Wikipedia talk:Non-free content

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Longer time for deletion and better notification of non-free content.

Hi. I am quite angry with many images I have uploaded, to find out that they did not have the right "template" and were deleted. I think longer times between notification and deletion is needed. 48 hours is NOT enough time for someone to not only notice, but to find, change and fix what ever is wrong with it. I think it should be extended, or at least for registered users extended, as I (personally) do not have enough time to change it. More importantly, however, I think "notification" needs to be improved. Most, if not all, of my images that have been deleted, I had NO IMMEDIATE NOTIFICATION what-so-ever. The notification was a user talk message. I suggest that it be compulsory to email the user who uploaded the image, and wait for CONFIMATION THAT THE USER HAS READ THE MESSAGE!
This may not be the best way, and I am open to new ideas, but I seriously think Wikipedia's policy needs to be changed to include better notification, and it needs to be done SOON! Adammw (talk) 02:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to upload images, it is your responsibility to be sure that the licensing tags are correct. You can always re-upload the images from your local copy if necessary. An indefinite delay awaiting receipt of notification won't work because then we end up with potentially infringing material up until someone responds, possibly indefinitely. I understand your point, but please realize that we have a substantial number of copyvio images carelessly uploaded every day which someone has to clean up. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

A longer time may not really be necessary but certainly better notification is needed. I have noticed the deletion of several images that could have had their fair-use rationale fixed relatively easily. However I don't notice those images until someone happens to make a change to the page in which it is used but only if that page is on my watchlist. If I see a notification that the image on a watched page is about to be deleted I might be able to fix it rather than discover it is already gone by the time I notice. Besides which, I most likely don't even know if the image was good for the article or even worth fixing by the time it is deleted. Often times, especially with older images, the original unloader is long gone so notifying that editor is a useless exercise while a notice placed on the talk page of the article in which an image is used would seem like a great advance in dealing with disputed non-free content. I would be happy to try and fix such images if I knew of their potential deletion. ww2censor (talk) 04:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, yes I should have done the tags right the in the first place, but it's still really hard knowing what's right and what isn't. At the very least, I need some way of "un-deleting" images and fixing their tags, as I don't have any local copies anymore. Also, so this stuff doesn't happen to people that are even stupider than me, couldn't there be some automated process where a non-free bot checks your tags before you upload the actual thing? I think i was wrong with the longer time, but Wikipedia's notification seriously needs some work. Adammw (talk) 04:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked through the images you've contributed that have been deleted. The deletions look sound. The images weren't in use anywhere and so no fair use rationale would apply. These deletions were performed weeks ago. I'm not sure I understand your point. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 05:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The reason the images weren't in use anywhere is because there are bots that go round removing links to deleted pictures. This sometimes makes it very hard to find out where a picture had been in use. Let me have a look and see what I can find out. Carcharoth (talk) 12:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. Some of them were genuine orphans, so that was OK. Some of the recent uploads are much better, with full rationales. Some of the earlier uploads still need rationales added. Specifially: Image:PaRapperTheRapperScreenshots.jpg (probably violates WP:NFCC#8 anyway, unless a screenshot is needed for identification), Image:StGeorgesRdMel.jpg (will hopefully get replaced by a better picture one day), Image:25-01-07 1256.jpg (not needed, as we have Image:August 2006 Flinders Street Station.jpg, though it would be nice to have a shot from the side showing the top of the station tower against the sky, rather than the skyscraper in the background), Image:Ultrastar1.png needs a fair-use rationale, Image:Now Spring 2006 Cover.jpg (fair-use rationale needs upgrading - the article is clearly not educational) - there are several other album covers as well where you should put {{album cover fur}} on them. That will meet WP:NFCC#10c, but there are still problems with the articles themselves, as they are just album content lists - no commentary of any encyclopedic value. But then the same can be said of many album articles. Carcharoth (talk) 12:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand why this frustrates people. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Email_notification may be a solution that could be used here, but to be honest. Most people would hate it I think.... Perhaps this can be integrated in the signup process, so that you can select if you want messages on your talk page to be delivered by mail. Its not a terribly bad idea, but someone needs to go and actually make it happen I guess. Also, it has a tad of a spam risk attached to it. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki is already fully capable of sending e-mail notification whenever a user's talk page have been edited, other projects, for example Commons let you set this in the preferences menu, but the option is not eneabled here for reasons unknown (I would guess for spam concerns, but as I understnad you only get one notice saying that the page have changed since your last visit, so even if soeone edit it a thousand times overnight you still only get the one mail). --Sherool (talk) 23:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned above email notification is not likely to be very useful unless the original uploader is around and active and while some replies are to specific images and specific editors, I still feel that notifications placed on the talk page of articles in which images are to be deleted would be a great benefit and might certainly improve the chances of some rationales being fixed before deletion takes place. Does no one else see this as a useful and more beneficial way to go? That way you are not filling up email boxes with mail that may get no result. I am pretty sure the bot that marks the images for deletion could check the usage and drop a notification into each article where it is used. FFTN ww2censor (talk) 00:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I know that Betacommandbot does leave a notice on the article talk page using an image it tags. I also think it would be great to be able to watch all image pages in use by an article whenever that article is watched. Maybe this could be done via a userscript. -- Ned Scott 06:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have never seen Betacommandbot tag the articles in which images are being used that have been tagged as having fair-use rationales problems. AFAIK the bot only tags the image page and the uploading editor's page. I have not read through Betacommandbot archives to see if this is something the bot can do. ww2censor (talk) 06:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

