MediaWiki talk:Licenses/Archive 1

Additions
This list should probably also include the common but disallowed licenses of and, to make images uploaded under those terms easy to spot and delete. --Carnildo 21:49, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Should be added? Lupin 12:50, 8 September 2005 (UTC)


 * All of the image tags should be added. The current page is just a copy from the Commons and therefore includes a lot of templates that don't exist here like and doesn't include most of the ones that should be here. Angela. 16:36, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Even the extremely rare ones like and ? --Carnildo 19:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * A better alternative might be to explain on the upload form what people should do if they want to use something not available in the list. Perhaps an tag should be added, which they could remove when they add the real tag. Any images tagged only with  could later be deleted. This might encourage people to choose that instead of randomly picking one when they don't know the license. Angela. 23:47, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

How's this? &mdash; Catherine\talk 05:04, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Questions
The first non-header entry, the plain-vanilla "GFDL" tag is displaying incorrectly -- it shows in the drop-down box and in the Page Source as "#redirect Template:GFDL". I'm going to try deleting it and putting it back. (Don't panic!)

Is it possible highlight our preferred tags (GFDL and cc-by-sa, perhaps?) in bold, or in color? Is it preferable? &mdash; Catherine\talk 23:32, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

"None selected" option

 * I have another question. If the user who uploads the image with "No license" option picked, can it generate the template automatically? Zach (Sound Off) 02:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Do you mean the "None selected" default option? I agree wholeheartedly, it should generate something.  I don't see a way to do it offhand, but maybe Eloquence or Ævar can change the back end.  The form should either not allow the user to proceed without choosing a license (which would encourage people to pick randomly, I think), or it should silently add a template as you suggest.


 * The problem is that the "No licence" template says "this image has information on a source", and there's no way for the software to know whether there is source info (that is, you could probably do a javascript check as to whether the Summary box was empty, but that wouldn't tell you whether it was source info or garbage).  has a similar problem.


 * We should probably create a new template (?) for that, one which puts the image in the same Category:Images with unknown copyright status as "No license".  The new  puts them in that category too.  What do you think?  &mdash; Catherine\talk 03:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a plan, though how are we going to word the new template? Zach (Sound Off) 03:33, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * "The user who uploaded this file did not choose a licensing tag. If this placeholder is not replaced with a legitimate image copyright tag (within time x?), this file will be scheduled for deletion."  Yes?  No?  &mdash; Catherine\talk 03:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Thumbs up Zach (Sound Off) 03:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, it's created -- go ahead and edit mercilessly. :)  &mdash; Catherine\talk 05:01, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Sample:

Jimbo's suggestion
Jimbo made a suggestion on his talk page today User_talk:Jimbo_Wales which I consider very good. I'm going to go implement two templates with those simplistic messages. Neither will have the stop hand because I don't want to frighten new uploaders. One is, the other. I've tried to make these messages a little less ominous to the user, with the hope of not frightening them into just picking a license. Anyone who chooses one of these options against the instructions on the upload page needs a little bit of kind hand-holding. I feel pretty strongly that Dontknow should be included and be at the top of the list (although perhaps not the default), somewebsite, I feel a little less strongly about as I fear it may capture some users who might otherwise do the right thing. --Gmaxwell 16:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

On Image Description page?
Would it be possible to include this drop-down list on image description pages themselves? Or perhaps even a more complete one that included EVERY template on Image copyright tags??

