used within a particular article". The problem is, try this on for size: "a fair use rationale can not foresee how a particular work will be used within a particular article". The bot isn't solving anything, it has simply moved the problem sideways. Now we have a huge number of images with fair use rationales which are probably as useful as a boilerplate template. This isn't a job for a bot, this is a job for humans and discussion. Here's the biggest problem with fair use law: Every use is deemed to be fair in the eyes of the law until a judgement rules otherwise. Boilerplates and rationales and everything else don't amount to a hill of beans when someone complains. It's a lawyers job, let lawyers do it. Not bots. Hiding Talk 18:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually the bot is solving something, its identifying the problem. We knew this was a problem for over a year, manual work of tagging these things has not worked, as is evident by the number of images the bot is finding. Regardless if it is the most significant part or not, we do need justify why we have to steal these images. No rational equals no image. Poor rationale also equals no image. The bot is not looking for the latter, only the former. —— Eagle101Need help? 19:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not identifying a problem. We've known about this problem for a long time. And please explain how this bot determines what a poor rationale is? I'm also a little unclear on why "No rational equals no image. Poor rationale also equals no image." meawns we delete rather than add the rationale. It used to be we worked collaboratively around here to fix problems, not enforced our own point of view as to the solution wholesale. It would be useful if people could attempt to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Also, I do wish you could stop throwing the term stealing around with such gay abandon. It really won't get us anywhere. Hiding Talk 20:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I said it can't find poor rational, please read what I wrote :). I've explained below in one of the other sections :). The bot is doing us a service by identifying which images need attention. I don't mind if we delay with deleting them, but tagging them all is a very good idea. Then we know exactly where the problem is. As for your other questions and concerns, please read my response below, and continue the rest of this conversation down there in that section :). Cheers! —— Eagle101Need help? 20:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Suspension of CSD I6

Given that the problem is not the bot, and the problem is not the policy, the appropriate course of action is to arrive at a solution that addresses the actual problem; so many images, so little time.

Therefore, I recommend

  • We temporarily suspend processing deletion of images based on CSD I6.
  • We allow BetacommandBot to continue its work tagging images missing fair use rationales.

I do not have a recommendation of when this suspension should be lifted. Some criteria would have to be met. Consideration must be made that lack of activity in responding to this serious problem is not a justification for continuing this suspension.

Respectfully submitted, --Durin 16:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You're recommeding that we stop deleting non-free content that lacks a fair use rationale? Pull the other one, mate! --Tony Sidaway 16:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I think what he's actually saying is that all those images are not going to be dealt with inside the usual time-scale which is applicable, since that timescale is predicated on rather lower volumes. It might therefore be necessary to slow down the deletions to allow the application of proper rationales and to avoid the appearance of joyfully consigning to the bit-bucket images which would have had perfectly-good rationales applied to them in just a little while. HTH HAND —--Phil | Talk 16:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what your statement "pull the other one" means but I assume that you disagree with the recommendation. It would be much more helpful if you could state why you disagree. --ElKevbo 16:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree because Foundation policy says "Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale. They must be used only in the context of other freely licensed content." [6]. This isn't rocket science. --Tony Sidaway 16:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
He made a huge thoughtful post with lots of intelligent and relevant commentary. Don't just snipe at him. Haukur 16:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think we should temporarily suspend both, until we have WP:FURG sorted out. Until we know what our policy is, there is no point in stampeding users to - quite possibly - do the wrong thing. Jheald 16:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Jheald, FURG is not policy. FURG stands for Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline. While I don't mind pausing the deletions, Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria otherwise known as WP:FUC is policy. Don't get the two confused. Thanks. —— Eagle101Need help? 16:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure its not policy, it guides users into compliance with policy. If the guidelines are flawed how can users be on the right side of the policy? I believe that was the point he was trying to make. --soum talk 16:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Right, and that I can agree with, but WP:FURG needs to be in line with our policy, not the other way around. —— Eagle101Need help? 16:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
IMO the recent adds are in line with policy. But there is difference of opinion, and the appropriate clarification of policy in this area is currently a live topic at WP:FAIR. (As I highlighted at point 2 of my original request, at the very top of the page). Jheald 17:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I would like to caution people that if we are incapable of hammering out an agreement here, the next step is not ArbCom; they would not take the case and if they did they simply would uphold the policy as it stands. The next step is one of either Jimbo or the Board, both of whom have taken a very strong stance against fair use in general. You would be well advised to consider the consequences of this escalating any further. --Durin 17:16, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    The trouble is that the bot is tagging so many images that are fair use so quickly, and admins are hoovering up behind the bot, not really thinking about what they're doing sometimes, that we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of this images are very fair to use, they have no free equivalents, and they are incredibly helpful in explaining the topic, making the encyclopaedia better, legally. We need to throttle it down, and perhaps have some kind of moratorium between tagging and deletion (48 hours? What will that hurt?) Neil ╦ 17:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Policy already requires that images should only be deleted under I6 after 48 hours from the uploader being notified. WjBscribe 18:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It may come as a surprise to some of those who favour blind application of the current policies, but some editors do have responsibilities and lives away from Wikipedia - I don't have much time to spare at the moment as my mother is dying and I have other things on my mind. When the vast quantity of articles/images which are currently under threat are concerned, to give people only 48 hours, or even a week, to bring images into conformity with policy is wholly unreasonable. I have about 4000 articles on my watchlist, including large numbers of football clubs which have acquired badges or logos over the years, and watching the notifications being issued by this bot as it prepares to cut a swathe through Wikipedia is horrifying. I see no good reason why a logo cannot automatically be considered fair use in illustrating an article about the organisation whose logo it is. The bot is not perfect: I have just removed its tagging from several pictures which were tagged with "Template:Ireland-IDF" ("picture taken by the Irish Defence Forces or a member of the Irish Defence Forces in the process of his duties, freely available for private use, freely available for all other use with attribution" - which is given in the template). I strongly support Durin's proposal. -- Arwel (talk) 19:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
That was my fault, sorry. As part of a clean-up and renaming effort of our licensing tags that was on-going, but it has faltered out and I did not keep up with it. Those images are not really free and it is marked as so, but not visibly. Those images likely do need fair use rationales. Kotepho 20:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There currently is a time between tagging and deletion. Yes the bot needs to slow down, I'd advise tagging one image every few minutes. People do need to justify why we need to steal these images though, they are not ours, so we need to make sure that it is justifiable in every case we do it. Not every case is the same. The images should have critical commentary in the article. —— Eagle101Need help? 18:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The whole program of stampeding users should stop until we confirm what our policy is and what our guidelines are. And until we get them legalled.
But it is important to bear in mind the difference in fair-use law between complementary use and substitutive use. Use of a small thumbnail of an album cover in an encyclopedic-quality article on the album will - without fail - be complementary use, and will - without fail - make a significant contribution to the article. Jheald 18:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Fundamentally we should bear in mind that the goal of the project is to build a free content encyclopedia. Fair use will always be problematic given the huge restrictions on how this material should be used. As such it should used selectively when it is essential that we do so. It certainly should not be used just decoratively. It is essential that those who propose to use a fair use image explain why that image is important and in which articles it should be used. WjBscribe 18:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support for Durin's proposal. To me, this seems the most logical course of action. The images lacking fair use rationale need to be identified. The deletion doesn't have to be immediate. howcheng {chat} 18:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Durin's proposal. Maybe we should suspend the I6 just for the images uploaded before June 2007? So if we see a new fair use image uploaded without the fair use rationale it still can be deleted? The same for the obvious cases there fair use is obviously impossible Alex Bakharev 07:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, lets move this to WT:CSD, and see if we can't delay the time of deletion for 2-3 weeks. That gives those that ernestly want to work on tagging all of these more time. —— Eagle101Need help? 13:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Stong Support but I can't immediately see where the proposal has gone to. This whole issue is in danger of generating more words than the average WP:LAME matter. This is not helping people to understand what is needed. Timrollpickering 14:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Qualified support for the proposal. It's two proposals in one. I think we should suspend automatic deletion merely for having no rationale, and also suspend the bot. The bot doesn't hurt anything so I support the two together. However, if the outcome of the discussion is that we won't require an individualized discussion the bot's work is in vain, the tags will have to be removed en massse, and a new bot will have to launch reflecting the new policy or guideline. Yes, I agree -- thanks for attending to this. Dealing with infringing images is probably a bigger problem than images improperly deleted, so let's keep up the good work and not throw out any babies with the bathwater. If anyone notices an image from CSD I6 or any other reason and it's clearly infringing, then by all means delete it with whatever speedy deletion process there is. Wikidemo 22:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Durin, for that brilliant proposal. And thank you for the efforts you and Betacommand have made trying to help users through fair use rationales. The problem, as you are no doubt well aware by now, is that you don't scale. Not even all of our fair use-clueful people together would scale. And you have gotten short with people a few times, because to give the verbose answers that would calm nerves would cause your hands to fall off. I think we as a community can and should forgive you for that; we're all human.

