Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-23 3753 Cruithne

Mediation Case: 2006-03-23 3753 Cruithne
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Request Information

 * Request made by: User:Chrisobyrne 10:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?


 * 3753 Cruithne
 * User talk:Chrisobyrne


 * Who's involved?


 * The three parties involved in this case are User:Chrisobyrne, User:Urshyam and Wikimedia itself.


 * What's going on?


 * On 28 July, I added a graph depicting the evolution of the semi-major axis of 3753 Cruithne - that graph was the result of hours of work on a numerical integration that I did. When I added the graph, I was not asked what license I was making the graph available under, and I didn't provide one. However, to the very best of my recollection, there was a note to the effect of "by clicking submit you are confirming that there are no copyright issues with this image" on the page that I used to upload the graph (I am open to correction on this). In any case, the graph was an integral part of my changes to the page on 3753 Cruithne, and the page on 3753 Cruithne was most definitely published under the GFDL. Hence, by virtue of being an integral part of a GFDL-licensed document, my graph was also covered by the GFDL (to my mind). That is, unless the "D" in "GFDL" does not include images that are used to illustrate what is being documented!


 * On 18th March, without any warning whatsoever being delivered to me, my image was deleted by Urshyam. Frankly, I consider this to be a violation of the GFDL - the graph was an integral part of the changes I made, and there is now a historical version of 3753 Cruithne on Wikipedia that contains my changes MINUS the graph YET with my name on it! As copyright holder (and hence the person who is responsible for enforcing the GFDL) I consider this to be a breach of copyright - the historical document that is on Wikipedia with my name on it IS NOT THE ONE I AUTHORED!


 * ''What would you like to change about that?


 * My response is that I am would like to see ALL of my contributions to Wikipedia removed - I do not trust Wikimedia with my contributions. However, I am open to other suggestions as to how this violation may be rectified.

Chrisobyrne 10:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I should add that I am off on a two-week vacation to a place without Internet connectivity on Sunday next, but I would like to see progress done on this issue before I leave. Thanks.

Chrisobyrne 10:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?

Nah - lets' duke it out in public! :)


 * Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment in a different case?

It depends on whether I find the result of this mediation acceptable, and on what the result of the mediation is. For instance, if the result of the mediation is that my proposal to delete all my contributions is the only one that I find acceptable, then I most certainly would not be willing to be a mediator. However, if the result of the mediation is one whereby all my contributions are re-instated in a manner and under conditions that I find acceptable, then yes.


 * I take that as a NO. --Fasten 14:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I would prefer if it were seen as a "I hope so". Chrisobyrne 17:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It sounded too much like an attempt to influence the mediator. You probably didn't mean it that way. I admit I assumed bad faith. --Fasten 18:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * No I didn't mean it that way, though I can now easily see how that was seen in it. It was meant as an expression of hope that this issue can be resolved in a way that is beneficial to all - especially to those that would like to know more about 3753 Cruithne (and other contributions). Chrisobyrne 21:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, in fairness, that's not all the story. On a personal level, I've also had my trust in Wikimedia shattered by this incident, and there is simply no way that I could ever consider being a mediator if that trust isn't restored. And restoring that trust is, for me, the desired outcome, and the one I am working towards. If that trust is restored, then I would be delighted to be a mediator, as it would strengthen my relationship with Wikimedia to well beyond what it was before this incident. In the mean time, I'm going to assume good faith. Anyway, those are some of the personal effects of this incident on me, and I take responsibility for those effects. Chrisobyrne 21:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Mediator response
As evidenced on User:Chrisobyrne's talk page per this edit, User:Urshyam did provide a warning. The major complaint seems to be that no warning was issued, while indeed there was one. It is unfortunate that the image was deleted, but it does not seem to be a violation of policy. The copyright status was not made clear, and was not verified within the specified time limit ("Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion." per this edit made on 9 March).

I would suggest cooling down a bit and rereading Wikipedia's copyright policy.

Options for recovering the image in question were offered, via mirror pages, specifically this one.

In my casual opinion, no violations have taken place. --Keitei (talk) 18:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You know, I'm getting tired of having the policy slapped in my face. First of all, I'm claiming a higher authority, namely the GFDL. Second of all, I quote from said policy -


 * "If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts)".