Do you think it would encourage "random license selection" to prevent deletion? If so, perhaps it could be limited to admins. Or perhaps the list could be made available in a Javascript gizmo like Lupin's pop-ups, or some kind of Greasemonkey thing.... I don't know enough to know what's possible, but if there were some kind of plug-in that would make after-the-fact image tagging easier for the Untagged images project etc, I do think I might jump for joy! &mdash; Catherine\talk 03:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I think there should be at least two ways to select a license: The license selection pulldown menu is nice for experienced users who are familiar with licenses but may not remember the name of the appropriate template tag. However, for inexperienced users, an interactive licensing guide would be more appropriate, perhaps along the following lines:
 * Did you create this image completely on your own?
 * If yes, alert the user to the fact that they must license at least under GFDL, but can also license under certain CC licenses or PD.
 * If no, first ask for a source, including:
 * US federal government (go to other menu with selection of government agency, then give it the appropriate PD-USGov-$AGENCY tag)
 * Certain well-known "free content" sources (e.g. PDphoto.org; there's only a few of those, and they'd have to be enumerated)
 * Other, in which case:
 * Was the image published in the US before 1923, or has the author been dead for more than 70 years?
 * If yes, it may be PD.
 * If no, it's probably under copyright. Need to figure out the license or assert fair use. It gets tricky from here, probably don't want to handle it via a form/menu.
 * The specific details don't matter, my only point is that we should make it easy for newcomers to find an appropriate license tag by asking questions about the image, as opposed to only offering them a choice of license tags without further information that would help them decide. On the one hand, we do want to force all uploaders to supply license tags. On the other hand, if we make this too hard/cryptic, we'll start to see more and more useless tags, which will be a big headache to sort out. --MarkSweep &#x270D; 05:39, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's another thought: We don't have to treat the license selection specially. We can do it in the wiki itself, provided that the upload special can be referenced for example as Special:Upload?license=cc-by . If that were the case, we could create a license checklist as a regular wiki page and include the appropriate upload links there. --MarkSweep &#x270D; 13:36, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I've hacked up an interactive javascript gizmo. Installation instructions are the same as for my popups script, but replace  with   (both times). Lupin|talk|popups 12:58, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Suppose instead of just picking from a drop-down list, we give uploaders the option of checking off boxes or radio buttons in a form that could then narrow down the appropriate license. I'm envisioning a brief questionnaire that starts by asking if the author died over 100 years ago; if you click yes, it defaults to a "PD-old"; if you click no, it asks you if the work was published in the U.S. before 1923, and so forth. If info points to the work being copyrighted, we can move to questions that determine likely fair use. -- BD2412 talk 18:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Exactly. Just note that this can be done using regular Wiki pages. No need to clutter the upload form. There could be a link to a decision graph from the upload page, which would guide the uploader to a decision about the license tag. It would be good if there was a way to link back to the upload page with the appropriate license pre-selected. That's what I meant by Special:Upload?license=foo above. --MarkSweep &#x270D; 17:16, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

This may be counterproductive
Thanks for leaving a message about this on the image tagging project page. I actually think this may make things worse as it will be harder to pick out dodgy images. Currently I'd guess that maybe 25% of our tagged images are tagged incorrectly. We're forcing people to guess which license and I guess they will choose the easiest one which could be the top one, the one who's name they recognise, or GFDL.. Loads of copyvios tagged with GFDL would be a nightmare. Secretlondon 13:33, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * That's unfortunate. See also the previous section. --MarkSweep &#x270D; 13:36, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

GFDL label bug
"GFDL" appers as "#redirect Template:GFDL" in the dropdown list (because the label text matches with the name of a MediaWiki page, so it is interpreted as customization). Adding a space to the end of the line would solve the problem. --Tgr 19:49, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks for pointing that out. JYolkowski // talk 22:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

PD-China
should be added. I tried to come up with a succinct accurate summary for this copyright status and failed. Suggestions? Lupin|talk|popups 02:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Try "Works published in Mainland PRC over 50 years ago" Zach (Sound Off) 03:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Is that right though? The template mentions the creator's death for non-photos.
 * Hmmm....not sure how we can word it. Zach (Sound Off) 20:51, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * "Photos taken over 50 years ago or other works whose creators died over 50 years ago which were created in Mainland PRC or Taiwan". How's that? Lupin|talk|popups 00:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Crown Copyright
Please can someone add  to the dropdown? I'm tired of adding it manually for images uploaded from the UK Government News Network. Ta. Tonywalton | Talk 17:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * No, because images from gnn.gov.uk can't be tagged with because they can't be used on Wikipedia.  From their website (emphasis mine): "The Crown copyright protected material ... may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for research, private study or for internal circulation within an organisation."  JYolkowski // talk 22:39, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Tonywalton [[Image:Pentacle_1.svg|15px]] | Talk