However, I think suspending I6 is only the first step in dealing with this mountain of work. Fortunately, we have as much time as we need to create for ourselves. The WMF resolution calls for the deletion of bad fair use material, but does not specify the process to be used, nor a timetable, except that we're to be finished by next March, which is easily doable. We could dump this into IFD, if we wanted and were feeling particularly suicidal. We're not though. What we need is to find the right process or mix of processes that will be:

  • Slower than speedy deletion.
  • Faster than IFD.
  • More willing to delete than IFD (i.e. willing and able to override a WP:ILIKEIT vote.)
  • More friendly to the newbies than speedy deletion.

My proposal is as follows:

  1. Suspend CSD I6.
  2. Resume bot-tagging images with no fair-use rationales (although tweaking the warning templates first to be a little more polished and friendly might not be out of line) (For that matter, can there be a way of detecting earlier warnings and delivering a shorter followup for each additional warning on a page?)
  3. Create a provisional tribunal for former I6 candidates, which only requires the certification of X people that there is, indeed, no rationale present, to zap an image, where X = some low number like 10, or maybe 5 (certifiers minus non-certifiers).
  4. Throttle down the number of nominations to the tribunal any individual user may make in a day to about 8-10. No automated or semi-automated nominations. Make it appealing to just write the dratted rationales yourself and skip the fuss.
  5. When the backlog clears, maybe a few weeks from now, shut down the provisional tribunal and restore process to status quo ante, having successfully resolved the situation to the satisfaction of the Foundation. Archive the discussions, and last one out turns off the lights.
  6. Everyone involved goes on vacation. I'm not joking about this one; dealing with this much deletion would try the patience of a saint. Yes, this is important, but not enough to burn out over. We'll need calm heads, even in the face of people who are just wrong.

This is not a finished proposal, but I submit it to the community for revision and improvement. —CComMack (t–c) 17:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We must not stampede users into creating bad rationales: wait for WP:FURG

As I indicated at point 5 of my original request, in many ways bad rationales (ie legally unfounded rationales) are worse than no rationales at all. As I wrote there, low-quality rationales will br pilloried by anti-commons zealots like the so-called Progress and Freedom Foundation, and could even constitute criminal incitement to copyright infringement.

IMO, we should therefore wait until the new model rationales at WP:FURG have had a chance to stabilise, to be reviewed, and preferably to be legally reviewed, before we restart up this bot and start stampeding users. Jheald 16:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Foundation policy says "Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale. They must be used only in the context of other freely licensed content." That means we can and should still delete material with a poor rationale. There will be a lot less of this in any case, and it will be possible to detect and delete it at human rates of editing. --Tony Sidaway 16:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Well I would like to see as much material as there is now, only with good (and standardised) rationales. And I think that is achievable, if we do this right. But that means taking a week, maybe two weeks to work out what is right, rathering than blindly powering ahead now. Jheald 17:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
if the rationales can be standardized, whats the problemt with templating them? --soum talk 17:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
FURG is not policy. FURG needs to match what Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria says. That is policy. Don't get the two confused. :) Thanks. —— Eagle101Need help? 16:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. IMO the recent adds to FURG do match policy.
But it is important to recognise this also is an issue causing some spread of opinion at WP:FAIR, and this also needs to be sorted out and legalled, before we start stampeding users. Jheald 17:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Usage

Fair use applies to the use made of a copyrighted work. How can a bot evaluate the usage, or even whether a rationale exists which explains the fair usage? Is the bot simply looking for the word rationale on the description page? And are we back to being deletionists and inclusionists? Seems strange to hear Tony urge for deletion here, having agreed with him many times in the past over articles which should not be deleted but improved. An image lacks a fair use rationale; should it be deleted or improved? I'd say improved. If that means adding a rationale, add it. If that means removing it from articles because fair use doesn't apply, remove it. But there has to be a value judgement here, this shouldn't become a shoot em up where admins trawl categories deleting tagged images with no thought. If in doubt, don't delete. Admins have to be 100% positive no rationale exists. That doesn't mean relying on a bot which didn't find a word. And an admin should also be sure no rationale can be added, because if it can be, why doesn't the admin add it? Hiding Talk 18:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The bot is not evaluating the usage. Its looking for the lack of a rational at all. Really easy to do technically :) Also, its not my job to justify your image for you. If you get one of the notices, justify why you need to steal the image. The image is not ours, so we must claim why we can use it anyway. —— Eagle101Need help? 19:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
How does it look for a rationale? Last time I checked bots were not technically capable of sentience. :) Um, and I think WP:OWN applies here. It's not my image, it's a collaborative effort last time I looked. And steal is actually an emotive word and not conducive to the debate, don't you think? If it truly were stealing then I doubt any of us would be here right now. US law allows such usage to exist, let's not use such dirty POV words when describing what we have all agreed is best termed fair usage. By the by, very few of these words are ours, we're just stealing them as well. Want to start a rampant deletion crusade on those too? Hiding Talk 20:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Eagle makes an excellent point in that although technically anyone can do it, the uploader and other primary editors to the affected articles are the best people to make the fair use justification. I as a third party don't really have the context to understand why the image is necessary to the article, and as such, I am really not qualified to make the justification. howcheng {chat} 20:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
So how does this make you the right person to delete or tag it? Hiding Talk 20:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Deleting is easy -- no rationale? Buh-bye. A good rationale should easily explain why the image necessary to the article. Like I said, it is difficult for me as a third party to write a good rationale because I don't know the context. The rationale should explain the context so that after reading it, I should be able to agree that the image is truly necessary. howcheng {chat} 06:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
We'll have to agree to disagree then. I can't see how someone who can't contextualise a good rationale can evaluate what a good rationale is. If you can see why the image is in the article after the rationale is added, then you should be able to see why the image is in the article before the rationale is added by reading the article. If you can't do that, you have no business deleting that image because you can't be sure no rationale can be written. And if in doubt, don't delete. Look, this is probably playing out the right way. Probably the best answer is to suspend the speedy clause, get all the images tagged, allow a month for people who can write rationales to add them, and then start deleting. And then implement a seven day tolerance period. Hiding Talk 11:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me give you an example. In Charles Barkley there's a Sports Illustrated magazine cover which I nominated for deletion on the basis of it just being a magazine cover. At the time of nomination, it was not at all obvious what the purpose of the image in the article was, but the uploader was able to explain the reasoning during the deletion discussion, something I never would have figured out just by reading the article. howcheng {chat} 16:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Bad example. For starters, the image already had a fair use rationale on it and you didn't delete it but chose to discuss the issue. That's the route I would expect from someone who doesn't feel they can evaluate a fair use rationale. But my point was that this is a collaboration, and no-one should deliberately duck the issue of adding a rationale in order delete an image. I'm saying that when you're presented with an image taggged as having no fair use rationale, you have two options: add one or delete the image. What really sparked me off though, was an admin deleting images which were tagged but also had rationales. Surely you can see that's a bad thing. If that admin can't spot there's a rationale there, what right has that admin got to delete the image, and what confidence should we have in that admin's ability to evaluate fair use rationales? Hiding Talk 16:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Its easy to do, filter out the text in the discripition part of the page, if after removing the {{tl}nonfree-whatever}} there is zero text left, there is no rational. Rationales require text. :) Of course the bot can't find bad rational, but nothing stops it from finding no rational, Its up to the person or groups of people wanting these images to justify why we need to steal them. They are not ours. I'm more then glad to help you learn how to write these things, thats not a problem. But you do have to ask. I can't know the circumstances that you got the images. Also as a side note, if there is no text in the image description or the edit summary that means there is no source, something that we require for all images. Say where you got it. Did you scan it? Did you get it off the web? Its even better if you are willing to hazard a guess of who owns the copyright. In short there must be text in either the image description or the summary part of the image, otherwise its not valid. :) —— Eagle101Need help? 20:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe you could help me out after you stop libelling people. Or maybe I'm big enough and ugly enough to look after myself. However, thanks for the offer, I'll go amend the relevant templates so that everyone knows you're the go to guy for help on how to write rationales. Maybe we should even change the CSD so that no image is deleted until you've had the chance to evaluate it. We could make you the FU tsar. :) Seriously, we've got admins deleting images two days early at a rate of 20-odd a minute with fair use rationales added and you think this bot is helping? Hiding Talk 20:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Hiding, please tone it down a little. Eagle isn't libelling you. We don't need to be tossing legal terms around. --Durin 21:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Hey, I'm responding to all the accusations of stealing. You want to stop the tossing around of legal terms, start with that one. Don't wade in here and make me out to be the bad guy, you're the one quoting case law for crying out loud. ;| Hiding Talk 21:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, I'm a ****ing clueless bastard impersonation of a hairless monkey. Definitely the bad guy. Can I still ask you to tone it down please? Thank you. --Durin 22:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm as reasonable as the next person. Seems to me this whole argument kicked off because the bot couldn't simply be toned down for a little while. Hiding Talk 10:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Do the images really have something along the lines of "Image:x.jpg can be used under non-free content policies because [insert criteria that the image meets from WP:NFCC and why it is necessary in the article]" or is it just "Image:x.jpg is fair use"?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
You don't seem to be reading what I am saying, I support the idea of delaying the deletions, and changing the policy to allow a short delay. I would like to see all the images get tagged with something, so we know where to start working. —— Eagle101Need help? 21:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If we are in broad agreement on the general points, why pick a fight? However my ultimate point remains, people should not be relying on a bot to tell them what does and doesn't have a rationale. Hiding Talk 21:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Why not? Every disputed case I've found and investigated turned up that the bot was right. Seems to be doing a bang up job. --Durin 22:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Look at the bot's contribs, its finding all the images without rational. Its really simple to find images without rational. There is no text, the letter count is 0. Hence why a bot was approved to run as per our WP:FUC, and CSD policy. Really I advocate allowing the bot to finish tagging the images so we know where we stand. I don't mind delaying deletion, but these images do need acceptable fair use rationales. —— Eagle101Need help? 22:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Did you see where thousands of images were deleted early, many of which had fair use rationales? Does that explain why people should not be relying on this bot to tell them if an image has a rationale or not? Hiding Talk 10:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think maybe we are talking at cross purposes. My point is that people should be taking the time to check that there is no rationale before they delete the image. We should not be taking the bot's word for it. You seem to be agreeing with that, I note Durin states he reviews the bots work and I note you don't want images deleted on the strength of the bot's tagging, so again, I can't see what we are fighting about. All I'm asking for is that people use their brains and work out what the best solution is when presented with a bot tagged image. If we really wanted all the images deleted, we'd just tell the bot to do it, wouldn't we? And we all know why we don't do that sort of thing don't we? Because of the human input. That's all I want, human input. We've got one admin who has deleted thousands of images out of process based on the bots tagging. That to me indicates a problem. Yes, stopping the deletion helps, but this issue needs discussing. The bot's tags are not an automatic reason to delete. Hiding Talk 11:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not apply one mistaken admin to the lot of us that hold this view. I think that the admins should be at the very least looking at the image and making sure that it is not worth saving. As I said before if we held off on deleting these things for 2-3 weeks we would be in better shape. But we do need all these tagged at one point or another, might as well do it now. —— Eagle101Need help? 13:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Why a bot can't add rationales

