Template talk:Non-free use rationale/Archive 1

Comments
Please see my comments at Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use_rationale_guideline. Thank you. --Butseriouslyfolks 04:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Obvious
What kind of an explanation should logos and CD covers have in the "Replaceable?" field? They're obviously irreplaceable and should not require a redundant explanation. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Something can be "obviously irreplaceable" in some context, but completely replaceable in another. That's why we should always ask the uploader to explain why the unfree image is irreplaceable in the context it's being used in.


 * The magazine cover Image:Life9enero.jpg, for instance, is obviously irreplaceable in the article it's used in because the article discusses the cover image itself. But it would be replaceable if used, for instance, in Flagpole or Riot. No image is irreplaceable per se.


 * Also, my experience says that usually editor think their reasons are always obvious to others. I've seen editors argue that about the irreplaceability of headshots of public personalities used to show how they look like.


 * A cd cover, for instance, is replaceable if used to illustrate the artist on the cover. It's important for the rationale to explain why, in the context it's being used, that image is not replaceable by a free alternative. --Abu badali (talk) 23:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If an image, such as an album cover or a still from an audiovisual work (motion picture or video game), is used to illustrate some aspect of the work itself, I'd fill the replaceable field with the word "in" followed by the year of publication plus 96. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 13:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Resolution variable
The Resolution variable should be renamed Low_resolution for clarity. If no one objects, I will make this change and add code to grandfather in templates that used the old name. —Remember the dot (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Can some explain the use of this. I have seen other images with the use of the template, yet I'm still confused as to its use. TravKoolBreeze 06:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The resolution refers to the size and quality of the image. It needs to be reduced in order to avoid the improper use of the image by someone who downloads it from this site, and thus violating copyright law. The question on this table asks whether the resolution was reduced in order to avoid these problems. This practice is employed by other webpages too. I've seen the technique on [cnet.com]. &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 23:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * What I've seen is images that are already of sufficiently low resolution when they were copied off the company website. In this case, users do not have to reduce the resolution because it's already quite low. Thus, "Resolution reduced?" was really vague and unhelpful. "Low resolution?" is much better because it asks something quite specific. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * What I mean to ask is what is the proper way to answer the question to remove ?  I don't know if it is looking for a number, pixel size, one word answer or sentence.  TravKoolBreeze 20:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It's my impression that all of the sections should be answered thoroughly as sentences. I would explain with as much detail as possible the procedure for reducing the image resolution. You can include original size, new size, and other quality reducing changes. &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 20:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The "Low resolution?" question is more in there as a reminder...all we really need to do is make sure that the resolution isn't excessively high. One word, "Yes", should usually suffice. If the resolution is not low then the uploader should explain why a high-resolution copy is necessary. —Remember the dot (talk) 23:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions
Why on earth are all those questions posted in the template?? They should be inserted as comments so that those who are editing the template see the questions, not everyone under the sun. It takes up so much space, too! &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 15:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The footnote/reference system I tested seems to work (see example). It's more like a real table now, with notes at the bottom of the table rather than in the table. Any objections? &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 15:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, I don't know why the reference is popping up for the "other information" field when the field is blank. Any ideas? &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 15:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it. Taric25 07:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I also removed messages in the template, that are warnings for the uploader. Taric25 07:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should just write a guide for those looking at the template page and hyperlink the row titles to the appropriate sections in the guide? That would avoid double-hyperlinking as it is now. &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 16:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The current solution looks good. Thanks! —Remember the dot (talk) 02:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * How does the template work? I can put it in the page, but how do I edit the values within it? DuncanHill 23:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It's OK I worked it out. DuncanHill 23:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Examples of correct use?
Could anyone post links to some good examples of appropriate use of the template for various types of media? This would help a lot when trying to make correct use of it. InnocuousPseudonym 07:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've always liked using Image:Battle Programmer Shirase.jpg as an example. I'm sure the rationale could be worded better, but what I really like about this is that only a single image is used to show just about everything you'd need to show for the article. -- Ned Scott 09:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the example. To my untrained eye your fair use statement there seems like a good one of its kind; I especially like the wording on the last bullet-point. What I'm really looking for examples that actually use Template:Non-free media rationale. The non-template rationale on the image page above specifically treats a lot of aspects that the template doesn't seem to currently address: for example, it asserts that "it does not limit the copyright owners to sell the film in any way", etc., an idea/statement that has no counterpart in the template - where would one put it? Omissions like this make me worry that I am leaving out important things when I fill out the template in the obvious way suggested by its design.


 * Anyways, still looking for examples of good use of the template. InnocuousPseudonym 09:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oops, didn't see which talk page this was. haha, oh well. -- Ned Scott 09:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm still looking myself, and Betacommandbot is on the rampage. A major part of the problem is that the template and the "fair use rationale" don't have clear examples/formats for use, especially if someone is trying to upload pictures of albums or picture sleeves. B.Wind 16:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * They don't use the template, but Betacommand cited Image:BizarreRideIIthePharcyde.jpg as an example of an album cover with an acceptable Fair Use Rationale, and Image:Adam Faith.jpg and Image:Al Jolson Jazz Singer.JPG as examples of a photograph and a film still, respectively. InnocuousPseudonym 18:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Image footnote
I think the image footnote "Raster images must generally be of low resolution, 300px wide or less being the rule of thumb. Vector images just have to be rendered at low resolution in the article." is confusing to a general reader because of the use of the jargon "raster" and "vector," and I think there must be a better way to phrase this without requiring a user unfamiliar with these terms to navigate away from the page and return just to understand the footnote. Any suggestions? &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 18:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions
Original: "Raster images must generally be of low resolution, 300px wide or less being the rule of thumb. Vector images just have to be rendered at low resolution in the article."


 * Images must generally be of low resolution, for example, 300 pixels wide or less for Raster images. [Note: It is unnecessary to mention vector images because it is redundant, unless more specific information about vector images would be useful here.]

Resolution
I see that the template recommends a resolution below 300px width. However, there are a nontrivial number of images that are considerably taller than they are wide. Example: Image:Nelzelpher.jpg. I would certainly say that this isn't at fair-use resolution before it's 300px in the largest direction. Opinions? --Pekaje 23:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's just a rule of thumb. I've rewritten the rule of thumb to be based on the area of the image, which should help clear this up in the future. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yup, that cleared some things up. I've seen others mention a rule of thumb stating that the resolution reasonably used in the article is the one to use.  In the image referenced before, that was the approximate height, so there was no visual change in the article, and I can't see a reason to allow anything in higher resolution under fair use.  AFAIK, there never was defined a policy for this, and for good reason.  It's a very tricky question, depending on a lot of factors.  For instance, game covers should generally be precisely 256px wide to fit perfectly in the infobox. --Pekaje 00:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * But the thing is, if (for example) the infobox layout changed to become slightly wider, you'd have to re-upload the image. It's better to upload an image a few pixels larger than strictly necessary (for example, 300px wide instead of 256) so that you have flexibility in the future. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The downside is of course that the MediaWiki software is not particularly good at scaling the often stylistic artwork, so it often looks quite fuzzy. Hand-optimized rescaling gives much better results.  If a larger version should ever be needed, there is either the original source (which should be noted in the fair use rationale), or an admin could temporarily undelete the originally uploaded large version. --Pekaje 08:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It doesn't come out nearly so fuzzy if you use the PNG format instead of the JPEG format. —Remember the dot (talk) 16:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm just going by the format they're already in. Also, since the scaling algorithm is (AFAIK) the same, I'm not sure how that would even help.  I just tried scaling a PNG through wiki, and it looks just as fuzzy.  As for JPEG use, I always save at the highest possible quality to avoid visible compression artifacts. --Pekaje 16:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Well, comparing Image:Hodgman WikiWorld.png to Image:Hodgman wikiworld.jpg, I see that when scaled down by the Mediawiki software, the PNG became blurry and the JPEG got extra artifacts:



←If I were you, I just wouldn't worry about this. I would just upload a 300px wide image and let the user click on it if they want a sharper picture. This is what we do with free images all the time, except that free images are generally of far higher resolution before scaling. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You're probably right, but I also don't see anything wrong with making sure the resolution it is used at in the article matches the uploaded resolution, to improve the readers experience. For game covers there is also a general consensus to have them somewhere between 250px and 260px wide.  In the end I suppose it's a judgment call, and some images can be scaled down significantly more before they become unusable.  No wonder the attempt at forming a policy didn't work out ... :-) --Pekaje 17:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