"Taken from another Wikipedia" template?
I recently uploaded Image:Steve Jobs2.png from the Arabic Wikipedia, and I do not know the license. However, I'm sure it's fine, considering it was from another Wikipedia, yet I had to use. Even though I said this in my summary, someone's liable to delete it "within a week" because there's no way of telling them where I got it in a template. Does anyone else think we should have a template for images like this?--HereToHelp (talk) 15:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I had the same issue with Image:LeuvenLocatie.png, but I used and added a link to the other wiki. &#126;MDD4696 04:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * My opinion: Don't upload such images! If there is not enough info on the other Wiki for you to figure out what the original source was then it does by definition have a unknown copyright status and should be deleted. If it's just a language issue find a user that speak the other language from the apropriate babel category and have them translate the image page for you, but do not just blindly copy images from other Wikis where you don't understand the language and asume they are ok. --Sherool (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, you're right. I didn't make it clear that mine was a slightly different case from HereToHelp's: the uploader on the other wiki stated he created it. He didn't include the licensing information, but it looked like he meant to license it under the GFDL. &#126;MDD4696 22:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No way. Things are bad enough right now -- I've currently got someone trying to convince me that an unsourced image from Uncyclopedia is "public domain" or otherwise allowed because "it's in the Wiki family". --Carnildo 04:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a minority of people who seemed to have used the tag for this inappropriately, I think they have all been fixed now. I thought about removing it from the dropdown also, but the category is so small and visually easy to identify I thought it wouldn't be that hard to keep it under control. Someone asked about this on the Orphanbot response page also. I don't see any reason to treat it any differently coming from the french wikipedia than random web site X, hopefully the french wikipedia will be more clear in their source and license, but beyond that I don't see why it should have a tag etc. Ideally people could move it to the commons. - cohesion t 02:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:CopyrightedFreeUse should be deprecated
I have proposed at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags that should be deprecated in favor of. Please comment there. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems fine, they are redundant. - cohesion t 18:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Making a GFDL not "subject to disclaimers"
I have proposed that we create a new version of the GFDL tag to replace and remove the problematic "Subject to disclaimers" line. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the GFDL requires that all disclaimers be preserved in all future versions, meaning any reuse of an image licensed under the current version of the GFDL tag must provide a copy of all of Wikipedia's disclaimers in addition to the GFDL. This has caused Commons, for example, to be forced to tag our GFDL images differently then normal GFDL images. Dragons flight 19:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Removal of the NoRightsReserved and PD-ineligible tags
I've looked into the use of various image copyright tags, and and  are almost invariably used incorrectly. They should be removed from the menu to prevent the problem of mis-tagged images from becoming worse than it already is. --Carnildo 00:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, I think we should generally remove tags that are unlikely to be understood based on the text of the tag itself. More savvy users can always add tags the normal way. was a problem like this also, that category is full of incorrectly tagged images we will have to slowly work through. - cohesion t 02:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * How about adding permission and noncommercial to the list instead? Those seem to be the two cases most commonly mistaken for "free use" by people (those who act in good faith anyway). If we allow people to pick those two it would mean that A) the uploader sees the big red warning label after uploading and hopefully realise that such images are not suitable. B) the images are easy to find and delete. Yeah I know it's not "nice" to let people pick a license that will get the image instantly deleted, but experience tells me that some people will upload the image no matter what, so letting them pick the most acurate license, even if we can't use it, seems better than having them upload the image with a totaly wrong license. At least that way it's easer to clean up theyr mess. --Sherool (talk) 03:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't feel bad, I took out the PD-Belarus tag since it was always abused by other editors and it would have only be used by me. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done, I also removed the old PD since it is now obsoleted. I do think Sherool's idea is good though, people should tag images as accurately as possible, and then we can act on them appropriately. That is a better solution than pushing people to select an incorrect license. - cohesion 06:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, the imedeate result seems to be a resurgance of completely untagged images pd-self and GFDL works. Though granted I only sampled 20 something recent uploads. At least the untagged ones will mostly get picked up by orphabot so that might be considered an improvement I guess. --Sherool (talk) 19:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Do not break the uninformed user traps, please!