Image:MyAim isTrue.jpg and Image:Elvis Costello & the Attractions-Imperial Bedroom (album cover).jpg are two very, very good rationales, the kind that allow you to completely agree that the use of these images is necessary to the understanding of the reader, the standard that fair use rationales should be held to. Seriously, read them, and you will understand why a bot can never generate these things. --Mask? 01:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Those two are special cases since the articles discuss the album design specifically. Most articles about albums do not. It's those common cases we are discussing now. But I don't think anyone is suggesting bod-added rationales, just making standardized rationales for the most common cases that editors can add manually. --Apoc2400 01:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If a bot cannot ever GENERATE such rationales, then please explain how a bot can EVER work out whether or not a valid rationale already exists? I truly hope the bots in question are not just flagging non-existent text where they think rationale text should be. If so, any dummy text will repair the rationale discrepancy in the bot's eyes, won't it?
In which case, what material value is the bot adding to Wikipedia, except as a very blunt, dumb and (inevitably) irritating-to-humans instrument. In lieu of any actual legal cases against Wikipedia, what is the bot's purpose, other than to boost the programmer's ego? Is this what Wikipedia is all about?
Incidentally, if there is a bot out there that can parse and comprehend an entered text-based fair-use rationale and evaluate its suitability for Wikipedia, then let me know, and I will apply for the Nobel Prize on its behalf myself.
If all these bots can do is recognize a missing rationale (possible in the most basic possible programming fashion), but cannot recognize whether the rationale has been adequately repaired (a feat impossible to computer science as it currently stands), then what constructive use is such a bot?
Random textual "rationales" will fool all such bots, and the bot will never know the difference!
Tag suspected infringements, sure. But there must be no time limit on fixing them (bots don't discriminate when they tag items, nor due they follow up their activities, but humans have time constraints), and any final decision must absolutely be left to humans within a reasonable time-frame (e.g., twelve months minimum unless specific legal proceedings are brought regarding the specific allegedly-infringing item).
Bots cannot tell whether an existing rationale is compliant with WP policy or not. Hence - do not trust bots so eagerly - they are tools, but human sense must ultimately prevail. Wikipedia is a human resource, after all.
This contribution is made in good faith, for what it's worth. KUTGW folks. --DaveG12345 02:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I truly hope the bots in question are not just flagging non-existent text where they think rationale text should be. If so, any dummy text will repair the rationale discrepancy in the bot's eyes, won't it? is exactly correct. The bot is not scanning for valid fair use rationales, but no fair use rationales. A person can add the {{fair use disputed}} template if they believe the rationale is wrong. How is this a problem? No fair use rationale is a problem, the bot gets rid of it. -Mask? 02:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Edit: Just read, you want to leave untagged fair use items up for a minimum of a year? Are you serious?-Mask? 02:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
All I'm saying is - the current deadlines imposed by the bots appear to be around 2/7 days - arbitrary stuff, even the most vigiliant editor could go on a human holiday and miss the lot disappearing down the pan. No one is dragging WP to the courts over any of this stuff - it's just random bot whims, based on simple text-detection algorithms. The bot-angle is therefore an arbitrary, fallible, non-human-driven rule-of-thumb. So why not arbitrarily set the deadline for such "findings" at something generous? The complaints seem to indicate an inhuman bot making inhuman judgments about a subject the bot doesn't truly know anything about. So why not some bot-specific deadlines like this? Simply to redress the balance from idiotic automation to rational human thought? New bot-only tags would be fine by me.--DaveG12345 02:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
No one is dragging WP to the courts over any of this stuff - So we should wait until they do? Then what? Besides that, you do bring up a good point about having some time to respond to the bot's notices for those who might currently not be actively editing Wikipedia but who have uploaded a lot of images that may not currently have fair use rationale. I tend to lean in favor of keeping potential legal problems off Wikimedia Foundation's back, overall. Bumm13 03:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If bots cannot add automatic fair use rationale, why users like Strangerer (talk · contribs) can with AWB? -- ReyBrujo 02:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I wouldnt consider those good rationales, they dont address why not using the image would significantly impair the article. Perhaps a sufficient rationale, but perhaps not.-Mask? 04:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what more I could add to some of these. Could you give an example? --Strangerer (Talk) 04:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
There are two at the top of this section, my first post up there. There has to be some reason why the lack of the image greatly reduces the ability of the reader to comprehend the information for its use to be entirely* consistent with the policy, and the rationale should identify those reasons. (*I say entirely because we seem to be letting logo's slide, even though you can adequately describe most logos without using pictures.)-Mask? 05:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
As Apoc2400 pointed out, those are pretty special cases. I had a tough time coming up with additional reasons why the album cover should be included when the album is commented on, but the artwork on the cover is not. --Strangerer (Talk) 05:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
We make choices on whether to include images based on the needs of the text. If there's not an overriding reason to use a copyrighted image, you may want to evaluate if it needs to be there. Most of the other wikipedias don't allow fair use images at all, and that may not be such a horrible road to take, we are a free content project after all. Give it some thought. We'd be able to do without all the complaining about tags and image deletion if en adopted the same policy. It's something you can think about at least.-Mask? 06:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If that is your purpose, then why didn't you start a proper policy discussion instead of creating this whole mess to make a giant WP:POINT? --Apoc2400 08:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not a giant WP:POINT. Regardless of whether we ultimately decide to allow fair use or not, our current policy allows it (and the Foundation does allow us to make that decision), but only and without exception if an explicit, individual (not boilerplate) rationale is provided as to why the specific article (not a class of articles) needs to use a fair-use image. "All (album covers/logos/screenshots) are acceptable" doesn't wash. One must describe why a specific use of such an image in a specific article is critical to its educational purpose. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Because first off I didn't create this mess, just responded to calls to lend a hand fixing this up, and second, I don't remove properly used fair use images because they dont fall outside policy, which effectively eliminates any sort or of WP:POINT charges. I dont remove lists of image to piss you off, if it helps you. -Mask? 15:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the bot