A long time ago, before these guidelines existed I believe, I uploaded several album covers that were around 1.5 megapixels (300-400 pixels wide). I assumed this to be an acceptably low resolution, but perhaps it was not. Regardless someone has now started to replace these album covers with 200x200 images, no doubt due to the guidelines here. Do you think it is a good idea for people to replace low resolution images uploaded in good faith with very low resolution images just to meet the letter of these guidelines? Kaldari (talk) 16:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Without knowing the specifics, it does seem slightly overzealous to replace what sound like acceptably-sized images (the threshold being 300 pixels-ish) with even smaller ones just for the sake of it. However, to me it only matters if the "new" size has a negative impact on that article; that is, what is the display size and how has this been affected to the point where the image may appear "too small" or grainy/of less quality. It may be appropriate to revert these images back in this case, though to avoid an edit war you should probably discuss it with the editor replacing them and possibly have some open discussion on a talk page related to the image(s) to get some consensus. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 17:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Include "Copyright Information" Field?
Looking at our nonfree media templates, they indicate that both source and copyright must be provided. We have a source field in our rationale template. Shouldn't we also have a copyright information field? -- But | seriously | folks   21:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The two go together and are often the same. There's no need to complicate things by adding a second field. —Remember the dot (talk) 23:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Or rename the field "Source / Copyright" and explain that both must be provided. Many nonfree images are missing copyright information. --  But | seriously | folks   23:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I suppose you could if you really wanted to, but explicitly stating the copyright holder's name on top of other source information often doesn't strengthen the claim of fair use any. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Some fields should be optional
Fields like source, portion, low resolution, and description could be optional. At least source should be optional because ity ought to be part of the image description. No point making people enter it twice. It could default to "as per image description." The problem is that lots of image descriptions are bad or missing. So the current effort to get everyone to add fair use tags is a good occasion to clean up the lack of source information. BTW, has anyone explained why all the fields are in uppercase, yet other_information is lowercase? Is this accidental or by design? Is it too late to change now that the cat is out of the bag? Wikidemo 06:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * About other_information vs Other_information: It was probably accidental, and it's not worth changing now.


 * As for making source and description optional: Unfortunately, many users might see the "as per image description" and not bother to enter anything for either the rationale or the description. My solution is to just stick the rationale right in the "Summary" section so that I don't have to type the description twice. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Added hidden field for transclusions
Hi. I added a hidden / undocumented field Special_header. The only thing it does is that if you use the field it will appear in the top blue margin. The primary use is for any specialized fair use rationale templates that transclude this one, for example the new logo fur that I designed. That way anyone looking at a fair use rationale produced one of those templates knows where it came from. I have tested it out and it does not interfere with normal operation of this template. If you don't use the field it's simply not visible. If you do it is a message in the header.Wikidemo 06:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Propose adding a field for "Article"
I notice that most people who use this page don't bother saying what article it's used for and/or make the mistake of using it for two or more articles, when the policy is clear that there needs to be one rationale for each article.

To help with that, I propose we add a new field called "Article" where the editor says what article the rationale is for. To see how that works I've modified the template and put a trial version for illustration at Template talk:Non-free media rationale/proposal (but no copy of the documentation there). To take a random template usage, here is an example of the revised template in action. You'll see that the editor who added the template didn't specify an article. But if you add "Daydream Nation" to the "Article" field where it should be, everything works out. I think this is a good compromise because it points out cases where the article name is missing, but is backwards compatible with existing template uses. The only hitch is that it will say that the name is needed even in cases where someone has that in a header outside the template. But I'll argue that to be clean and ensure complaince that info ought to be in the template. What do you think? Wikidemo 18:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As an outsider's perspective: I am in the process of trying to bring the various images used in the articles pertaining to the anime franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion into fair use compliance.  Currently, there are several images used in those articles which are used in multiple articles.  If an image is used in multiple articles, I have tried to account for this in the Purpose section of the image (examples: here and here) using the File Links section to make sure that I haven't missed a link.  Is this not sufficient? Willbyr (talk | contribs) 19:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't tell you whether it's wrong in an individual case. People do that often.  And I haven't familiarized myself with proper use of anime character images in different sorts of articles.  You have been careful to state a different purpose for each use, which is great.  Most people are not that careful so when they use one template to stand for multiple uses the reasoning of all the uses is the same.  Or, as I said, they forget entirely to mention the article name.  Wikidemo 21:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with adding the field to the template; I found it confusing that there was none, given the policy saying "one justification per use". I would make the field display as "Article(s)", and allow > 1 - otherwise, I say "go for it". --Alvestrand 06:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This would seem to be a useful field to include in this template. I just got bot-warned for not specifying for which article(s) I was claiming fair use for an image I uploaded. I didn't use this template, but I came here searching for a way to remember to specify article names in the future. --zenohockey 21:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and do so.&#32;-- kenb215 talk 05:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Based on this I am modifying template:logo fur and template:album fur (which both transclude this template) to feed their "Article" field to the article field here. You might check or query to see whether there are any other templates that rely on this one.  The only hitch now is +/- 10,000 images that use this template and don't have an Article field yet.  We can add these by bot in most cases but they may still need to be hand-checked.  Until then people will have to accept that old images just don't have this field filled out.  Another possibility is that if nobody minds the change we can deprecate the old version in favor of a new version.  Wikidemo 05:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I find the addition of the article field redundant and disruptive. Please remove it. — WiseKwai 23:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

This field needs to be removed. It does not work for images that are in multiple article (Image:Ken Harrelson and Darrin Jackson.png for example)). Two other points: 1. The backlink should be in the description field. 2. Wikipedia automatic backlinks images already at the bottom of each image entry ("The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file") &mdash; Steven Andrew Miller (talk) 00:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The field is working fine, and is very useful, e.g. for creating the category of images that need backlinks. Images used in multiple articles need separate use rationales - the one you point to is deficient in this regard.  The "purpose" field is also deficient because it doesn't say anything about the purpose of the use in the articles.  "Description" isn't the best place to put it because that's stuffing well-formatted once-per-record data in a free-form text field, a weak recordkeeping practice.  The automatic back-linking is no substitute for saying which use the rationale refers to as required by WP:NFCC.  When there is more than one use the purpose and description is often different for different uses, and the automatic links don't establish this.  When we don't require an "article" field it leads to a lot of errors, meaning someone has to fix them by hand or delete the images.  The automatic file likes will be useful, though, in the process of cleaning up all the noncompliant images.  Where there is a single use rationale and a single use link, we can probably assume that the rationale applies to that use.  That is not a safe assumption at all if there are frewer rationales than links.  Wikidemo 02:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move
I propose that this template be moved back to its original name, Template:Fair use rationale. The phrase "non-free media rationale" is not used on Non-free content or Fair use rationale guideline. Rather, the term "fair use rationale" is always used. We should try and keep the terminology consistent by moving this template. —Remember the dot (talk) 18:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would rater we change the language in those other places. Calling it a fair use rationale is a little misleading since it's actualy a rationale to explain how it comply with Wikipedia's non-free content policy wich is as you know just a small subset of what is actualy allowed by fair use law... --Sherool (talk) 18:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Against. As the user above noted, Wikipedia's policy is only a subset of it. I would rather not change the name. &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 19:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We ought to help people comply so yes, we should use the standard term rather than coining an awkward and misleading term like "non-free media rationale." Wikidemo 19:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Against. Non-free is the better term, and there is a growing consensus to use this instead of fair use; too many uploaders are confusing fair use with free.  As Sherool points out, the language on the other WP pages should be updated to reflect this.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you mean "for". I have no problem with clarity but "Non-free media rationale guideline" is a lot less clear to people than the old term.  Wikidemo 19:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * (EC)The term might not roll of the thounge quite as easily, but the reason we renamed Fair use to Non-free content was to de-emphasis "fair use" when it comes to acceptable use on Wikipedia because we only allow a small subset of what is legal under fair use here. Basicaly a lot of people know what fair use is all about (or think they do), and so they don't bother reading the finer points of the policy, so by not calling it a "fair use policy" we make it more clear that just meeting the legal requirements will not be enough. I think that's more important than something that "soundes better". --Sherool (talk) 19:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Against. I'm a little torn on this.  "Fair use" is a convenient shorthand, and the other phrase is a little cumbersome.  Unfortunately, I think there's enough likelihood of confusion to warrant avoiding the term "fair use" as a synonym for Wikipedia's non-free content policy. --  But | seriously | folks   19:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've raised the issue here because Sherool just moved the entire guideline page from fair use rationale guideline to non-free media rationale guideline. My main problem is that it's long and confusing, and will make the situation worse instead of better as far as editors having any idea what they're supposed to do. I thought fair use was just fine but if we need a new term it has to be short, snappy, and clear. Wikidemo 19:41, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "Non-free" is longer than "fair use"? Both are eight characters, so I don't see the length issue.    "Media" clarifies that it applies to images, video and audio.  Also, given that all templates for non-free media are currently in the process of being renamed (i.e. from Scoutlogo to Non-free Scoutlogo), the use of non-free here is consistent.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Count them. Three more syllables, five more characters, and a dash.  "fair use rationale" is already a mouthful.  "non-free media rationale" is two mouthfuls.  If you can say "non-free media rationale guideline", or get your mind around the term, easily you are better at such things than me.  We really do need to come up with something...."unlicensed use rationale?"  "use rationale" for short? Wikidemo 20:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess we can now call this a Non-FUR. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