 * I contributed material to Wikipedia, I thereby licensed it to the public under the GFDL, and Wikimedia rejected my licensing! And, they rejected my licensing in such a way as to violate my copyright. Chrisobyrne 09:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Just a quick note on the warning that was, indeed, provided. I didn't see it until it was too late, which means that it was not provided in time. Chrisobyrne 09:50, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * OK - I'm just after noticing something curious. It would appear that we do, indeed, have a disagreement about what the "D" in "GFDL" stands for. I notice that at the bottom of the page, it says that "All TEXT is available under the terms of the GNU Free DOCUMENTATION License" (emphasis mine). To my mind, that's an oxymoronic statement - to my mind, you cannot seperate out the text of the document from the diagrams that are used to illustrate the document.

I have a question. I have listed Wikimedia as a party in this case, and I think I was probably correct to do so. It seems to me that a resolution is going to have to involve "Wikimedia" (whatever that means). Is there anyone here who is able to speak for "Wikimedia"? Is there anyone who is able to make offers on behalf of "Wikimedia"? If not, then I suspect such a person is needed... Chrisobyrne 17:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * If you need advice or a decision concerning a dispute over your article(s) you have come to the right place. The informal mediation here is a first step of the Dispute Resolution. If the results are not satisfactory you can procede to the Mediation Committee and finally to the Arbitration Committee, as a last instance in internal affairs.
 * If you approach Wikipedia as an outsider who claims Wikipedia is violating his or her copyright your contact would be the Designated_agent.

Evidence
Please report evidence in this section with for misconduct and  for 3RR violations. If you need help ask a mediator or an advocate. Evidence is of limited use in mediation as the mediator has no authority. Providing some evidence may, however, be useful in making both sides act more civil. Etiquette: Although it's understandably difficult in a heated argument, if the other party is not as civil as you'd like them to be, make sure to be more civil than him or her, not less.

Most of the evidence is in Wikipedia's logs - notably http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=3753_Cruithne&action=history I would like to draw particular attention to Urshyam's comment on 21 March, when he reverted the changes I made to remove my own contributions. He said "anybody can not delete another's contribution". First of all, I was only deleting MY contribution (and the derivatives from my contribution - if I were to only delete the words I wrote, the article would have ended up as gibberish). Second of all, it's a bit rich for Urshyam to say that "anybody can not delete another's contribution" when he has deleted hours worth of my contribution.

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

What I don't understand is why there was no attempt made to contact me, given that Wikimedia has my email address. If these licensing issues are such a problem, then surely the cost of sending a few emails to help resolve these issues is worth it, especially since the servers could surely be programmed to automatically send an email where possible. That's my constructive criticism. Chrisobyrne 09:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments by others
While using the talk page of the article in question to solve a dispute is encouraged to involve a larger audience, feel free to discuss the case below if that is not possible. Other mediators are also encouraged to join in on the discussion as Wikipedia is based on consensus.

Discussion
Chrisobyrne: You have asked who is responsible for copyright violations. This would probably be the Designated_agent. What is unclear to me is why you claim your copyright is being violated when you made the content specifically for Wikipedia? Wikipedia is licensing its content under the GFDL. As an editor you have, however, no reason to expect that your content remains unmodified. Wikipedia encourages every editor to make WP:BOLD edits. If you submitted an image and the image was deleted because a piece of software couldn't find licensing information that seems to be a reason to either submit a bug report or re-read the manual for that piece of software. Please assume assume good faith and don't assign blame to people who meant no harm. Your suggestion that an email should be send when images are deleted could be phrased as a bug report to the developer of the program that deleted your image. --Fasten 14:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I am claiming copyright violation because the historical documents that are in Wikipedia at the moment with my name on them aren't the documents I wrote. Notably, the documents are missing the graph I drew, in spite of the warranty I gave Wikipedia (AFAICR) that there were no copyright issues with it, and in spite of the fact (from my POV) that I duly published the graph under the GFDL (by including it on a GFDL-licensed document). And I strongly disagree with you that I have no reason to expect my content to remain unmodified - so long as it has my name on it, I have every right to expect it to be unmodified. Wikimedia, nor anyone else, isn't allowed to put my name on something that I didn't write! I fully expect my document to be SUPERCEDED with a better version of the article, but I also expect that if a historical version of the document is available with my name on it, that it is unmodified from what I published. Anything else, if I'm not mistaken, is a breach of copyright.


 * As for your good faith argument - yes, of course I should assume good faith. However, I would like to remind you that good faith needs to work in both directions, and in this case, it most certainly didn't. It was ASSUMED that I was breaking copyright when I put that graph on Wikipedia - where is the assumption of good faith in that, I ask?