The bot is following WP:NFCC, tagging most images correctly for WP:CSD#I6, which in itself is a valid policy. Seven days is more than enough to add a rationale, be it the uploader or someone else. Will (talk) 11:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

  • The problems lie in the speed at which the bot was operating and the zeal with which images were deleted. I don't think anyone disputes that we have to get to a point where images have a fair use rationale. It's just the speed at which we move there. Seven days might seem like a long time, but not when you are talking about something like 20 000 images. I think there's a happy medium somewhere where we can stop deleting for 30 days and show some good faith that allows interested parties time to add rationales. We don't want people to just add boilerplate rationales, that just shifts the issue and makes it harder to get a bot to sweep through again. We've already seen one admin delete thousands of images early, many of which included rationales, based on the fact that the bot was creating a rather large backlog. What I think people are asking for is a calm but definite movement towards compliance, rather than a mad panic-stricken rush. We get told that we evacuate buildings in an orderly fashion in fire drills, that saves lives. Think of this as a fire drill, although here we're saving arguments by taking an orderly route. Hiding Talk 13:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
In all honesty, I could get through a hundred to two hundred images in one evening if I were to give them rationales. A hundred experienced editors doing this would be about 10-20,000. If a group of users went through the rationale backlog, they could be easily done in no time. Plus, I think the bot's speed is due to fair use images without rationale being an urgent issue (someone elses words but not mine) Will (talk) 15:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I find it a pain, but then again it's a necessary process. I've uploaded 500+ album covers, but haven't added the rationales so it'll be a lengthy process. In my opinion, the bot is following WP:BOLD and taking firm action as concerns fair use. While everyone's sitting around debating the issue on how to tackle fair use, this bot actually went out there and enforced the rules. If the rule cannot be enforced, then it's pointless having the thing in the first place. LuciferMorgan 12:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Naconkantari's deletions

Naconkantari (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) deleted ~3,000 images tagged {{dated dfu}} (i.e. the template used by BetacommandBot to mark no fair use rationale) in a 2 hour spree yesterday. The core problem is that until yesterday "dated dfu" instructed users to leave the template in place until reviewed by an admin. This was recently changed to instruct any user to remove the template once the rationale was added. Possibly because of this confusion, Naconkantari simply deleted everything that was still tagged after the requisite waiting period, so even if the rationale was added the image still got deleted unless the tag had been removed. In addition, it appears that some were deleted after not quite 7 days of being tagged since Naconkantari cleared Category:Disputed non-free images as of 1 June 2007 and Category:Disputed non-free images as of 31 May 2007, which essentially imposed a 5 day standard rather than a 7 day one. Dragons flight 16:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I am preparing a reply to this statement. Naconkantari 16:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If there is a problem there it is not with the bot or the policy. Secretlondon 16:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed this is a topic unto itself, I have made the heading a level 2 accordingly. (H) 16:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If policy is being poorly implemented, then perhaps the approach to that policy needs to be reconsidered. At the least the deletion warning tags ought to be stable, clear, and helpful. Dragons flight 16:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There has been some confusion regarding the {{dated dfu}} template. I deleted the images based on the current version of the template which did not include the requirement to leave the template on the page after including a fair use rationale. I have been working with the uploaders on my talk page regarding any improper deletions, and in all cases the images have been speedily restored. I will continue to work with anyone that may have had their images deleted because of confusion with this template. I am also going through in a limited capacity to review any deletions that may have been improper, however, this may take some time, so please be patient. If anyone notices an image was deleted that included a valid fair-use rationale, please leave a note on my talk page. Naconkantari 16:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for handling this the way you are. Applause from this corner. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me, but (regardless of the wording on removing the template after providing a rationale) ever since the first revision of the template there have been instructions to the effect that the rationale is to be subject to review by an administrator. Sorry, but Jude's "Automagic delete" tool implements no logic for that whatsoever. Миша13 12:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Ouch. I'm looking at your deletion logs and it's looking like there are literally thousands of images which were deleted out of process. The deletions were happening at a rate of 20-odd a minute. Like I said above, this isn't a shoot em up game where we just zap away. Thought has to go into this. Dragons flight is right that everything in Category:Disputed non-free images as of 1 June 2007 and Category:Disputed non-free images as of 31 May 2007 should not have been deleted. I'm sorry to pile on here, but at the rate you were deleting I simply can't see how you could determine that the reason for deletion was valid. Fair play you're doing your damndest to fix the problems, but I think this has to be hammered home so that no-one else makes this mistake. Hiding Talk 20:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Deletion bots are insane - scripts likewise. You are supposed to check first.. Secretlondon 18:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Although I realize there's a huge backlog of noncomplaint images that deserve deletion, an overly automated or cursory remedy could cause problems of equal dimensions for editors who acted properly. For the example I posted at Village Pump I had reviewed dozens of images at the Front National party website before selecting one that seems most relevant to Wikipedia's article. Then I made an English translation of the image's text and provided the translation at the caption. It could have been a headache to recover that image if an overzealous tag/CSD had deleted it, since I might have needed to use the Internet Wayback project to find it again. That's a swift way to deflate the morale of good editors. DurovaCharge! 03:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • These deletions should be undone and properly reviewed. A lot of images with supplied rationales were deleted. This is outrageous.  Grue  09:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I knew this would've happened eventually. This perfectly ties with the general lazy approach that's being implemented here. Just mere look at the tracker (over 10 thousand images in queue in the following days) gives me confidence that deletion bots will be used to clear the backlog (with the usual "omg they'll sue us if we don't delete them liek fsckin now!" excuse as a cover). While adminbots aren't inherently bad (mine deletes nearly half a thousand of them daily), some care should be exercised when designing them. Tools like "Automagic delete" definitely encourage a bad approach of indiscriminate deletions. Миша13 12:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no. I've been A) checking B) orphaning and C) deleting images, one by one, over the course of several days. Granted I use WP:NPW but the task is still very boring, slow, and tedious. Some of us are careful to delete these images after all. Those that have FU rationales will NOT get deleted. IT'S THAT SIMPLE PEOPLE!!!!! JUST PUT FOUR DAMN SENTENCES IN IT AND MOVE ON!!!!! There have only been a few images with FU rationales that I have accidentally deleted, so oops and sorry. Really, the rumors that have met yall's eyes on this enitre page are so wild... I can't even begin... to tell you... wow. -Pilotguy hold short 13:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • First, I want to thank Naconkantari again (already thanked him on his talk page) for the quick undeletion of Image:77SunsetStripAlbumcover.jpg after I had posted a fair use rationale. Second, and this goes against my exopedian nature, I'd like to comment on the larger issue. I frankly don't understand the insistence by some that album or book covers are merely "decorative." In the case of the 77 Sunset Strip image, Edd Byrnes' slightly crooked smile and carefully combed hair tell the reader more about the jaunty, jazzed nature of the show and its soundtrack album than the proverbial thousand words could. This is genuinely encyclopedic content of real value to the reader, and I can't understand the urge to delete it. Of course, the picture poses absolutely no legal threat to Wikipedia. This image of a nearly half-century-old album is well within the legal bounds of fair use, as I think even the most ardent deletionist would admit. So why not allow this valuable image to remain? And why create endless wiki-drama over many other images that contribute real value to articles and pose no threat of litigation? Oh well, for me it's back to writing articles instead of legalistic fair use rationales. Casey Abell 14:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Again, I have to ask that you please review the images that you mistakenly deleted on June 5 instead of only restoring the ones that people complain about. Above you said "I am also going through in a limited capacity to review any deletions that may have been improper, however, this may take some time, so please be patient." I would fully understand if progress was slow, but you've done literally nothing but undelete the images that people have specifically complained about. TomTheHand 16:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This would be funny, if it weren't exactly the same thing that helped Betacommand lose his admin powers. Someone's bot tags a bunch of images as "disputed." Someone else comes through with a broom and sweeps out all the "disputed" images, even though many of them aren't disputed at all. Editors get upset at sweeper, who claims to be ready to "help" any editor who points out an improperly deleted image. Some editors point out that ALL of the deletions were out of process, and therefore, inappropriate...and the vast majority of deleted images remain deleted. It's exactly the same cycle again. Ridiculous. Jenolen speak it! 17:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