C:CSD Insanity
I think some element of this template is causing many images to appear at CAT:CSD for no good reason. Can somebody fix this? -- But | seriously | folks   21:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Never mind, it's fixed now. I guess the move was not yet complete. --  But | seriously | folks   21:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No Fair
I just revised two of the remaining instances of "fair use" language in the template. I'll leave it for someone else to decide if we want to eliminate all references to "fair use". -- But | seriously | folks   21:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Protection
We should consider semi-protecting this template. While not highly visible like infobox templates, it is now highly used. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Semi-protection wouldn't be bad. Why would anons ever need to edit this template, seeing as they can't upload files? —Remember the dot (talk) 16:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Documentation
Currently, part of the documentation is on the template page and part is on the doc page- this needs to be moved all to the doc page. As I understand it, whenever the template part is updated, all uses of the template must be refreshed on the server. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Mercifully, we can ignore performance issues. If it creates a serious problem then the developers will fix it on their end. It just makes it a lot simpler and easier for us to use the reference system for explaining this template. See above. —Remember the dot (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, but if we look at the bottom of the page, we see "Examples of places where performance has been erroneously cited in the past:" and a link to Template limits. If we check under Documentation of templates, we see how documentation should be handled.  --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It turns out that the referencing system can work through transclusion, so I've moved the Notes section onto Template:Non-free use rationale/doc. That should be a little nicer. —Remember the dot (talk) 18:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes- I was going to do it in a bit, I just wanted to provide the rationale (If I didn't write it down, I would forget it). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Not smooth - be careful what you revert and protect
Someone just reverted the edits, and someone else just protected the template in its old form, without any discussion, claiming that the matter should have been discussed on the talk page first. It was, and the comments were unanimously in favor of the changes. Based on the change I updated two other templates that rely on this one; now I will have to revert both.

The failure to state which article an image is used on is one of the single biggest failings of all use rationales, including ones using this template. The template makes matters worse; by not having a field for this important information it suggests that the information is not required. This is a present issue because many images are proposed for deletion based on a claim they lack this.

I don't want to make a fuss of it just yet because it's better to simply deprecate this template in favor of the new one so as to leave existing use rationales in place. Also, we'll probably eliminate the "source" field (which is once per image, not once per use) and some other tweaks. Deprecating might be a trick because there are quite a few pages that link to this template that will have to be updated to say there's a new version. Wikidemo 23:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure why they reverted that, I re-added the parameter. I also created Category:Non-free images lacking article backlink, wich we can use to find and fix images that don't use the Article parameter (which is most of them right now seeing as it's a new parameter) before they get tagged for deletion. --Sherool (talk) 10:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's about 30,000 to 40,000 images that need this field added to their template at this point.  Most could be done by bot based on the image's "file links" info.  To be extra cautious a bot could add a dummy field, e.g. "hand_checked_for_article_use=no" or "article_name_added_by=botname".  I'll probably wait a few days before I flip the logo and album cover rationale templates back to transcluding this properly, just to see that the change stuck.  That's about 1,000 images each at this point.Wikidemo 14:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Gah, whose idea was it to use a well-established template for this kind of fundamental parameter change? I don't mind the concept as such, but using an existing extensively used template for it is madness.  Thousands of templates in need of correction, many of which have no WP:NFCC problem, and absolutely no way a bot can fix it.  Please, consider reverting the template and make a new one if you must.  This is not an elegant solution, because multiple valid uses would undoubtedly require repeating some of the information.  Why not just fix the documentation to explicitly state that for each "Purpose" mentioned, the corresponding article must be wikilinked, and leave it at that?  Why did I ever take this page off my watchlist ... --Pekaje 21:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd hazard a guess that most uses of this template are not in connection with appropriate statement of article name. Whether now or later we're going to have to whip a whole bunch of images into shape soon on this account.  That will inevitably involve automatically tagging a bunch of images as unverified, needing hand-review, and/or needing remedial work to add the article name.  For what it's worth, this template may be deprecated soon anyway given the new proposal discussed at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content criteria/Proposal.  -- Wikidemo 00:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Just fixing the documentation won't get the tends of thousands of "legacy images" fixed. Sure there are lots of images that do link to the article without this parameter but those cases are the easiest of all to fix as we come across them. This way at least anyone adding a new rationale will be told an article name is expected, even if he haven't re-read the guideline recently. I'll try doing my part by populating the parameter for a handfull of images each day, if more people pitch in we should be eable to get a good portion of these fixed up in a couple of months. All images that do use the parameter can then very easily be automaticaly converted to whatever new system we may think up down the line. --Sherool (talk) 08:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I would argue that the articles which may not contain an article link within the template are also missing other key items, because the template was added after the fact; as long as the "Needs Article Name", "No Source listed" and other alerts are visible, many of these will probably be noticed and fixed during the course of other fixes brought to editor attention by BetaCommandBot or whatever. Making a special effort to correct 30,000 images for this one issue is a waste of resources. TAnthony 00:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Fix ParserFunction
I propose that "#if" ParserFunctions be added to all the fields of the template so that ' becomes ',  becomes , etc. etc. Any thoughts? Happy editing,  ARkY //  ¡HaBLaR!  20:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Editprotected tags are for changes that have consensus. --MZMcBride 00:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Article parameter need fixing
The new "Article" parameter doesn't seem to be fully thought-out. A non-free image may be legitimately used by more than one article (e.g., a picture of several people, each with their own article), but the singular form implies only one article. Worse, the parameter is currently being used in a caption as well:



Not only does this further prevent proper citation of use in multiple articles, but it's also just plain wrong. The non-free use rationale is for the image, not the article, and the image is the title of the page, making the caption completely superfluous. For a concrete example, please see Image:Trixie and Dean Koontz.jpg for why this doesn't work. (Before arguing that one of these articles is currently a redirect, I can point to other images that will eventually have to use this template that have multiple live articles, but I'm not going to fix them until the template design and bugs are worked out.)

Please revise this template to make more flexible and/or limited use of the "Article" parameter. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The requirement is one rationale per use in an article, not one per image. Please take a look at WP:NONFREE - it's at 10(c).  I don't know what you claim is "wrong".  We're encouraging people to enter the article name correctly, which is verified when the article becomes a live link.  The image you point to, of author Dean Koontz and his dog Trixie, is currently used in a single article about the author.  If you were to break it into two articles, the second one about Trixie, the rationale would be very different for the two images.  In fact, going through the exercise you would find that the image is not appropriate to illustrate Dean's article because it's a nonfree image of a living person, and therefore replaceable.  Trixie is no longer alive so it may be appropriate for an article about her if there is no nonfree image of her to be found.  All this is described in WP:NONFREE.  Wikidemo 10:52, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox
Could we please add:

To the beginning of the template? After creating /sandbox and /testcases, this will give a clearly defined space to edit and test updates and then gain consensus before they go live. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 10:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox idea still here; any takers? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Redundant information
The changes that are happening to this template are great...one minor annoyance is the redundancy when an image is used in more than one article. For example, the description, source, and author should be the same for each use. I believe what we should be doing is using Information for description, source, and author, while this template should only include the additional info required per WP:NFCC. Information really should be used to organize image metadata for all images into machine-readable format, for both free and non-free images. Videmus Omnia Talk  14:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I think that's coming in version 2.0 as part of the new proposal on image pages, but would be hard to implement in place on this template without disrupting all the images that use it.  So we'll probably have a pair of new templates, one with the per-use information and one with the per-image information, and then slowly phase out this template for any new images.  Wikidemo 23:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the Article parameter is a recent addition, and don't know how many articles have actually implemented using multiple templates for a single image, it may not be that big of a deal to implement such a change. TAnthony 23:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, instead of having to use the template three times for an image used in 3 articles, can't the "Article" and "Purpose" fields have some sort of "Use 1" - "Use 2" - "Use 3" functionality to save space and avoid confusion? I adjusted Image:Super Friends.jpg to reflect how it might look, though of course the template would need to be changed to not automatically place the article name into the header (which isn't necessarily important anyway). And regardless if this change is implemented, I think I prefer that the article parameter not automatically link entries; then multiple articles can be noted in cases where the purpose is also identical for all uses, like Image:Filmation Teen Titans 1960s.jpg. TAnthony 23:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, my comment above is a bit outdated considering the new template proposed at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content criteria/Proposal, but assuming it will be a separate tamplate to be implemented and replace this one over time, this one should still be fixed (however messily) to accomodate multiple entries in a better way. TAnthony 00:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposing another helpful category
Could we please modify (after suitable testing) the following line:



This will create two new categories for purposes of helping us deal with these images: ones that do have a valid article name in the article field and those (presumably just a few) that list an article name that is a redlink...either misnamed, or the article got deleted. Perhaps at some point we could use this as the basis to search that the image is actually used in that article and it is not a redirect. Thanks. Wikidemo 23:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * How often would these be usefull though? I would think at least 99% of non-free images with a rationale written for a redlinked article will simply be orphans, and we already process those fairly expediently. For the remaining images (mistyped article names and such) we pretty much have to do the same thing as we do to images with no article parameter (check if the rationale applies to the article it's used on). Maybe we could simply put images that fail the #ifexist test into the "lacking article backlink" category as well rater than create a new category for them that would most likely be empty most of the time. --Sherool (talk) 07:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * We dont' know how many red links there are until we check. If people are paying attention and using the latest version of this template, it's probably a small number.  On the other hand, the older references, particularly the ones that aren't linked back, probably have a 10%% failure rate due to getting the  name wrong or saying it implicitly rather than the exact article name.  As we deal with the legacy images it will be a big deal to distinguish between merely reerencing the article and having a real article name.  As we go forward we should get a system in place for dealing with linkbacks when the article gets renamed, also to check that the link is correct.  One easy way to check is to make the proposed change for a few minutes without actually creating the category.  How many members does it pick up?  If 50 out of 30,000, not a big deal.  If it's 2,000, then it is.  Sure, we could reword the template to put the "incorrect" in the same class as the "lacking" rather than a separate category.  It's all just testing right now.  Wikidemo 09:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, fair enough. I added the cats. Actualy get a large number of images in Category:Non-free images with red backlink, but they are all false positives caused by people putting square brackets around the article name... A fairly logical "mistake" to make and aparently a common one. Not sure how to work around that, there are precious few string manipulation functions to deal with such. --Sherool (talk) 06:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well one work around would be to run though the cate regularly with AWB or something and remove any square brackets from the article parameter I guess. --Sherool (talk) 06:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * We can cut down on the false positive / not followining directions problem by changing the code as follows. This will display an invalid article name if there's something in the field that isn't a valid link.


 * So far there are 650 valid back links, 144 red back links, and about 40,000 with no backlinks in the article field. About 70% of the red backlinks are from brackets.  There are assorted cases of messing up from other markup (e.g. italics) and stray characters.  I'm not sure how many of the remaining 20%(?) are true red links versus a typo / misspelling / stray character.  I'm guessing a few people try to stuff two article names into one field.  All that suggests a high compliance rate.  It will be interesting to check back next day at this time to see how the numbers change.  Wikidemo 07:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok done, added an explanation too since it would not be obvious to people why a seemingly valid link is classified as invalid. --Sherool (talk) 08:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I see you had to debug. Thanks for that.  Wikidemo 09:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Did an AWB run though the redlink cat and fixed the ones that where links rater than plain artice names. The remaining should be either misspellings (mostly capitalisation), multiple article names stuffed into the parameter or various kinds of style formating. --Sherool (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The count
To help measure compliance with the new article parameter - -- Wikidemo 07:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, just in case anyone interested hasn't noticed, Polbot (operated by Quadell) is working like crazy adding backlinks to images with the template but without the "Article" parameter; the bot's on "C" already, and this will obviously have a huge impact on the many images lacking backlinks. I've already given a pat-on-the back here but surely a barnstar will be in order when it hits Z. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 16:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Note that Polbot is clever and is also generating User:Quadell/Report on backlinks (articles with only one use rationale but several images used). This will be useful for repeated runs through the category. Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I noticed the bot was skipping those but not that it was keeping track! Awesome. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 19:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Redundant and annoying "Article" line
editprotected

Please remove the "Article" line from this template. The article name is already given (and wikilinked) in the light purple header at the top. It's redundant to put it again on the line below it, and it slows the reader from getting to what's important to them (the image description and source).

Please remove the following lines from Template:Non-free use rationale:

 ! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; vertical-align: center; padding-right: 0.4em" id="rationale_art" | Article

We can always put this back in later if there is demand to add it back in. For now, please just leave it out and let the article name given in the header suffice. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Between the two I would say that one is primary and the one in the header is just a convenience, mostly to highlight the cases where it's missing. The template has several fields and it makes sense to list each in similar format.  Wikidemo 05:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

editprotected


 * Can we at least move the "Article" line to between "Source" and "Portion used"? —Remember the dot (talk) 21:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As long as the  thing is preserved to make it easy to obtain the article name from a script we could make it a hidden field for all I care. Currently it allows us to do things like   (or some such, not tested code) to get the plain article name with a script without having to do a lot of extra parsing and stuff, as long as that's preserved we can display (or not) that bit anywhere as far as I'm concerned. --Sherool (talk) 05:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * So, is that consensus to change the order? Is it confusing to have the instructions list the parameters in a different order than they are displayed? - cohesion 01:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I would say that there is consensus to rearrange the parameters, and we'll want to reorder the fill-in template skeleton code to reflect this. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ - cohesion 03:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, when did we get all fancy with the id attributes on the parameters, nice! - cohesion 03:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Logically, the field should go on top because it identifies the use rationale, whereas the others are simply attributes. However, I don't see any harm.  If you see my "count" table I'm keeping track of how often people are adding valid versus invalid, or missing, article names.  As long as people can still get the job done, no problem either way.  Whatever template eventually replaces this one will probably handle the display quite differently, although it too is likely to have an "article=" field.  Wikidemo 05:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't say I'm loving that re-ordering either. I'm correct that this will have one transclusion per article right? If that's true the convenience of having the article name in big letters up at the top is pretty important. I also think it's a little redundant though, so who knows. I'd lean towards remember's original suggestion, but a non 1:1 relationship between the parameters and their display may be confusing. So, maybe someone will come up with something awesome ;) - cohesion 12:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me that, were we so ambitious, we could build an entirely new interface using JavaScript that would provide users with a form to fill out and then whey they click "submit" it would relay that information to the Mediawiki upload interface (think AJAX style) in a format that Mediawiki can understand. That would eliminate an incredible amount of confusion and perhaps would make full-fledged rationales unnecessary.


 * The form would include the traditional drop-down to select the tag. All the tags would be modified to include an additional "article" parameter, and the user would supply this parameter in the form. The form would automatically validate the "article" parameter to make sure that that article exists. There would also be blanks for description, source, and other information. No formal fair use rationale would be required because the "article" parameter would "lock" the image to that article. Images found outside the approved article could be speedily removed by bot unless another tag was added to lock the image into another article. I think that would make people appreciate the non-free content policy enough without it being so obnoxious. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That might be possible, I am certainly no js guru. If someone were to do it they would get a dozen cookies, and the unending praise of the community I'm sure! :) - cohesion 12:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds great, if not for this form then for its successor. There are some implementation details to think about.  "Article" would be a parameter of the use, not the image copyright tag (because it's multiple uses per image), and we could verify this against the image's actually being used in the article....and vice-versa.  We could conceivably include, upon every image up-load, a verification that the image is used in at least one article and that someone has created a use rationale....for example, the image upload wizard could ask for image specific information and then run the image use rationale wizard, and refuse to do the upload unless the user filled out the use information.  We'd probably want to roll that out (assuming someone can actually do this) in connection with the new image data under consideration.  Wikidemo 13:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

What's up with the template?
Look at Image:Air Atlanta Icelandic logo.jpg. The template says that the article listed does not exist, but it does... can someone help? – Zntrip 01:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Don't include the brackets in the article field. --Bobblehead (rants) 01:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, that simple... thanks. – Zntrip 01:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I must confess I've made this error on several images. How about if we add information in the Notes section that tells editors they don't need to include the square brackets? Bryan H Bell 17:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be very much appreciated, as I didn't know to leave off the square brackets and had the same problem. Now I have to go back through (takes off socks...) lots of images and correct the article reference. Something in the directions to say "Leave off the square brackets!" would be A Good Idea (tm), IMHO. Thanks. -  &yen;  Jacky Tar  00:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * There's talk of developing a new template, so there's not a whole lot of effort going in to updating this one. There is a category, though, for red linked article names, which would include the bracket error.  Only 45 in the category - Category:Non-free images with red backlink.  I think some people have been going through the category and fixing these.  Wikidemo 02:13, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Auto-article brackets?
I'd like to suggest usage instructions in the documentation listing each field and what info/format (brackets or not around the "Article", for example) should be used.

