Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of coats of arms of English counties (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was delete.  Citi Cat   ♫ 01:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Gallery of coats of arms of English counties
AfDs for this article: 
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 * Delete: This page was placed for deletion two months ago. See Articles for deletion/Gallery of coats of arms of English counties. However, I've just gone through and removed all of the fair use violations from the page. In total, I removed 36 images, leaving just 9. The fair use images used were a clear violation of our policy. Galleries of fair use images are simply not permitted. We do not permit them on discographies, lists of books, screenshots of episodes, or any other similar use. The simple redisplay of copyrighted content is not transformative in any respect and constitutes a fair use violation. With the page gutted of 80% of its content, its value is near worthless. This article can never fully represent all the coats of arms for English counties. For precedent on a similar deletion, please see Articles for deletion/Gallery of United Kingdom academic heraldry which was similarly gutted due to fair use violations. Durin 15:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. With the images, it's a fairuse violation. Without, it's useless.  ^ demon [omg plz] 17:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and restore images. The images are mistagged and are not being used as fair use: see User:Marnanel/CivicHeraldry_pages.  The license User:Marnanel asserts has been granted is a free content one: use for any purpose, as long as attribution is retained.  This is a free license which is compatible with either the GFDL or CC-BY, and implictly grants us the right to put either of those licenses on the images. JulesH 20:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. On further inspection, it seems the change of the images copyright information to suggest they are being used as fair use was performed automatically. JulesH 20:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That copyright status was never adequately resolved. As such, we presume the images are copyrighted and can not be used under a free license. The images are appropriately tagged, and this use constitutes a fair use violation. --Durin 21:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I don't really care whether you keep this page, since I didn't make it and it has nothing to do with my original purpose: I added the coats of arms entirely to add them to infoboxes on the pages of the relevant cities, towns and counties. If it's relevant, I never asserted a fair use licence: I was granted permission by the original creator to use these on WP with attribution, as I made clear at the time. The bot which went through and changed them to fair use did so without my knowledge or consent. Marnanel 23:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, and a permission to use on Wikipedia with attribution is not a release under a free content license. As such, we must assume the original author has not release copyrights on them under a free license. I've previously requested this be done, in fact asked a year ago today for this to be done, and it hasn't been done. The author can submit the release to OTRS. Until then, we have to assume the images are copyrighted and their use here on Wikipedia will be under fair use. --Durin 23:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your reasoning appears sound. I doubt the original author reads Wikipedia anyway. Marnanel 23:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: for reasons given by User:Durin. Marnanel 23:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to commons - the place for galleries and such Corpx 02:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 36 of the 45 images that were on this article can not be transwikied to Commons because they are not available under a free license. Thus, they are incompatible with Commons licensing requirements. --Durin 02:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * What about the current version, which you trimmed down to remove the ones with non-compatible licenses? Corpx 02:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That's fine, but it's not of much use as a comprehensive article on all English county coats of arms. --Durin 02:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just curious, but why are some of these under GDFL and others not? Corpx 02:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Restore and keep - here or as commons - I have considerable doubts whether the images are copyright or even capable of being copyright. Coats of arms are granted by the College of Heralds.  I am fairly certain that the authentic version of the arms is in heraldic French, with an image on the grant being a realisation of the text.  As such any one is able to construct the image from the text.  It would thereofre be open to the WP author to paint the alms and upload an image of that.  Is this not all a storm in a teacup?  If the Councils in question have authorised their publication in WP, why can they not stay? They are doing no harm, and if their publication is authorised, I do not see how WP can be sued for doing so.  Peterkingiron 22:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If someone wanted to create their own interpretation of the arms from the blazon, then we'd have an entirely different situation. However, these are not such creations. These are the actual arms from the various counties. The counties can and do have rights. As for the permissions to Wikipedia, the point here is that we do not accept permission to use on Wikipedia images. Please read and understand Template:Permission from license selector. This is a key point of understanding classes of images on Wikipedia. We accept images in two general categories; fair use and free license. Permission to use on Wikipedia does not fall into either of those categories, and thus such images are subject to speedy deletion. We're being quite lenient in allowing the arms that were granted permission to use on Wikipedia to even remain on Wikipedia. We're assuming we can use them under fair use, but even that is a stretch since arms can be created from the blazon, and can give us a free equivalent. Note that simply copying the arms and declaring it yours is not sufficient under these terms.
 * The reality here, for the people advocating restoring the images, is that restoring the images is frankly not an option. This AfD is not aimed at achieving consensus to include or exclude the fair use images. That is a moot point; the fair use images will not be accepted on this page. The question at hand is not whether to restore the images. The question is whether this article should remain, given that it is gutted of 80% of its images. --Durin 02:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There are several points here. Firstly, the question isn't over whether the design of a given coat is copyrighted or copyrightable. That is an entirely separate question. Rather, this is about whether this particular images are copyrighted, and if so, under what licence Wikipedia presumes to use them. If you can make a case that every representation of a coat of arms is uncopyrightable, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, if they are copyrighted, we must consider the licence. There is no chance that Wikipedia has been granted a free licence to use these images, so we must either fall back on fair use or permission to use only on Wikipedia or something similar. Such a licence precludes their existence on Commons at all, and also precludes their appearance in a gallery on Wikipedia. Finally, I can tell you from personal experience that blazons are not written in French these days (here's my grandfather's grant). Marnanel 04:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * (I should add that I have no idea whether these images were actually provided by the counties. I asked for permission from the webmaster of civicheraldry.co.uk and was granted it; I don't know who drew them originally.) Marnanel 04:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Changing opinion to delete per Marnanel's clarification that the license was only for use on Wikipedia, which is clearly not a free content license. JulesH 19:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It is with great regret that I must change my view to delete. I may have been wrong in referring to the grants as in French, but (certainly hisotrically) much of the terminology has been French - 'or' rather than gold as a colour.  However that is by the way.  When all the images appeared, the page was interesting, but in its present state it has had too much content filleted out of it.  I would still suggest that you consult with the College of Heralds as to their view of the copyright issue, but if all (or most) of the coats of arms cannot appear on WP, the page cannot survive in WP.  However, I wonder whether it may be possible to resurrect the content on a website outside WP (which licence requirements are less rigorous), and to substitute (for the present page) a short article discussing the the coats of arms, with a link to that page.  That would have to be moved to Coats of arms of English Counties.  Peterkingiron 11:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.