This has seriously stalled, as Naconkantari has not been editing the last 4-5 days. Would it be a problem if someone else did undelete at least the most urgent images? Agathoclea 18:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll... I'll do it. I'll go through Naconkantari's backlogged images on his talk page and take care of them. It'd be really great if some folks could help to actually manually review the deleted images, since Naconkantari apparently will not be doing so. If anyone does so, and finds images they'd like undeleted, please post on my talk. TomTheHand 18:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, TomTheHand, for undeleting the images that you did. Your work is highly appreciated. Now I think that given the evidence that many of the images that have been checked so far were improperly deleted, it would be prudent for an administrator or group of administrators to go through all ~3000 of the images that were deleted to review if the deletions were proper. And if there isn't already, there ought to be a policy prohibiting administrators from deleting anything (except for expired {{prod}}ded articles) just on the basis of the existance of a tag, no matter what the tag says or used to say. Anything tagged must be manually checked to see if the tag was appropriately applied, or not properly removed, especially those tags added at a high rate of speed by a bot. Backlogs are no excuse for careless deletions. DHowell 22:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I posted on ANI here earlier today asking if anyone would help me out with reviewing the deleted images. I've gotten one response; tomorrow I'll see if there are any more and then we'll try to divide up the workload and review the deleted images. TomTheHand 00:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Also, having looked at the WP:PROD policy, I see that not even {{prod}}ded articles are supposed to be deleted without being "checked over by an administrator" that the reason for deletion is valid. So I'm striking out my parenthetical comment above and reiterating: Nothing should ever be deleted without the content being properly manually reviewed. At this point if there aren't enough admins willing to review all the images, I say just undelete the whole lot of them and let non-admins review them. Then go ahead and delete the ones that still aren't fixed after July 1. DHowell 01:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Something is broken, either this bot, the deletion process, or WP:FA

If you look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests (scroll down), you can find more than a few featured articles that have had their photos deleted. These articles were thoroughly reviewed to make sure images had proper licenses and fair use rationales. Something is wrong. Jehochman Talk 20:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  • That might be because the images are being displayed in the Wikipedia name-space on that page, and last time I checked policy does not allow any exceptions to the rule that fair use images are only fair use in the article main namespace. I've checked a couple and the articles are fine. Hiding Talk 20:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of non-free images without time to add fair-use rationale.

Originally posted at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions as invited by a 'this image will be deleted, please comment here' notification, but have been advised that that was the wrong place to ask. Thought I'd get some views here before the WP:VP.

And now moved from Wikipedia talk:Non-free content to here

Hi,

While I applaud the necessity to remove non-free or inappropriate images, serving notice to delete them (inviting the addition of Fair Use Rationale), but deleting the image only 2 hours later seems incredibly unfair.

I refer to one specific instance, the Rebus (TV series) had a screenshot Image:RebusKenStott.jpg of one of the actors, Ken Stott - Rebus has been played by more than one actor. The request for fair use rationale was given here: diff, (and asking for comments on this page, which is what I am doing), but the image was deleted approx. two hours later - in the middle of the night in the UK, where the series is aired). diff.

I am not necessarily questioning the deletion of this image, it is not my picture, and may not have qualified as fair use anyway, but I would have thought if Fair use rationale is being requested, some time should be given to produce that. It seems a violation of WP:FAITH, a) to question the good faith that somebody who uploaded the image thought it was fair use (the guidelines are quite complicated), and also b) the good faith required to allow some hard working editors (who also need to sleep) to carry out the FUR request, in order to attempt to improve the encyclopedia (by using appropriate fair-use images to enhance the quality of articles). As indeed Wikipedia:Featured article criteria rule3 suggests that It has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject, this becomes even more difficult to find in some instances, as maybe there are no images that meet the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Obviously non-free images should not be used if they don't meet the criterion, but if they can't be found will the article not pass FAC? Catch-22.

As this image-removal drive seems to be working faster than 'human' editors can supply requests, are they expected to check every image used in their watchlist and supply the fair use rationale before an 'automated' bot beats them to it? This can be very time consuming, and also very demoralising, if articles that have had lots of work are ruined because the deletion of the images destroy the page. (c.f. this and that for discussions about another WikiProject I have spent a lot of work in.)

Am I entitled to suggest that a period of 5 days be granted to supply requested fair-use rationale before deletion of an image (in a similar manner to a prod)? This doesn't seem unreasonable...

Thanks, –MDCollins (talk) 10:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletions usualy don't happen that fast, but in this particular case the image was deleted by the uploader himself (who happened to be an admin), presumably because he agreed that the image was not fair usable. --Sherool (talk) 12:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Yup, that was me. When I uploaded the image I thought it qualified for fair use. Perhaps a case could still be made that it does. However I am now less inclined than before to jump through hoops merely to satisfy this week's new bot directive. My new policy will be to prioritise, and if a few images are lost, so be it. Perhaps someone will take a free photo of Ken Stott, although it is unlikely to be as good as the one that I deleted, or as apposite to the Rebus (TV) article. I know that is the ultimate goal, to remove non-free images from articles and let the vacuum created tempt people to take and upload images with a freer licence. I even agree with it. If a few articles have to be without pictures for a while, I suppose that's a price we can pay. --John 14:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Finally, a description of the Betacommandbot we can all get behind. If its job is to "create a vacuum", I think you'll find a lot of people willing to say it's definitely taken the first step... It certainly sucks!  ;) (Play on words only -- no harm intended!)  ;) Jenolen speak it! 16:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
John, thanks for commenting here. Obviously if I could check who the uploader was (but can't once it has been deleted), I would have seen that you deleted it yourself, and probably not bothered to write all of this! Would it be wrong for me to suggest that you just add 'uploader' into log summaries of your own images you delete (if there are any more...)? I would certainly find it useful.
I have since seen somewhere above that 48 hrs is recommended between notifying the uploader and deleting the image. Could something to that effect be added to the bot template, so editors know there is a time limit? –MDCollins (talk) 09:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Rationale

I posted a similar comment on Wikipedia talk:Fair use rationale guideline just now, and thought that the comment might be good to note here as well.