In addition, I'd also like to suggest that auto-bracketing the article field be removed, as I could use the same rationales for multiple aritcles; however, if wikipedia guidelines force me to use 2 of these templates if an image is in 2 articles, I guess there's no point in this suggestion; I'd like to be able to do multiple aritcles (by filling articles in as: Blah and Blah2). Thanks TheHYPO 21:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Small Change?
This template is now needed for all media (User:Betacommandbot is now tagging audio samples and such as needing to comply with 10c, and this template is the easiest way of checking off that all the Ts are crossed. However, it specifies 'low-resolution'. Can this either be marked as 'Low resolution/bitrate' or could it be turned into an optional field, perhaps requiring that *either* 'Low resolution' or 'Low bitrate' need to be included in order to cover all *media*, instead of just the visual ones? ;-) I'd looked for an equivalent audio-specific template (not finding one), but really, this template otherwise covers the same bases audio files need.--Thespian 09:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

editprotected request
Can we throw some brackets around ? It's odd to specify an article without linking to it at the same time (the redundancy in the template header notwithstanding).--Father Goose 23:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - I think I was thinking about making this exact change earlier on fixing a transclusion of this template to include the article parameter, but I must have gotten distracted or something. :) Nihiltres ( t .l ) 14:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * 2¢ a little late... but isn't it redundant to wikilink the "Article" link inside the template when the same thing is linked in the title line? The title line makes sense, first occurrence of the "Article" and it's the reason the template is being placed. The line inside is effectively buried. (As a side note on that, the internal article line could just as well be hidden... it's a repeat.) - J Greb 22:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * My thought is that we should include in the table part of the template every required or important optional field, verbatim as the user entered it. That way someone looking at the image page does not have to use the "edit" button to see what the data looks like.  Wikidemo 22:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair point, but the doesn't really address the redundant link. - J Greb 23:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's the redundant entry that's weird (linking in the header and also in a field). The redundancy doesn't hurt, though; the link in the header is easy to overlook, and if we are going to have an "article" field, it should be wikilinked.--Father Goose 09:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Portion used
Is it necessary to mention in "portion used" section if I for example removed extra white space from the original image? --Mika1h (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a big deal but why not simply say it. You could say something like "Entire image, but cropped to remove whitespace."  The white space around an image may or (more likely) may not be part of the copyright.  You're basically using the entire image if all you do is crop white space around the edges.Wikidemo (talk) 22:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

warning, does not exist! template awry
See Image:Frederator Incorporated.gif. Sure does exist. :) The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't put brackets around the article name. I fixed the problem. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well well. Thanks. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Please add a merge tag
editprotected Please add (or convert the uses of Template:Fair use media rationale and delete it, or whatever). Thank you. --NE2 19:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Neil   ☎  09:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's have the discussion here:

Problem with exclamation marks
Note the problem here: Image:!!! (album).jpg. – Quadell (talk) (random) 00:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to be choking on the first two "!"s of the file name itself, and not the backlink. Is there a way to escape the file name so that it doesn't interpret "!!"s as column separators? Maybe adding an empty row at the top would also fix the problem? Would something similar happen to a file named with two pipes ("||")? --Storkk (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Articles can't have pipes in their names. I thought of using "Image:%21%21%21_%28album%29.jpg", but there's nowhere to enter that -- the template pulls the pagename automatically. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've asked Larry V if he might take a look at it, since he put himself in Category:User template coder-4 and is an admin. --Storkk (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Larry's User_talk states that he's currently busy with problem sets. Nmajdan is the only other admin that has self-identified as Category:User template coder-4. I have not asked Nmajdan yet--I'll wait to see if Larry responds first. (I checked the list alphabetically, and it might be a little rude to ask both at the same time) --Storkk (talk) 15:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've asked Nmajdan-- Larry V is extremely busy "until the summer" --Storkk (talk) 15:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Hm, it might work to replace with. yields "!!! (album).jpg", while yields "%21%21%21_%28album%29.jpg". – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Doesn't work: Works halfway: try previewing the page using, where I've made the changes. Nice idea though. Maybe it's not not only the . Seemed promising. --Storkk (talk) 15:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * As it is now, " for " is still choking. --Storkk (talk) 15:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would subst. the template, then just put in the name - seems simpler than changing the template. We're probably not the only place where this typographically provocative group is causing problems.Wikidemo (talk) 15:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Better to fix it once and for all, if it's possible. That way it'll work for others that potentially might occur. --Storkk (talk) 15:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, until a new band comes along and decides to name itself after some other hypertext markup characters. Someday there will be a nerdy band called  .  You will only be able to talk about it if you also mention their sister project Wikidemo (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC):)


 * Using "|Article=%21%21%21 (album)" solves one problem, but kills the ifexist. sigh. --Storkk (talk) 15:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it. Here's how. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to have broken other links, so I reverted. Hm, I don't understand. Why would this new version work fine in Image:!!! (album).jpg, but turn spaces into pluses in Image:AOV Adult Movie channel.jpg? The former also has a space. I don't get it. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Purpose
Is it true what they're saying: if we don't add this, and only this template on a image description page, it will be deleted?, because we only needed to use Fair-use rationales long ago. ? -- Andersmusician  VOTE  21:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * At this point you don't have to use this template (or Non-free image data and Non-free image rationale), but you have to include all of its elements, like source info, a link to each article which uses the image and a purpose for each, etc. Images without some of this information will be tagged, and then deleted within days. So in most cases it just makes the most sense to use a template because it will alert you to missing info. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 21:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

protected edit request
sudo

Convert this template to use in the first line of the table. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 20:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * For multiple uses of an image, Non-free image data and Non-free image rationale) are recommended. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  20:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * ❌ Please use the above templates for multiple rationales. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk)  10:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia link on "rationale" needs to be updated
editprotected The link on the word "rationale" in the template title points to Fair use rationale guideline. Currently, that page redirects to Non-free use rationale guideline. The link should be changed so it doesn't need to be redirected. — OranL (talk) 04:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk)  09:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Lol, you changed a different one that needed to be changed, but that I didn't see! There is still one more to be changed, and that is the link on the word "rationale" in the header. This is the source that needs to be updated:

|Non-free / fair use media rationale Change to: |Non-free / fair use media rationale
 * Thanks! — OranL (talk) 19:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. – Luna Santin  (talk) 01:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Double exclamation point in title of article
Take a look for how a double exclamation point in the title of a film breaks the formatting of the FUR when its displayed. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz)  (talk / cont)  06:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Consolidation from Template:Information
editprotected Please add the following parameters to this template to eliminate a need to use both Information and Non-free use rationale on the same image page: date, Author, Permission, other_versions. Thanks. For an example output and the resulting additional parameters, see Image:ZitsComicStrip20070913.PNG. -- Suntag  ☼  18:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with using two templates for two kinds of information? —Ms2ger (talk) 12:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Info is once per image; non-free use rationale is once per use. So the applications are different.  It would potentially create unnecessary work.  Also, because usage is spotty (there are many tens of thousands of images that use this template directly and transcluded by other templates without these fields) they would be of no use to automate anything.Wikidemon (talk) 16:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Low Resolution
The low resolution "rule" for screenshot images is idiotic. How could a single frame of a film or video game possibly have any influence on the copyright holder's ability to sell the original work? The only potential problem would be if the game or film looked really bad in the screenshot, but it is far more likely that a potential customer would be influenced by the content of the article (such as a "Reception" section citing overwhelming negative reviews, which is perfectly acceptable!) Extremely low-resolution screenshots only succeed in making it harder to get any useful information from the screenshot. I've seen far too many film screenshots on Wikipedia which are so resolution that the actors or events depicted in the shot are unrecognizable.

The screenshot policy seriously needs to be addressed to have "low resolution" standards removed. High-definition (1920*1080) screenshots may be excessive, but 720*480 standard DVD resolution is poor by today's standards, and 300*200 or whatever should be considered unacceptably low-quality and useless for an article. Some guy (talk) 00:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Namespace File
Please correct the conditions "#if" checking from "Image" to "File". Vinhtantran (talk) 11:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'm going to suggest that it be changed to  instead as it will automatically grab the namespace that is called "Image" on the English Wikipedia, which is currently "    ". --Lightsup55 ( T | C ) 14:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Change this:

To this:

--Lightsup55 ( T | C ) 14:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Lightsup55. We seem to be watching the same pages. :)
 * I took a quick look at the code suggestions here and I have some comments:
 * 1: Yes, all of "File", and  work in this case. Using one of the  magical words is as Lightsup55 point out more "future compatible". But using the old  is kind of deprecated, since it is mostly kept for backwards compatibility. Although it will probably be kept for quite some time. So the most correct one to use is . Another good option is to use the file other template instead. (There are both pros and cons to using that template, it is mostly a matter of taste which method one prefers. I myself prefer the template.)
 * 2: Next thing is that those areas of the code also use &lt;noinclude> tags. They are probably an old rest. They are supposed to make it so the template page itself doesn't get categorised. But those &lt;noinclude> tags are not needed anymore since the namespace detecting code makes it so the template only categorises when on file (image) pages. Thus the template page itself will not be categorised.
 * So Lightsup55 or Vinhtantran, or whoever is in the mode to dig into that code: I suggest you use or file other. And that you remove the noinclude tags around those parts of the code and test the new code in the /sandbox. (Since I am not in the mood to dig into that code, it looks messy and I am busy elsewhere. And my eyes can't read complex templates that use wikitable markup. I always have to first change to use the more robust "HTML wikimarkup" for the table first. And there are several technical reasons why the "HTML wikimarkup" is better than the wikitable markup.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 00:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I've changed it to use. --- RockMFR 01:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Low resolution images inappropriate in some cases
A high resolution screenshot of a video game (this is completely ridiculous) does not result in any kind of possible piracy. A high resolution frame of a movie (unless it's especially iconic, which might make a good poster) similarly doesn't create potential for piracy. Also keep in mind that it's not our business to make publishers money and we shouldn't speak in terms of "negatively impacting sales" -who cares?- but rather of potential impact specifically in terms of copyright infringement losses to publishers. Savvy fair-use evaluators should make intelligent decisions based on resolution in some cases, but it shouldn't be part of a checklist as if it must be met for the rationale to be valid. You can't expect an average editor to read through all the fair use documentation. That's the point of the checklist. .froth. (talk) 04:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also this issue has been brought up several times: it needs to be addressed. .froth. (talk) 04:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not understand how there can be 'pirated' images.--Harbinger1991 (talk) 05:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this entirely. Too many of the images I come across on Wikipedia are of needlessly low resolution. Some box art or a snapshot can't possibly compete with the actual game/movie. Nobody thinks "why buy that game/movie, when I can just stare at a picture of it on Wikipedia?". I can see how random contributors might see "Low Resolution" and quickly assume that they have to make it low resolution. I'd propose changing the wording from "Low Resolution" to "Not Competition". "Low Resolution" is just one approach to ensuring that the material being used is "Not Competition" for the original work. So is it not more appropriate to have "Not Competition" be the guideline instead? "Not Competition" gets to the heart of the issue. --Kijoshua (talk) 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Editprotected request--caps alternatives
editprotected


