File talk:Eroding rill in field in eastern Germany.jpg

Hi there:

This file shows a large and *actively eroding* rill (it has water flowing in it, and the edges are crisp and new), in an obviously intensively farmed landscape. The location (eastern Germany) also makes an important point, since much of the literature on soil erosion tends to be US-centric. I know of no freely-available image which illustrates these points so well. For example, the photograph on the Rill page shows a rather unimpressive rill in natural vegetation. It is unclear whether this rill is actively eroding.

I own and maintain www.soilerosion.net and thus have a good knowledge of soil erosion and images pertaining to it. See also David_Favis-Mortlock for my background in soil erosion research and teaching.

If this doesn't satisfy, how about if I contact the photographer and ask her to place the image in the public domain?

All the best!

Dave F-M


 * Hello, thanks for your question. If you can convince the photographer to release it under a free license (doesn't have to be "public domain", a license such as "cc-by-sa" will be fine too), then indeed all will be fine. As long as it's not under a fully free license that allows re-use elsewhere, we unfortunately can't use it according to our non-free content rules, even if we have permission for use specifically on Wikipedia. I agree it's a fine and useful photograph, but it is of course not "irreplaceable" and also not itself the object of commentary as a photographic work – anybody else could go and take a photograph of this or some similar rill and it would serve the purpose just as well. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:59, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi -- the owner of the photograph has said that she is happy to release it under a cc-by-sa licence. How do I change the image's documentation to reflect this change in licensing?

Thank you!

Dave F-M


 * Okay, I'll just paste that copyright tag on the image page for you then. I'll accept your word for it that she gave you that permision; however, please be aware that other wikipedians might still ask you to provide some proof of it, so it would be safer if you could forward the relevant mails to "permissions-en@wikimedia.org" for verification. Thanks for your troubles, – Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:57, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, done: emails forwarded. Thanks for your help. I've learned a lot :-)

Dave — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave Favis-Mortlock (talk • contribs) 14:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

OK I'm the uploader. If an experienced editor could contact me so that we can sort out the correct tag for this image, then please do so. I'm keen to get this sorted, finally.

Dave F-M — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave Favis-Mortlock (talk • contribs) 08:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I honestly thought we were done here. Don't really know why the other editor thought there was still a problem about the tag. If he still thinks there is, I hope he will explain it here. Sorry for the trouble. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)