Why do we require uploaders to think of their own fair use rationale? The intention is to get uploaders to think about why they're uploading the image, and if it's actually needed. We're saying "why are you uploading this, why is it needed". If people don't know, then they shouldn't be uploading images. It is entirely inappropriate to hand people a pre-made rationale. -- Ned Scott 04:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

How about a pre-made rationale to images that have the same answer to "why is it needed"? --soum talk 07:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I must admit that I am still not convinced that, take for example a company logo, there is much difference between a template stating "this is the complete low resolution logo of a company, is only used in the article describing this company, and couldn't be replaced by a free image since that logo is copyrighted" and writing the same rationale by hand. IMHO, some fair use rationales could be templated, provided that the template is very restrictive and is used only when it is true. -- lucasbfr talk 09:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats why I said earlier, if we can decide it is being used in only way (like use in a specific infobox), a templated reason could very well work for that case. --soum talk 09:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It's a bad idea, and would be very abused. Asking someone to write out this message is not unreasonable, not at all. When a user wishes to use a non-free image, then they are required to think about why. -- Ned Scott 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a good idea. It could keep the language consistient and encourage users to limit the use of images as perscribed by such a template. Users might be less prone to creating pictoral discographies if the default FUR states that an album cover image is only to be used within a named album article. If you require a parameter for article in which the image is used you might reduce abuse. -MrFizyx 07:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Outrageous shoddy practice at WP:FAIR

At 01:49, 7 June 2007 the page WP:FAIR was edited to add the following text:

Examples of unacceptable use

  • A CD cover, album cover, or boom cover [sic] used to illustrate an article about the CD, album, or book, when the article does not justify this by reference to attributes of the cover art. The mere fact that a picture has been placed on the cover of an album to sell it is not enough.

At 01:50, 7 June 2007 another user protected the page.

The text, in precisely these terms, had been the subject of dispute and analysis at Critical commentary on album covers on the talk page for WP:FAIR since 15:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC), as both users were well aware. This is the discussion I cited as point (2) in the very first post on this page, and as yet had not reached any sign of consensus.

Whether or not this is a correct, necessary and desired interpretation of current policy goes to the heart of the discussion on this page and the parallel discussion here at WP:VP(misc).

It is shoddy beyond measure for a tag team to try to unilaterally close down the issue in this way. Jheald 07:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Hmm, looks like the Wrong Version has been protected yet again. Seriously, though, I don't see that any consensus has been reached on this issue. EliminatorJR Talk 08:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Looks to me like the Right Version got protected for once. (Yes, I'm aware that this is impossible, and if it ever actually happened would create some kind of giant improbability vortex with all kinds of nasty effects.) Really, though, most CD covers on album articles are indeed decorative, and aren't discussed at all. They don't add appreciably to the educational value of the article, they are decorative, and we don't do that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The covers might themselves may not be discussed. But they serve the primary means of visual identification of the albums (et al). Many people may not be familiar with the album name themselves, but might have come across the packaging in stores or elsewhere. In that case, its the cover image that serves as the primary means of identification, not the title. As such, it does serve a very important purpose. (This example might not be the best, but hopefully it gets the point I am trying to make through). --soum talk 09:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thing is, what I think will happen if this becomes policy, is that album covers won't get deleted from articles, rather editors will add a pointless section to discuss the album art, in order to get around it... EliminatorJR Talk 10:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats an improvement in my view. Right now they are being used as decoration in the vast majority of the cases. Discussion of the album means that the creator of the album gets some credit in the article, and the artistic style and or method gets some discussion. Both are good. And of course if its just a picture of the band as some are, we can replace with a free image ;) —— Eagle101Need help? 13:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree. I've got some quibbles with the wording, I think there should be some allowances for context and captions creating critical discussion, but I'm broadly in agreement. The best example I can come up with is that in some areas visual components enhance an audiences understanding. In the article on Lady Chatterley's Lover I think the cover of the work as was when banned allows a context which might be missed using later versions. It allows readers to quickly date the issue, and imparts a quaintness and fustiness that can't be gleaned from the text alone. I mean, you look at that cover and you think, gosh, that's the book they wanted to ban? No fancy images? Of course, you could quickly add a caption saying, 1960 UK cover, design by Stephen Russ. Note the cover describes the book as "complete and unexpurgated"; a reference to the nature of the content which resulted in the obscenity trial the same year., and we wouldn't need to overly worry. Hiding Talk 13:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Many covers are not used for "decration", but for "identification". The cover itself may not be discussed in the article, but it is a much better clue of what subject you are talking about than a text can be. I would also like to point out that this change is in direct contradiction with many image templates used, like Template:Non-free book cover, which specifically state that the use of the image "to illustrate an article discussing the book in question qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law" (see also e.g. Template:Non-free comic and Template:Non-free album cover, which say basically the same). These templates were created, adapted and renamed to be in line with Wikipedia:Non-free content by many admins and other editors, some of them who are now restricting fair use much farther without much of a consensus. It is said on the talk page of Non-free content that this is done to be in line with the policy, but this is of course only true after they first changed the policy. On May 2nd, identification was enough in the policy[7]. May 16th, illustration was still enough for fair use, though decoration (in galleries and so on) was forbidden (fair enough)[8]. By June 2nd, "illustration" was removed, but no need to specifically discuss the image was given.[9]. This was only added on June 5th by Jossi.[10] This is taking fair use restrictions way too far, and goes against all previous consensus about what was acceptable, and goes much further than what the Foundation requires[11]. The law hasn't changed, the Foundation's stance hasn't changed, and the use of images of album covers or comic covers to identify the subject is still acceptable fair use, even without commentary on the actual cover art. I have tagged the disputed line in the policy as "disputed", since it clearly is. I have not removed it, to avoid edit warring. Fram 08:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
It's one thing to identify a company, a TV show, or a band itself, but the individual albums.. that's not the same thing. -- Ned Scott 08:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
How? Why is a picture of an artist acceptable in an article on that artist, but a picture of the cover of a comic by that artist not acceptable in an article about that comic, even though many more people will probably be able to identify the comic by the cover than they can identify the artist by his picture? Fram 08:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
A fair-use picture of an artist would usually be considered replaceable, if the artist is still alive. Indeed, many artist and band articles do have free-use photos of the artist/band. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
True, but that's a bit besides the point here. Of course free pictures should be used whenever possible, but the question is what to do when only fair use pictures are possible. Ned Scott seemed to make a distinction between different kinds of fair use pictures for "large" and "small" subjects (band = large, album = small), but I don't get his reasoning, and I think that it are just some of these "small" subjects where visual identification is a very good use of fair use. Fram 09:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not getting it either. We have an article about the album, so it apparently must be notable enough. Trying to force people to add people to add critical commentary would be a Bad Thing. I'd love to hear what the critical commentary of the cover of Eight Easy Steps would be ("Alanis looks prety on teh cover!!"). We determined once that it's possible to come up with images of a living person could be found relatively quickly when two (or three, sort of) out of five examples were found at WT:FU. I propose a similar test. I'd like to see if it's possible to come up with non-trivial critical commentary for the covers of five articles: Enta Da Stage (featured), Eight Easy Steps, Rumors (song), Thankful (Kelly Clarkson album), and Bulería. ShadowHalo 10:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Well...the point here more is, if there aren't any sources to draw commentary specific to the album cover for, the album cover picture is probably unneeded and decorative. On the other hand, if we can source critical commentary on the cover specifically, that should be in the article, and the picture used to complement the discussion. What we shouldn't do is use a fair-use image to have "something in the infobox", that's really more decorative than educational use. But it certainly should be specified that the requirement for critical commentary means, as always, sourced and attributable critical commentary, not an editor's own interpretation. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
If an article is about X, then in my opinion seeing what X looks like is nearly always a significant contribution to the article. Showing an object's appearance will (in most cases) provide information not easily conveyed by text and thus serves an educational purpose consistent with fair use. Neither the fair use criteria not the Foundation licensing policy require "commentary" on an image, rather the requirement is that the image contributes significantly to the article. Dragons flight 23:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

What this is all about: Shall we use fair-use images in these standard cases?

See Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#What_this_is_all_about:_Shall_we_use_fair-use_images_in_these_standard_cases.3F --Apoc2400 13:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


The Foundation's Resolution:Licensing policy argument

It has been argued, notably by Tony Sidaway, that this matter is not up to our consensus, because the foundation's Resolution:Licensing policy is what matters.