BCBot does leave article talk page notices see this for examples. β^_command 13:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, that sounds cool. I had never actually seen it on any of the talk pages I watch where images were deleted. Perhaps those deletions were done manually by editors in which case it may be advisable to have such manual potential deletions also leave an article talk page notification. Where would we make that suggestion? ww2censor (talk) 16:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

While Betacommandbot does tag the article pages for potential deletion images, I notice that some editors, such as Remember the dot and Save Us 229, who manually tag images, do not leave any notification on the article talk page, though "Remember the dot" occasionally tags the actual image in the article page like this one. It appears that many older images are now being tagged for deletion and because many of the uploading editors are no longer active, it should at the very least be a guideline to place a notification on the article talk page where such images are being used. Where would we promote that idea? Here or elsewhere? ww2censor (talk) 15:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a very sound idea to require notifications of impending deletion on the talk pages of articles that use the images about to be deleted, not just on the talk pages of the images themselves. Good idea, Ww2censor. --Melty girl (talk) 22:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Betacommandbot in my experience hits all the appropriate spots, i.e. talk page of the image itself, talk page of the relevant article(s), and talk page of the user who uploaded the image. We can't ask for much more than that but, by the same token, we shouldn't settle for less. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Cover Art

This language under acceptable uses:

Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)

is being construed more narrowly than need be, in the case of album covers.

In the specific case of Bruce Springsteen, it is being used to conclude that a low res shot of the "Born to Run" album cover may only be used on the Born to Run album page, but not in the portion of the Springsteen article covering the Born to Run Tour. I don't think Fair Use law really does require that result.

I do not disagree that the current policy is Album Page Only. A wiser editor knew this to be the policy and deleted the image from the Springsteen page. I reverted the deletion, in ignorance. A second editor politely showed me the Album Page Only policy.

But I think this policy is overly restrictive. What do others think? David in DC (talk) 18:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

In many ways fair use law is irrelevant to this page. This page is, on purpose, more restrictive than the legal term fair use for the reason that we are a free content encyclopedia. Fair use is being used, but limited. Garion96 (talk) 18:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I would think that an album cover could be used elsewhere, but the farther away from the album page you get, the more important the "use only for critical commentary" becomes. For instance, you can't use a cover of Born to Run, and say, "when Springsteen was touring in support of this album..." The illustration would be providing no useful information. But in a section for the band Yes, talking about their distinctive album covers, it would be nearly pointless to talk about them without showing at least one. -Freekee (talk) 19:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

But you also have to think of non-free content in another manner, every use of it reduces the goal of wikipedia. the goal is to create a free encyclopedia. when ever you use non-free content you defeat the purpose of wikipedia. Yes there are good reasons to have non-free content, BUT the question when using non-free content should be: Why Must We Include THIS Image? and if you cannot come up with a good solid reason dont upload/or use the image. β^_command 22:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Why Must We Include THIS Image? That's a good question. I've seen many instances of good, illustrative pictures being deleted in favor of free pictures that don't do a very good job of illustrating the subject. One argument is that free pictures increase the distributability of the encyclopedia. Another argument is that good pictures increase the distributability of the encyclopedia. I prefer the latter because I am personally drawn to this project because I want to help inform the world, and on top of it care little about distributability. But the former is the one that the Wikimedia Foundation has put their money behind. What does this all mean? That I would love to use your question to decide whether to include non-free content, but it doesn't help me to make a better encyclopedia. It only helps me to follow the rules if I keep the rules in mind when I answer it. -Freekee (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, all. I understand the policy better now. Happy New Year. David in DC (talk) 14:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Di-replaceable fair use-notice

Any idea's to make this template a lot smaller? With auto script I quess I use this template a lot but it really seems too large. Especially since I am not that fond of templating user talk pages in the first place. Perhaps replace it with the {{Replaceable short}} tag if that gives enough information? Garion96 (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Usage of images in lists of characters

I wish to reprise two previous discussions about the usage of images in lists of characters (Two questions regarding images of fictional characters and Character images and lists). Please note that this discussion is about fleshed out "lists" written in prose and not just blanket table lists, in which such usage would clearly be decorative.