 * Install alt case params:because most templates use lowercase for inputs, and this one keeps biting me and slowing me down horribly! (Grrrr!) 
 * typical change... : morphed to  }}} and like forms so both upper and lower cases work for inputs.
 * I have modified the template in Tt0 communal sandbox and tested it here (2-3 diffs-both cases) so you can just cut N paste and swap the files.
 * Diffs viewable here: tt0 show changes, including wrestling with nesting issues
 * Changes I made include 'irrelevant formatting spacings' (whitespace insertions) to clarify template logic flow and groupings.
 * Those changes are logically inconsequential, but make maintenance of the template easier&mdash;albeit look bad in the applicable diff.
 * Trimmed out (blanked) irrelevant (2x uneeded) parameter output messages.


 * If you'd be so kind finishing up :: to make these related fixups...
 * 1) edit File:8x04-071-source.jpg
 * 2) remove:
 * 3) tranform:  Non-free use rationale|... to
 * 4) revert Tt0 to this version of tt0.


 * Thanks // Fra nkB 05:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Not done. Just letting stuff like appear when not present is good because it makes it easy to see the proper parameter name. Additionally, alternative parameter names are not generally added except for backwards compatibility. --- RockMFR 01:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * direct answer posted here but...
 * Bullshit... Funny, I've been writing such options into templates for five years... and know of no guideline that discourages time savings for editors but certainly comprehend most people know most parameters are NOT capitalized... so the change is compliant to that de facto standard practice, whereas the template code IS NOT.
 * Don't care at t'all, at'all about what is displayed on the page viewed directly... the whole point is I DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE IT (save for one time, Alas!) because of a caps difference, or because it doesn't contain a sensible name alternative.
 * I want the options COVERED, so the next time I need to apply the tool in the middle of twenty competing thoughts and two or three open pages (Main tasks, you know... stuff for readers, not admin) it's easier for us editors adding content and having to recall the syntaxes... Kapish. Make it easier for us donating time, not harder.


 * If there is a reasonable alternative name, it should also be given as an aid to volunteering contributors... not all of us have the excess free time of a youthful life to constantly look things up, nor the memories to recall all details of all the stuff we have to use around here.


 * The servers don't care--handling options and another token like that won't slow them down more than a few microseconds per page composition... an irrelevant and insignificant amount. // Fra nkB 16:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The change was not made because it makes the template harder to use, not easier. If a user doesn't give a parameter name, the template should tell them what the correct name is, not leave it empty or give them the unbelievably unhelpful Article name(s) missing. There is also the issue of the information being machine-readable - by adding a bunch of variations of parameter names, more work needs to be done by people writing bots, etc. --- RockMFR 18:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you seriously that incapacitated? I hope to hell you don't consider yourself a template coder!
 * How pray tell is the fully formed phrase: Article name missing... in red no less, less cryptic than ... just how many novice editors do you think know what three braces mean? Damn few, as a percentage of all editors parading through this site.
 * If you want to be uncriptic, give a message like
 * How can optional names make it harder to use... is your memory perfect as well as arrogant? Who gifted your way of thinking as the best or right way? Trust me, when you hit fifty, you're grateful to recall how to find the bathroom... SO EDIT THE TWO OR THREE PIPES OUT in my version that shows what you wanted, and/or reorder to show your bad names if you like...
 * Like this example for the display lines coding:  which will still show your bad parameter name if NEITHER is specified...
 * Just don't do that for NON-MANDANTORY FIELDS... Portion or whatever,
 * for example in: ''' Portion used

Low resolution?

Purpose of use

Replaceable?

Other information 	 (optional) '''... As far as I can see the only useful and mandatory field would be Purpose... the rationale the template is designed to hold for the projects administrative needs. The replaceable status is a judgment that can always be argued, so is hardly necessary. Ditto the other detail like data... may be useful to photo-editors but aren't useful if the pic is less than 1000 px wide... which is obviously low resolution by todays standards. In short, you're editing to your preconceptions, not the actual needs.
 * Try to be logical and professional about making judgments &mdash; especially one's like this that impact the time of the many. // Fra nkB 19:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Not done - For a number of reasons. Here are my comments:
 * 1: Since RockMFR disagreed there is currently no consensus for this change.
 * 2: The editprotected message box may not be used when there is no consensus for the change. It should not be used as a debating tool or to attract attention to a discussion.
 * 3: Usually I am opposed to have more than one name for a parameter, since experience has shown that it causes a lot of problems. Among other things it makes the template code more complex, it means we have to support all the different names "forever" or put in a huge effort to fix all cases out there to one name before we remove the other name, it makes it harder to maintain the template code for other editors in the future, and it makes it much harder to build bots that can handle the template.
 * 4: However in this case I agree that it is annoying that these boxes use some upper case parameters. But this template belongs to a family of templates such as non-free image rationale, information and commons:Template:Information. And they are currently partly parameter compatible. If we change the parameter naming for one of them (this one), then it becomes much harder to change between them and to do transwiki moves. So this needs a much more careful analysis and discussion, which needs to cover all those other templates too.
 * 5: I recommend that you don't use the "communal sandbox" tt0 when you want to test and show code, especially not for an existing template or an editprotected request. Instead in this case I suggest you use this template's own /sandbox and /testcases pages. (And note, that should be "/sandbox" and "/testcases" spelled exactly like that, to work with all the template /sandbox tools we have.)
 * 6: Fabartus/FrankB: You are very rude. Being rude towards other people, editors and admins doesn't make them more likely to help you. Instead it makes them much less likely to help you. And it also makes them less likely to even bother to try to understand what it is you want.
 * 7: Part of your request is about File:8x04-071-source.jpg and tt0, which are not protected pages. You should do those edits yourself.
 * 8: Could you please stop using all those ugly coloured boxes in your talk page comments and in your additions/changes to template docs? Black text on blue background is hard to read for many of us. And yellow text on red background as you have used in for instance tt0 is even worse.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 15:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

"Portion used" field for fair use images
I'm confused about the "Portion used" field. Does this refer to the image or the work that is being illustrated? Ie. am I to write if a portion of the image is used (say part of the cover of a DVD) or that a portion of the whole work (say the DVD cover as a portion of the film it is illustrating)?--Sus scrofa (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

protected edit request
sudo

The title on this is backwards, surely it should be "Non-free media use rationale" 87.194.147.203 (talk) 16:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Thank you. - Rjd0060 (talk) 21:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Template update
Please replace existing code with code in the sandbox. This fixes issues relating to multiple exclamation points in an article title, which causes the template to break. One such example can be seen at File:Shugo Chara!! Doki— vol1.jpg. Test cases can be seen here. —Farix (t &#124; c) 11:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Do you happen to know if there is a bug filed at MediaWiki for this? Otherwise I'll file one. — RockMFR 15:21, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know of any bug filed on this. —Farix (t &#124; c) 01:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ahh, found it - 16905. — RockMFR 05:17, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you sync it with the sandbox one more time? I noticed an unnecessary . —Farix (t &#124; c) 11:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Request for detection
Please add the line  to an appropriate place in the template. For the purpose of this detection, see Category:Other information.