 * Nobody assumed anything. A piece of software made the observation that a submission lacked a required justification to remain, if I understood that correctly. --Fasten 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The piece of software assumed that the warranty I gave about the images' copyright status was wrong. It doesn't matter to the good faith argument whether the lack of good faith is displayed by a person or by a piece of software. The software, after all, was written by a person, who was (probably) implementing the policies drawn up by other people. At least some of those people decided that good faith should not be extended to contributors of diagrams to articles. Chrisobyrne 21:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As for your suggestion of a bug report - good idea. Unfortunately, the initial response I got (on my talk page) about getting emails sent to me was a rather dismissive "you are the first [editor] I know of to complain about not getting an email notification". It seems that there are more fundamental problems here - that of respect towards authors' contributions, and that of assuming good faith in authors actions. Chrisobyrne 17:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Why do you assume that answer was authoritative? --Fasten 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Good question. The answer I got appeared to come from someone with greater priviledges on Wikipedia than I have, so I assumed authority. I'll take it that that was an incorrect assumption on my part. I'm only just back from my vacation - I'll pursue the bug report idea further shortly. Chrisobyrne 21:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * This is incredibly flawed reasoning behind deleting the image. Is copying text from some source without citing it any better than doing so with images? Should we delete every article that doesnt contain some sort of license? Read the edit page. The text I am submitting now is under the GFDL. Images submitted, unless otherwise specificed, should also be included under this license. -- Villahj Ideeut 17:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You should take that demand to the Village Pump, not here. You'll probably be told that you need to specify the license because Wikipedia accepts images which are not covered by the GFDL. --Fasten 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You are still not getting my point (AFAICS). I'm not diffrentiating between "diagrams" and "text" in a "document", and I see no reason nor justification for the differentiation. When I added the diagram to a GFDL-licensed document, the diagram automatically became available under the GFDL. It would only come under another license if I explicitely said so. Chrisobyrne 21:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Technically, yes. However, many people submit copyrighted pictures without any information. It cannot be assumed that no information given means it's fair use or GFDL. Similarly, it is not assumed that text added is GFDL. Added text may be copyrighted as well. There are bots that look for these sort of things. The fact remains that if you had edited the image description page and added, it would not have been deleted. Wikimedia cannot be held responsible for the fact you didn't visit Wikipedia during the week you were given. As it stands now, just find the image from a mirror, reupload with the proper licensing, and move on. The image should appear in all prior versions if it is uploaded to the same file name, afaik. --Keitei (talk) 03:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem is this - if I reupload the image, the document will remain a copy of what I wrote until the next time Wikimedia changes its ass-covering policies and my contribution is found in breach of these new policies. AND, I cannot rely on being informed of the new policies in a timely manner. I don't believe I can trust Wikimedia. I am asking Wikimedia to extend the same lack of trust to me and to consider ALL my contributions to be in breach of copyright law (even though none actually are).


 * I'm glad to see that I'm finally getting an acknowledgement that Wikimedia "technically" breached copyright. Remedial action may be called for, and amends made. 62.77.166.6 08:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Since nothing has happened here in a while, and since I appear to have acknowledgement that there has been a breach of copyright, I've decided to send an email to the designated agent, directing them to this page. Thanks everyone for your input. Chrisobyrne 13:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Email received by board on OTRS. Response sent.--BradPatrick 22:35, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia isn't presenting the historical version of the document as an EXTRACT of what I wrote - it is presenting it as a COPY of what I wrote, and it isn't a copy of what I wrote. And I think you still don't understand what I am saying about the meaning of the word "document" - to my mind, a "document" consists of both the text and the diagrams that are used to illustrate the text. Which means that if a document is published under the GNU Free DOCUMENTATION license, then, BY DEFINITION, the diagrams are also under the GFDL. (Unless stated otherwise).
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisobyrne (talk • contribs) --Fasten 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want to change the licensing of your text you can use Template:MultiLicenseWithCC-By-All or a similar template on your user page. A demand you cannot make on Wikipedia is "don't edit my text", because it is one of the central ideas of Wikipedia that articles are edited collaboratively. --Fasten 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * And here is a central question - why does Wikimedia say that "don't edit my text" is an invalid request when Wikimedia itself retrospectively edits GFDL-licensed documents (by, for instance, removing diagrams from those documents)? It is IMHO a double standard. Chrisobyrne 21:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to report that the private discussion I've been having with Wikimedia's lawyers have reached a satisfactory conclusion. I will be re-instating my contribution. Chrisobyrne 12:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)