My main concern is the argument that characters that need illustration should have their own article. The problem is - as discussed in the first of the previous discussions - that the shift in notability guidelines means that many character articles have been merged into lists. Also, some characters could be highly significant to a work of fiction but simply do not have enough encyclopedic information to warrant a entire full article on them and are therefore better suited to a section in a prose-style "list". Images are used to illustrate characters and acts as support for discussion on them. Look at the difference between Homer Simpson and Frank Tenpenny. They are both as significant as each other to their respective works, yet only one is "allowed" an image. The reason given for one's removal is not a compelling enough to warrant this. Homer Simpson has appeared in all 400+ episodes of The Simpsons, and as a result has quite a lot of information on him that can warrant a full article. The instalments in the Grand Theft Auto video game series are not consistent and do not always feature the same characters, however Frank Tenpenny is incredibly significant to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas but simply does not have enough information to support his own entire article and is better suited into the "list". However only one can have an image simply because he has his own article. This is not a valid reasoning for removal of images in character "lists" (I use quotations as they are more prose like articles discussing the characters rather than blanket lists) and I would like to come to a new consensus about the usage of images for characters significant to a work of fiction in "lists".

.:Alex:. 12:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

If the character is incredibly significant to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, then that is the logical place to have the picture. If there is a link from the list entry to the game, then people can follow that to see what he looks like. Having said that, I am sympathetic to pictures being used to remind people what the character looks like, so they recognise what is being written about. A recent example was G'Kar (a Babylon 5 character). It's been years since I watched Babylon 5, and I couldn't remember which character he was, and what the Narns looked like. But no pictures anywhere to be seen, sadly. In the G'Kar article it recently (early December 2007) got removed after deletion. If someone has the time to add a satisfactory non-free use rationale to Image:Citizen G'kar.JPG, I'll undelete it for them. Carcharoth (talk) 14:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Alex, you answered your own question. Quoting you, "Also, some characters could be highly significant to a work of fiction but simply do not have enough encyclopedic information to warrant a entire full article on them" (emphasis mine). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a guide for characters, episodes, museums, tourist towns, vintage trains, etc. Conflating the two generates significant problems. To sum, if a character is not encyclopedic enough to have sufficient material to create an article of their own, you can't make an argument to justify breaching our basic core tenant, that of creating a free content encyclopedia, unless that argument is based on the premise that Wikipedia is a guide. It isn't. There simply isn't a justification. As for achieving consensus, you won't. Umpteen discussions on trying to find a way through this have yielded nothing. Thus, we default to the base case; no unfree material unless consensus emerges to grant exceptions. The base case is not to have unfree images and we have to prove a case to not include them. Wikipedia is not the "unfree encyclopedia". --Hammersoft (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, there is a tradition of specialist encyclopedias effectively being guides. In that sense, Wikipedia can be a guide for characters, episodes, museums, tourist towns, vintage trains. What I see here is a problem of excess, not of not being encyclopedic. If there is sufficient verifiable material in the sources about a group of characters, then that can justify a list or overview article covering those characters. And that list or overview article is then both an encyclopedic article and a guide to the characters. Category:Encyclopedias makes interesting browsing, particularly Category:Fictional encyclopedias and Category:Specialized encyclopedias, which includes Category:Encyclopedias on fictional worlds, and The Soap Opera Encyclopedia and Category:Online encyclopedias. Wikipedia is, of course, a general encyclopedia, but it also has the capacity to have specialised areas as long as those areas still meet the basic policy restrictions. Carcharoth (talk) 17:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is explicitly NOT a guide. WP:NOT. The point here is that if this is a guide, then by all means having pictures of every character, even ones appearing for a mere few minutes, might be justified. But, Wikipedia isn't a guide, and more to the point it is a free encyclopedia focused on free content. The basic policy restriction is that Wikipedia is being developed as a free content resource. All the arguments in favor of zillions of images on every character list misses this basic premise. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Sure, Wikipedia is not a guide. But Wikipedia is also not paper. So while some want to see as much information as possible here, because this is where they come to find out about a subject, others prefer to limit topics to the strictly encyclopedic, whatever that means. But where do you draw the line between? Guidebook is not a cut-and-dried term. Its as nebulous a concept as encyclopedic. Sometimes lists, sections or even articles read like guidebooks. Airport articles list carriers. Articles about cities can include lists of parks. One can certainly argue that this information helps one to understand the topics. -Freekee (talk) 22:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes, Hammersoft, Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. But if you have over 2 million pages, there will need to be some non-free content to satisfy the encyclopedic content. I fall between the two extremes of "illustrate everything" and "only free content". Some non-free content is needed. If you read the archives of this talk page, you will see more clearly what my position is. As for the "not a guide" arguments, Freekee addresses that better than I could have done. Carcharoth (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Album covers

10a says to give the source and copyright holder. For album/single covers, I'm assuming the record label's the copyright holder. Do you have to give the name of the label or is it ok to just say "copyright held by record label"? I tend to work a lot with covers, so I just want to make sure I'm doing this right. Spellcast (talk) 03:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)