To me, the question is then whether the following two paragraphs demand rationales in addition to those a "boilerplate" copyright tag template gives.

"Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale. They must be used only in the context of other freely licensed content."
"As of March 23, 2007, all new media uploaded under unacceptable licenses (as defined above) and lacking an exemption rationale should be deleted, and existing media under such licenses should go through a discussion process where it is determined whether such a rationale exists; if not, they should be deleted as well."

I don't think either of those specify a need for separate rationales on top of copyright tags, and in fact the page defines such an "Exemption Doctrine Policy" as "a project-specific policy", which to me suggests that it is absolutely a matter of our consensus. ¦ Reisio 19:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Gazzer1991 uploading fair use content and claiming he created the pieces

This user is blatantly uploading fair use content and claiming that he created them, which is pure nonsense. Such things he have upload while claiming creation are album covers, video game screenshots, etc. He even gives some of them graphic names such as Image:Nicoinlondonplayingwithhervagina.jpg, Image:Themotherfuckingjungle.JPG, Image:Anothermotherfuckingjungle.JPG, etc. He got told to refrain from doing this on 3rd June, but uploaded Image:Slayerblood.JPG on 6th June. Every image this user has ever uploaded isn't free content in any way, and is definitely fair use though yet still tagged as though he created them. I'm unsure what the course of action is usually in such matters as I've never come across this, so I brought it here for the attention of more experienced editors. LuciferMorgan 12:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone out there? LuciferMorgan 15:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Nevermind, I've messaged an admin to see if he can assist. LuciferMorgan 08:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I've tagged all the images. TimVickers 22:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Utopia (Doctor Who)

Some users insist on inserting an image which clearly fails three of the WP:NFCC (4, 8, 10), and then insisting that because four of them agree, there is "consensus" for its inclusion (notwithstanding the fact that consensus does not trump policy). Can someone intervene here? 81.104.175.145 10:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the talkpage and the edit history first, please. Thanks.--Rambutan (talk) 11:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Image has now been deleted and removed from the article in question - Alison ☺ 12:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The same image is used in Derek Jacobi. I crossed out some of the justification on the image page Image:Utopia Professor.jpg, but there are people still restoring the picture to the article. This appears to have started before I got involved, so I see little point in using up my three reverts. Could an admin who's an expert on fair use deal with this, please? --Peter cohen 18:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

List of U.S. state tartans

Hi all. I've been wondering about how to add images to the List of U.S. state tartans. Since tartans are an essentially visual medium, the article suffers badly without having examples. Most every state that has an official tartan has an image example of it on one of their pages (Secretary of the State or the State Library, usually). Until I got more experienced with Fair Use by picking up after BetacommandBot, I thought that it wouldn't be able to be applied to this list of tartans. Now, however, I think a rationale could be posited- the list is after all about the tartans themselves. If we have to add a blurb discussing the tartan to each listing, I suppose that would be doable too. I just wanted a second opinion from people more experienced in these things then myself whether this would be the right course. Thanks! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 15:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. I'm taking my question to Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, where I guess I should have gone in the first place judging from the lack of response here. I would suggest a change in the header of this page to cut down on confusion because that navigation template makes it look like this is the fair use noticeboard. Thanks! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 05:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
For my part (as author), I never intended for this to become a noticeboard; it was just a subpage of a heated discussion from a few weeks ago. Not that I object... El_C 05:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps its presence in Template:Editabuselinks should be discussed. It's misleading on a couple of levels, not least that there's relatively little traffic here, but also that "FURG" suggests rationale issues, and a missing rationale should not be considered "abuse." Chick Bowen 00:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