Note: A similar edit has been made to another 7 unprotected templates, and 2 more edit requests can be found at Template:Album cover fur and Template:Logo fur. Debresser (talk) 01:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * See response at Template talk:Album cover fur. — RockMFR 02:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

After discussion at Bot_requests the easier solution was preferred. I also asked advise at User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough. Please change  to   and   to   and   to. I'll update the documentation later (is after all not essential). Debresser (talk) 00:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * As this is fairly complex I would suggest putting your code in the sandbox. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * All there for you to copy in Template:Non-free use rationale/sandbox. And perhaps consider moving the protection template to the documentation page. Debresser (talk) 22:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done. Amalthea  14:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Debresser (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"Author" field
This template should ideally have an "author" field in addition to the "source" field. Currently, too many images provide as the source whatever website the image came from, which is not sufficient to determine attribution and therefore copyright status. See WP:AN for discussion of this issue and possible means of addressing it. Chick Bowen 13:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Since you've also raised this at WT:FURG, and you have concerns about the underlying policy position which are probably best aired at WT:NFC itself, can I suggest discussion here not be continued, to avoid bifurcation. Jheald (talk) 15:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Questioning the wisdom of having a "low resolution" policy.
Suppose we host a large-pixel, non-free image on Wikipedia on Fair Use rationale. How could that likely impact the copyright owner's ability to resell or otherwise profit from the work? Any specific, conceivable cases? It sounds to me like Wikipedia is not being confident about our legal legitimacy in using material under the Fair Use rationale, so we've added unnecessary half-hearted attempt at appeasing the copyright holders, even though "low resolution" is a vague measurement that is ignored in most instances, or worse quarreled about in other instances for little gain. Most of the disputes I am aware of have been over public domain images, hover the template attribute makes no sense in Mac OS X app icons, and corporate logos, for example. --Bxj (talk) 14:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Add non-free media
I know that usually Category:All non-free media is added through other templates, such as Non-free 2D art, but it couldn't hurt to add the category via this template as well. Opinions? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is the global one. Why isn't it on here?  Dokter Zombieman  brains.../the infected 10:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Doesn't seem to be any objection, so I'm making the edit request. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Where exactly must this template be placed?
Please provide newbie-proof instructions for exactly where this template must be used. Roger (talk) 17:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added some quick instructions in the usage section, above the empty template. Maybe this helps? + m t  19:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

"Low resolution?" ??
How are we supposed to know what "low resolution" means in order to answer the question properly when there is no definition of "low" or "high" resolution to be found anywhere in WP, including WP:NFCC, WP:IUP, WP:IMAGES, WP:GACR, WP:RAT, WP:MOSIM, or in the Non-fair use template itself? I consider 1000px to be "low resolution". How am I wrong? Shirt waist &#9742;  12:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from FleetCommand, 23 September 2011
I propose the text "Non-free media use rationale" to changed into "Non-free media information and use rationale", since this template is used for both purposes (contrary to Non-free image data and Non-free image rationale).

Fleet Command (talk) 16:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, done. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Vchimpanzee, 29 September 2011
Under "Example", the text runs off the page. I feel this looks bad and could somehow be fixed so it has the proper look of a description of how to use a template. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 20:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 20:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ I added a CSS directive to instruct the browser to wrap lines in the &lt;pre&gt; box. Note that for most templates with the "blue box" style of documentation, the documentation is actually on a separate subpage so it can be edited by anyone without requiring admin permissions; look for an "Edit" link at the top of the blue box. Anomie⚔ 20:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Pedantry
Twice this template uses hyphens when it should use dashes. Could  please be changed to   and   be changed to. Thanks, Jenks24 (talk) 07:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Tra (Talk) 00:47, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

New field for copyright holder
Templates such as Non-free software cover specify that the rationale must include "the source of the work and copyright information", but this template does not have a field for copyright info. I propose to add one.

Should this expansion also deal with the unanswered point about "author" raised above? – Fayenatic  L ondon 16:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Field for NFCC#2?
Why does this template not have a field for information related to WP:NFCC (commercial opportunities)? That's a crucial part of many rationales. I propose adding a field "commercial role". Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: the alternative Non-free use rationale 2 does have that field. – Fayenatic  L ondon 16:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, I suggest we add an extra field "author", factoring out that information from the "description" field. Too many people never realize that they are supposed to add the author information under that heading. This change would also make the template more compatible with the free Information template (i.e., if you realize an image tagged with Non-free use rationale is really PD or something, you should be able to simply exchange the template name and end up with a valid Information template with all the relevant fields remaining the same.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

apostrophe missing
In the section "...would be unlikely to impact the copyright owners ability to resell or otherwise profit from the work," there needs to be an apostrophe in the above underlined and bolded word. If a single owner, it goes before the s, if multiple, aftewards. If we are trying to be ambiguous, it needs to be rephrased as "would be unlikely to impact the ability of the copyright owner(s) to resell or otherwise profit fromUser_talk:$\langle\rangle$ 00:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Markup issues
When validating pages where this template is used, the follow errors are shown:


 * The cellpadding attribute on the table element is obsolete. Use CSS instead.
 * Caused by . Convert this to CSS.


 * The summary attribute is obsolete. Consider describing the structure of the table in a caption element or in a figure element containing the table; or, simplify the structure of the table so that no description is needed.
 * This is caused by . The simplest solution is to remove this.


 * Duplicate ID rationale_header.
 * Caused by . When this template is included on a page multiple times, the same ID is used. I don't see a use for the ID, thus the simplest fix is to remove it.


 * Duplicate ID rationale_desc.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_src.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_art.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_port.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_reduc.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_purp.
 * Duplicate ID rationale_otherinf.
 * These are the same as the previous issue. I don't see the need for all of these IDs.

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that "converting"  to CSS would require either editing MediaWiki:Common.css to add an appropriate class for use here or adding   to every cell in the table. If possible, it would probably be better to just remove it entirely and use the "standard" padding.
 * Note that IDs are often present in this sort of template so user scripts of some sort can detect whether the template (and/or a certain parameter) was used. It might be a good idea to check for that before removing them. Anomie⚔ 14:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Example: File:Homenetmen.png; . ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like the IDs were added by B when the template was created. I have queried him on it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't remember why I would have added them, but I'm going out on a limb and guessing that there were probably IDs in whatever I was copying it from and I just assumed that it was a standard practice to include them. I was strictly a C++ guy back then and didn't really know web standards so I doubt I even knew what HTML IDs were.  (Obviously, I do know what they are now and if I were creating the template today, I wouldn't add IDs just for the sake of adding them.) --B (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Update at Non-free use rationale/sandbox. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Original uploader field
Is this the right place to request an  field in all image info templates? If standardized, this could be filled in by the various uploading tools, and respected by the various bots, scripts, and editors who nominate images for deletion, or report that an image has become orphaned. For example:, and image for which the original uploader info is not present in the current image html page "File history" section. Of course the Mediawiki revision history (View History at top of page) shows the original uploader (User:IbankingMM), but this is not used by Hazard-Bot AFAIK when reporting problems. As we all know, resizings and re-uploadings by others over time tend to result in the original uploader's file being deleted, sometimes per WP:NFCC, sometimes due to space conservation. I don't mind being notified about images which I've touched. But even though I (say) resized the image, I don't necessarily want to take over stewardship of it; that's the original uploader's contribution for which to advocate. But that person is, AFAIK, never notified of pending deletions, if a re-upload/purge cycle has taken place. Hence, the  new field for all image description templates. Where should this be discussed? --Lexein (talk) 17:41, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 9 November 2014
Please make this change, so that the description and source information detailed in this template can be used by MediaViewer and other tools that require machine readable information, when a Information template is not present.

—Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 11:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:48, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 February 2015
The City of Clinton has a new logo and motto. You Belong Here has replaced History Pride Progress. I need to change the logo on the page. Sincerely, City of Clinton Communications Dept.

Communications Dept.Clinton communication (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ❌: this is the wrong page to make an edit request on.  The correct place would be on the talk page of .  G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 19:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Substitution
Many of the NFUR subtemplates are tagged as substitute-only but don't have any explanation why. Does anyone know? – czar   06:21, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Doubled punctuation problem
If the name of the image ends in punctuation, right now we end up with doubled ending punctuation: "This is the front cover art for the book Are You Dave Gorman?."

Could someone either add a parameter that removes the ending period (something like, "ending period=no") or somehow restructure the sentence so that the title does not appear at the end?

Sorry all I can do is point things out, but my real-life limitations are getting in the way of doing any more and I might not make it back here. Thanks in advance if you can work on this! — Geekdiva (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Metadata flag for nonfree content
Hi,

there is a machine-readable metadata markup convention for copyright tags, originating from Wikimedia Commons which is used by various tools. to correctly understand image copyright properties (what needs attribution, what cannot be freely reused etc). This template implements most of it but misses the most the important one, the "nonfree" flag (which was added to the definition after the template was updated). Please add it to the template. (new template text, diff) I'm assuming that this template is used on the description page of all nonfree files, so this is the best place to add; if that's wrong, please correct me.