On Wikipedia once we've tagged an image as "free" it will get very little oversight. As a result one of the best things we can do to reduce copyvio on Wikipedia is to make sure that users who don't know what they are doing don't pick a free license tag. Because of this we created two 'trap tags' somewebsite and Don't know. These increase the chances that someone who knows what they are doing will actually see the images, and as a result they are very important. It was recognized early on that having an ominous warning on these images would be counter productive, because frighting someone doesn't make them magically informed... thus warnings generally cause uninformed users to play license roulette changing tags until they get something that looks friendly. Armed with this information, we made the trap tags the least threatening of our "this may be deleted" tags, and it is important that they stay this way. It would appear that on Jan 30th the license selector page was changed to add the ominous red notice of impending doom to these images. I would appear that this was just done in order to get the right management cats attached to these images. I understand the importance of this but it simply could have been done by attaching the correct cats to the templates directly and avoiding the appearance change. I would suggest, however, that we keep these images separate because fixing up these images requires a different sort of handling (we should do it fast to catch the uploader, and we need to be extra helpful since it's all newbies).. In any case, this change has resulted in a surge of users changing the tags themselves and images being misidentified as free. . It's going to take me quite a bit of work to even characterize the damage. So please don't do anything that makes somewebsite/don'tknow look more dangerous than they currently look. --Gmaxwell 19:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, very much so. Last week I cleaned up the Wrong-license template, which we can use to tag images that look to be tagged inappropriately. Images that are obviously wrong, such as a recent film screenshot being tagged as PD should be tagged as nld. Wrong-license is useful when you don't have time to investigate an image, or when you want an image to be discussed or reviewed by others. ~MDD4696 22:33, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * See Sherool's idea above for a similar suggestion, adding permission and noncommercial to the list, these are often added manually in my experience (in text, not the actual template) so maybe having another "trap" template might help to tell people why permission isn't ok, or at the very least have them tagged correctly. - cohesion 17:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a very good idea. It should be possible to quietly implement these. Stifle (talk) 00:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've added a "permission" trap template. Stifle (talk) 23:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed PD-Soviet
I've removed PD-Soviet as I have just deprecated this tag. See the tag itself for the reason and links to more detailed reasonings and a summary. Lupo 16:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I wonder why you take it upon yourself to deprecate, delete, etc. tags, especially that following your attempt to delete is, the result was an overwhelming keep. Please don't waste any more of other people's time in attempting to delete or remove or whatever this tag that thanks god allows Wikipedia to be much better with important illustrations to the articles. --Irpen 21:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Changing NoRightsReserved
I've found that tends to be the most common false free template, so why don't we change it from "NoRightsReserved|Copyrighted, author releases all rights" to something that stresses the "releases all rights" more, like "NoRightsReserved|Author releases all rights but retains the copyright?" That should stop people from uploading images with thinking it's the one for copyrighted images. --Rory096 05:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Pretty please with sugar on top? --Rory096 23:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it should be taken off the selector completely because it's by far the most commonly misused tag. Stifle (talk) 12:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And since other people have thought so too, I've taken it off. Stifle (talk) 13:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Dual licences
I've added two dual licences (self made) to the list. =Nichalp  «Talk»=  16:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)