User:PDTantisocial has uploaded a large number of fairuse images

User:PDTantisocial has uploaded a large number of fairuse images (mostly album covers for hip hop groups, most of which have no fairuse rationales or this type. His talk page has maybe a hundred warnings[12] and there is a lot of work to be done. Per his own words, he "doesn't really give a shit." [13][14] I recommend we block to make a point to him. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I would support a block because he "doesn't give a shit". That makes it seem like he will not be striving to conform to the community's expectations. Sancho 05:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment. Also, he can't say I didn't tell him. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that User:PDTantisocial should be banned for sloppy fair use image uploading. With all due respect, User:Ricky81682 is at best distorting the record to block a user over his pet project of deleting fair use images. At worst he provoked a flame war then tried to block his target. He overstates the case that there are a hundred "warnings" over lack of fair use rationale There are a hundred or more image tags, most from bots. Most are for orphan images that have since been deleted. There are a number of "no rationale" tags, mostly inaccurate because there are rationales, and most on images that are allowable or at the very least have legitimate good faith arguments that they should be allowed. You don't block a user for taking a position on fair use you disagree with. The statements that he didn't care (which Ricky81682 misquoted) about the small points of policy were made a year ago over issues that he has since resolved -- why do you even bring that kind of thing up?
  • What he did. User:PDTantisocial has uploaded many album covers to illustrate articles about their albums, added album cover images to discographies, and uploaded orphan album cover images, sometimes without complete or sufficient (and in a few case without any) fair use rationales and sourcing information. On February 17, 2007, he uploaded Image:Zioni.jpg, a promotional photo of a two-member hip hop group, to illustrate the article about that group, and provided a detailed fair use rationale for the use. He received periodic notices (not warnings) about his images, mostly from bots like user:OrphanBot and user:BJBot. In late June he received some more claiming the images lacked a fair use rationale (despite the images' containing statements comparable to Bandname "Albumname" album cover.) Today, User:Ricky81682 tagged Image:Zioni.jpg for deletion. Half an hour later he left the following message on PDTantisocial's talk page:
Ok, you have a few hundred warnings above about including fairuse rationales on your image uploads. You can't deny that you've been told repeatedly about including rationales. I've decided to open a discussion on the Administators noticeboard to see if others would like to do. Please comment there. (italics added)
PDTantisocial responded with the following message on Ricky81682's talk page:
Get a fuckin' job, dude. Most all these I upped before you little trolls starting bitching about pointless rationale, I barely edit shit anymore cuz of you faggots, so block me and "make your point". Do you not realize this is the most pointless shit in human history? "You can't have album covers on here unless you type 'oh this is fair use because blah blah blah'", go asphyxiate on a cock. (italics added)
  • Uploading images. If PDTantisocial did violate Wikipedia fair use policy the mistakes are neither serious nor damaging. The album cover images supposedly having no rationale do have a rationale that informs any reasonable user exactly what their purpose and use is -- an album cover used for identification and illustration in an article about the album. There's some debate here and here but it's generally accepted, and Jimbo Wales has come down on the side of allowing the images here. The Zioni.jpg image that triggered the spat touches on something that has not reached consensus, for example [Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Clarification_and_consensus_needed_for_Criteria_.231 here]. Ricky81682's tag mistates the policy and guidelines, which list "an image of a living person that merely shows what s/he looks like" and "pictures of people who are still alive" as examples of impermissible images. The tag, however, claims the policy forbids "a "non-free image of living people used solely for illustrative purposes only (sic), a much wider claim. Pictures of bands aren't there to show what individual people look like, but the look, identity, operation, etc., of the band. The distinction is at the core of the current debate. PDTantisocial is sincerely trying in good faith to improve Wikipedia articles. There is a valid debate over whether his images comply with policy or not. He has been sloppy by uploading orphan images for unclear purposes, presumably to put them into articles. You don't block users because they are on the other side of a debate from you, or for sloppy housekeeping that gets cleaned up by bots. He's not threatening to disrupt Wikipedia. He hasn't even uploaded a single image in the last nine days. Why the rush to block?
  • Personal attacks. I would be mad too if someone advanced a faulty argument delete my images and block my account. But whatever the provocation, PDTantisocial's graphic homophobic insults, profanity, and expression of a death wish on Ricky81682's talk page is over the line. He should be warned on a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and if he can't keep the debate civil, blocked for that. Wikidemo 11:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Violation of fair-use policy is serious and potentially damaging. Please read Wikipedia:Non-free content. The image uploads have not been only album covers. They also include screenshots of videos and movie posters. Even after many warnings, PDTantisocial has continued to provide limited (Image:Blackhollywood.jpg) to no (Image:Troubleman.jpg, Image:Apocnow.jpg) fair-use rationale for copyrighted image uploads. This shows that he/she is following through on her claim that he/she "doesn't give a shit" about policy. Even his/her most recent image uploads have not been according to policy. No, we don't block users for being on the other side of a debate or for sloppy housekeeping, unless that housekeeping is so sloppy as to be continually against policy, even after many warnings, which is the case he
Each of the fair use rationales has all of the required components. (a) where the image comes from -- yes; (b) fair use tag -- yes, each has a tag. (c) name of each article in which fair use is claimed -- yes, twice (once in the brief justification and in the automatically-generated statement of the article the image links to); rationale for each -- yes, as described. Everything is there. At most he seems to be guilty of brevity.Wikidemo 19:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)re. His/her errors are not cleaned up by bots... administrators end up deleting these images when no rationale is provided. There is certainly precedent for blocking in the case of deliberately violating fair-use policy: [15]. Sancho 14:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
For goodness sake, you just listed three valid non-free images that do have fair use rationales, you repeat year-old statements he made on a different long-settled issue, misquoted and taken out of context, and brand the guy an incorrigible Wikipedia troublemaker who needs to be stopped? Image:Blackhollywood.jpg) says "Camp Lo Black Hollywood album cover. / Fair use rationale: IT'S AN ALBUM COVER!". Image:Troubleman.jpg says "Camp Lo "Trouble Man" single cover." And Image:Apocnow.jpg says "Apocalypse Now movie poster." Yes, it would be nice if he added the magic words "fair use." You want him to copy the boilerplate "used for purposes of identification and commentary on...." and perhaps "...which meets Wikipedia guidelines on the subject?" That's all in the template, and completely implicit in the few words he did provide. Isn't there a directive somewhere that when an image is obviously a legitimate fair use, people should just fix the rationale instead of marking for deletion? That goes doubly so before asking to kick someone off Wikipedia. Is there something more to the story that hasn't been said? His personal attacks and gay-bashing are a much bigger issue, nobody should have to be on the receiving end of that. - Wikidemo 15:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Where do you see fair use rationales on those images? "It's an albumcover" is not quite what I consider a valid fair use rationale. The reationale is supposed to say (among other things) why each image is needed in each of the articles it's used in. Failure to add this will get the image deleted, this is made clear right on the upload page. Granted in a perfect world people would write rationales rater than tag images as missing them (or rater in a perfect world people wold actualy read the upload page and follow policy when they upload stuff in the first place), but if the policy is not actualy enforced people will never learn to follow it, and if the uploader doesn't even want to learn I for one have no desire to go around doing his job for him. --Sherool (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that his incivility is a bigger issue in the grand scheme of things though by the way. --Sherool (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Those are not fair-use rationale. A fair use rationale needs to include:
  • (a) Proper attribution of the source of the material, and attribution of the copyright holder if different from the source.
  • (b) An appropriate fair-use tag indicating which Wikipedia policy provision permitting the use is claimed. A list of image tags is at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Non-free content.
  • (c) The name of each article in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a separate fair use rationale for each use of the item, as explained at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline.
The problem isn't that there were images uploaded without proper fair-use rationales (I omitted them in my first image uploads as well), but that the editor is unwilling to make use of the feedback that has been given and continues to upload without proper fair-use rationales. I don't need to repeat those year old statements to show that the editor is unwilling to change the upload behaviour (and I apologize for bringing those old statements up out of context); but instead, just look at the recent uploads. The incivility is a separate issue that I agree is a problem. Sancho 16:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Each of the fair use rationales has all of the required components. (a) where the image comes from -- yes; (b) fair use tag -- yes, each has a tag. (c) name of each article in which fair use is claimed -- yes, twice (once in the brief justification and in the automatically-generated statement of the article the image links to); rationale for each -- yes, as described. Everything is there. "IT'S AN ALBUM COVER!" may be more terse than you would like but it is sufficient. The full statement is "Album cover is used for purposes of identification, illustration, and commentary in article about the album" but it's all in there. The why is implicit in that, along with issues like replaceability, portion of original used, etc., because it is an identical issue for every single application. That is sufficient to make a case of fair use, and anything else he could add is just fluff. At most he seems to be guilty of brevity.Wikidemo 19:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Neither the source nor the copyright holder are described in the editor's fair-use rationales. The source could be something like amazon.com. The copyright holder would be possibly the record label the album was released under. These are not mentioned and are required. Sancho 20:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, we might be arguing for no reason. I am not out to ban PDTantisocial, I supported a block. That would have been for the purpose of prevention of further uploads that might have been imminent. However, it's obvious even a block isn't required since this user isn't very active right now. I do think that he/she does still need to acknowledge that he/she will improve the fair-use rationales for future uploads. I'll leave a message at their talk page. Sancho 20:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I would support a request that this person actually spell out the rationale and state where the image came from, even if it is implicit. Good luck getting them to agree, though. If they want to go to the mat on this it's just plain silly, like fighting a parking ticket to the end of time Wikidemo 20:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Laymen and first semester students revise experts? User:DVdm, User talk:DVdm

User:DVdm not only warned by Tangotango in his User talk:DVdm, see [16]. People intending only to destroy instead of making improvements? People knowing obviously nothing but liking to act only destructive?

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content which gains a consensus among editors. - Tangotango (talk) 15:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

  • “Go have a quick read over WP:CIVIL before making any further edits to Wikipedia. Thanks. Nick 12:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, and whilst I'm at it, two other things. Please don't mark all of your edits as minor, only small corrections and reversion of blatant vandalism should be marked as minor. Blatant vandalism does not include reverting based on your interpretation of our non free image policy. The removal of non free images from articles is certainly not a minority viewpoint and it certainly shall not be treated as vandalism by you or anybody else. Nick 12:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes, you are right about that.Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Good point. DVdm 12:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)”

DEMAND FOR FAIRNESS, stop unqualified beginners and destroyers!

Eg. impose for sections WIKI-SIGNALS if not convenient.

BE BOLD?

“The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold in updating articles. Wikis like ours develop faster when everybody helps to fix problems, correct grammar, add facts, make sure the wording is accurate, etc. We expect everyone to be bold. How many times have you read something and thought, "Why aren't these pages copy-edited?" Wikipedia not only allows you to add, revise, and edit the article — it wants you to do it. It does require some amount of politeness, but it works. You'll see. Also, of course, others here will edit what you write. Don't take it personally. They, like all of us, just want to make Wikipedia as good as it can possibly be.”

Cites of related article:

Students beware

“I have extensively edited earlier versions of this article, which concerns a topic particularly dear to my heart, and I had been monitoring it for bad edits, but I am leaving the WP and am now abandoning this article to its fate.

Just wanted to provide notice that I am only responsible (in part) for the last version I edited; see User:Hillman/Archive. I emphatically do not vouch for anything you might see in more recent versions, although I hope for the best.

Good luck in your search for information, regardless!---CH 23:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)”

Clean-up needed (Confusing text)

“This article relies so heavily on advanced physics terminology that I have severe problems understanding it. I have marked it as confusing. Could someone rewrite this so that at least the introduction will make sense to the average reader? Dr. Submillimeter 21:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)”

Related most AWFUL WIKI-STUBS with no answers!

“The articles "Exact solutions in general relativity", “Solutions of the Einstein field equations” ...once covariant the other time contravariant tensors, simply show, that nobody competent knows about real solutions. Will try to put some solutions. Sorry we're not very good in English, please help TOGETHER to enhance it!!! wfck84.158.250.58”

Our Club confirms; demanding rules for WIKI-fairness

  • all people above, asking for fairness, want to help at least a bit to enhance a too POOR WIKI in above mentioned articles!
  • We offer to act separately at our PC's in at least 3 clubs instead of our club's PC with dynamic IP if demanded

Dr.G.Haupt,Dr.Kiesslinger,Dr.K Becker,Dr.Hinz,Dr.Mueller,Dr.Vogt, etc.,and some of our "streetworkers": e.g Wally,Brigitte,Jenny,wfc-k,Peter,Wolf, etc. for 3 German Astro Clubs 84.158.217.123 12:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)