Thanks! --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 09:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there is no policy that mandates a template based NFUR and there are other NFUR templates too which don't contain this one. So that won't work. However, there is Template:Non-free media which (apparently? Needs checking) is used in all non-free media templates.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Disabled request. Tgr: are you happy to add to the template mentioned by Jo-Jo? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, centralizing is probably a good idea. I did a quick search for templates which include a  class and have "non-free" in their name: That's clearly unmaintainable. If you think this discussion is sufficient consensus then I'll go around and remove license markup from each of those and add it to Non-free media (which is included in each of those), as having it twice on the page would probably cause problems. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free use rationale
 * Non-free use rationale 2
 * Non-free title-card
 * Non-free logo
 * Non-free album cover
 * Non-free video game cover
 * Non-free 3D art
 * Non-free comic
 * Non-free Crown copyright
 * Non-free 2D art
 * Non-free currency
 * Non-free audio sample
 * Non-free symbol
 * Non-free biog-pic
 * Non-free Olympics media
 * Non-free Denver Public Library image
 * Non-free Old-50
 * Non-free ESA media
 * Non-free AUSPIC
 * Non-free Otto Perry image
 * Non-free Old-70
 * Non-free New Zealand Crown Copyright
 * Non-free Australian Crown copyright
 * Non-free Canadian Crown Copyright
 * Non-free Finnish Defence Forces
 * Non-free graffiti
 * There is also Free media for the corresponding free media template.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The copyright metadata has a bunch of different fields (license name, link to the license, is attribution required?, is it a free license?). For fair use most of those don't make sense or can be set to a generic value, so it can all be done in a single shared template. For free licenses those values change from license to license so it can't.

Anyway, if there are no objections to the changes I listed above, I'll do them over the weekend. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yay, I figured out a while ago myself that using that for free media would require a per-template fix. Anyhow, I endorse the edit(s) to Non-free media and removal of the license microformat from the other templates. Wonder if Puf and other "probably non-free" templates should be marked with the "nonfree" microformat, since by definition their freeness is iffy.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The non-free parameter should be added to all non-free copyright tags unless it already is there. A fair use rationale is not a copyright tag and should not have this parameter in my opinion. Note that non-free media is both transcluded by copyright tags and by FUR templates.
 * Per WP:NFCC, all non-free files are required to have a non-free copyright tag, so if the parameter is added to all non-free copyright tags, then this should be solved for all images which are used in accordance with policy.
 * If puf and other templates mark files as unfree, then I suspect that 's bot would find that unused files at PUF are 'orphaned non-free files' and tag them for deletion per WP:F5, but we'd at least want to keep the file until the PUF discussion has ended. It would also make it harder to search for WP:NFCC violations. It's inappropriate to remove files from userpages and similar locations before the discussion at PUF has ended. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:47, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Coming back to Non-free media, are folks OK with the addition of the metadata tag to that template? Pinging, and ; Puf and so would need their own conversation.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:50, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free media should not contain any metadata tags since the template neither is a copyright tag nor an "information" template.
 * should be set by copyright tags (for example, non-free logo), but not by fair use rationales (for example, non-free use rationale) since a fair use rationale is not in itself a copyright tag. Once it is available in all free and unfree copyright tags, it will be easy to find files without copyright tags, for example files which violate WP:NFCC.
 * Data for information templates should be set by fair use rationale templates (for example, non-free use rationale), but not by copyright tags such as non-free logo. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:28, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Non-free media is actually a meta-copyright tag that is included in all non-free copyright templates and serves to categorize them as non-free, per its documentation.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:45, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free media is included in templates such as non-free use rationale and non-free reduce, which are not copyright tags. The meta tag  should only be included in templates which are copyright tags, but not in templates such as non-free use rationale and non-free reduce. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That makes me wonder why Non-free media is transcluded in these templates. Perhaps the solution is to remove it from these templates.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:57, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll update the templates individually for now, but in the long term I think that's suboptimal because the same machine-readable markup would have to be added to every new non-free license template. It would be more maintainable to have something like Non-free media template which wraps Non-free media and is used instead of it in license templates and adds the markup. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Tgr (WMF): Unfortunately, adding the information to non-free media isn't possible since the tag mustn't be added to templates which are not copyright tags. The information must therefore be added to the copyright tags manually, unless a switch is added to non-free media to distinguish between templates which are copyright tags and templates which are not copyright tags. For example,  can't be added to FUR templates, since a FUR template isn't in itself a copyright tag. I see that you added   to a few FUR templates - please revert! --Stefan2 (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Stefan2, I only modified license metadata of templates which already had it. Having incomplete license metadata in those templates would cause problems. Not having any metadata in them probably wouldn't, but I'll leave fixing that to someone else as I am not sure which templates are used together with a license tag and which not. (If something has a fair use rationale template but no license template, it's better to have license metadata in the rationale template than not at all.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 01:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * In theory, any FUR needs to be accompanied with a license template. WP:NFCC says so. As for adding metadata to FUR templates, I think we'll need a discussion about whether Non-free media should be transcluded on FUR templates first; that template is per its documentation a meta-tag for copyright tags.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:54, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they often aren't :) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 10:27, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Stefan2, Jo-Jo Eumerus: I looked through Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright tags and the majority of those do not have license metadata of any kind. Separately adding metadata to ~100 templates and then making sure it is added to every new member of a category is unmanageable, and the lack of that metadata is causing problems (e.g. this - I'll need to create a couple hundred more of those pages).

non-free media might be used in some non-copyright-tag templates, but those templates are used on the description pages of nonfree files anyway, and there is no disadvantage from having multiple instances of license metadata on a file description page. Adding metadata with a "nonfree" flag to that template seems the most reasonable appreach to me, but if it is really important to limit metadata to copyright tags, then I could create Non-free media template with the content, and then search and replace for invocations of the Non-free media template inside the members of Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright tags. What do you think? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free media is the template that says in its documentation Thus allowing a machine-readable list of all non-free media to be created. so I think your proposed template would be a duplicate and will oppose on that reason. If it's really true that not all non-free media tagged things merit copyright metadata and that removing that template from the inappropriate instances is not a fix, modifying that template to have a parameter  or   may be more suitable, depending on performance and complexity considerations.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free media is used in 150 templates, while Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright tags has 84 pages. So  and   (or rather,  ) seem equally viable approaches. I would go with the latter as it has a more benign failure mode: a non-free image template that adds metadata even though it doesn't need to is rarely a problem, while the opposite usually is. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Per discussion above, please change  to. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-free media needs to be altered as well for this parameter to exist.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:30, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I asked for that on Template_talk:Non-free_media. (Also, changed the non-protected templates.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:13, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 June 2017
185.85.215.250 (talk) 16:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC) Moto Morini's logo is not up to date. please can you replace the logo for the english page of Moto Morini? Thank you.

sources:


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Izno (talk) 16:22, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Colors and TemplateStyles
I started to modify the template in the sandbox for WP:TemplateStyles (ref Template:Non-free use rationale/sandbox) and then realized that the colors used in this template are not obvious or really even necessary, to me at least.

Does anyone have an issue with removing them and then using the standard wikitable class?

I figure it's probably a good opportunity now to use the base class since we will be modifying each of these templates for templatestyles anyway.

--Izno (talk) 04:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

copyright expiry date?
I think it would be useful to add an optional parameter for specifying when the copyright would expire, similar to PD-US-expired-abroad and FoP-USonly. This would make it easier to find media for transferring to Commons once they enter public domain. Thoughts? Ixfd64 (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 October 2020
Please add link to WP:NONFREE in the phrase "Non free media information" Rodney Araujo Tell me - My contributions  19:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅, and we'll see if it flies since it's linked in the other guideline as well. Thank you very much!  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 21:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

class="licensetpl_attr"
The code for the source row goes something like this (a bit simplified): Per commons:Commons:Machine-readable data,  is correct but   should be used on the value of the source parameter, not the header. As it is, it confuses the metadata parsing logic in MediaWiki. (Ping @TheDJ who added it, in case I'm missing something.)

An edit to fix it would be (to lines 17-18):

--> Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:19, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 13:36, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Bug?
At File:Rongorongo G-r Small Santiago (raw).jpg, the tag says "This tag is not a sufficient claim of fair use", but does not explain why or what to do about it. All it says is to add parameters which are already added. — kwami (talk) 18:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Plus, the image isn’t even copyrighted in the first place so there shouldn’t even be a fair use rationale.--Alex Mitchell of The Goodies (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 September 2021
Request: On line 1, please make the following change. This is because the padding is  on Timeless skin, making it too thick. A similar change had been done on Information already. ネイ (talk) 07:54, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Before:
 * After:
 * ✅ --John Cline (talk) 07:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Author
Why the hell isn't there an Author-Field ?? --Itu (talk) 02:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Good question. I support this, especially since it was discussed above at . --Lexein (talk) 17:41, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there should be an author parameter. Senator2029 “Talk” 00:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Template:Non-free use rationale 2 uses author but this one doesn't, however, some files using this template are attempting to use author but obviously it doesn't appear. So author should be added. However, why are there two separate templates? — ᴀnemone  ᴘroᴊecтors  09:01, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I also support an author field. It would be quite useful for anyone wanting to get a release of rights. Ixfd64 (talk) 00:26, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong support. Almost 10 years later, hell yes there should be an author field. It may not always be applicable, and may not need to be mandatory, but If Wikipedia cares at all about respecting creators and copyright and crediting the people whose works we're appropriating (even under fair-use criteria), author field should at a bare minimum be an option. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:13, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, and the doc should be fixed as well. Currently we are supposed to "[a]lways include the copyright holder" in Description field, but the example below does not do that. ネイ (talk) 02:34, 18 May 2023 (UTC)