Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Content task force

DOC
How about adding DOC to the list of potential sources. Images of NZ native trees, plants, birds, and animals are hard to come by, and in great need here on Wikipedia. No photo of a rimu tree for instance. By way of contrast, in the US, images taken by Government entities are generally public domain - this US Geological Survey site [] contains hundreds of images of plants that grow in Hawaii, and commons has a template just for that site as a source. Luckily NZ and Hawaii share quite a few plants. But in NZ, the mindset is different. DOC is unprepared for requests to release images, I tried, and gave up because I had to deal with their legal advisor or somebody and they wanted to know what institution I represented, bla bla bla - not worth the effort in the end. Fact is, they have heaps of decent photos, and an article on Wikipedia has to be good for conservation. I guess if we could arrange some kind of official-sounding Wikipedia approach they might have a rethink Kahuroa 11:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Draft Letter
I've sent a couple of versions of this letter to a couple of people who have contacted me directly. I'd like to start sending it to more people. Probably starting with MPs and then perhaps working on to others. I'd like feedback on the working. Sample texts I'm working from are Example_requests_for_permission.

Dear  :

I am one of the many volunteer editors of the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is among the most-visited sites on the Internet, ranking near the top ten according to the estimates of Alexa Internet (alexa.com), and it is likely that many people visit our article about you (') each day.

Unfortunately, our article currently makes use of an image of you that might be considered unflattering due to its comparatively low quality. / Unfortunately, our article on you currently does not have a photograph.

I am aware that there are many publicity images of you available, but since Wikipedia aims to be reproducible even for profit and even in nations where "fair use" provisions in copyright law are inapplicable, we cannot use an image that is not released under a so-called "free license". Essentially, the copyright holder of any image that we use must irrevocably permit anyone else to use it, modify it, or sell it, with the only permissible requirements being that the author be named and that any modifications be released under an identical license. (Exceptions may be made if there is no image available that meets these criteria, but that is not the case here.)

Example licenses that would permit us to use a better-quality image would be: the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/legalcode), or a simple "no rights reserved". You are under no obligation to release any material under such licenses, but I thought that for public-relations purposes, you might want to consider it given Wikipedia's great popularity. I have attached two sample releases below for these licenses.

We would especially be interested in a "head shot" photograph for the top of the article and another photograph of you in the course of your work.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of attached WORK

I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the attached photograph.

I agree to publish that work under the free license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws.

I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me.

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER

Thoughts? - SimonLyall (talk) 09:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts
Reads well. I like the personal pronouns. Lanma726 (talk) 01:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. Proof of the pudding, and all that, but if there are any that you think are particularly bad, and which they aren't responsive to new ones, perhaps I can catch them in Wellington and take some photos. Maybe send me an e-mail if you think that's a good idea. Karora 05:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

PM's office
I have managed to get hold of somebody in the PMs office that I can email asking for specific photos in the Nat/PM's flickr stream to be released (ask, no gtee). If you have any suggested ones can you please list them below and I'll send an email next weekend (2-3 July) - 22:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be good if they could freely licence as many as possible, but     would be a start. Maybe show them the list? Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

No luck I'm afraid:

''Unfortunately we are not able to grant blanket permission to use the photos for a commercial purpose. We require details of any and each specific commercial use before granting permission. Similarly, we are not able to grant blanket permission for derivative works without approving each instance of derivative work.''

As far as I can tell the problem is that these sort of things are handled by political appointees who have the party interests in mind. So their fear is that if they release a specific image which is misused then they (or their boss) will take the flack. Of course people who want to do nasty posters will just pay for or grab a photo of the politician anyway but from the persons POV their is no real upside from the release. Hopefully going to departments directly might work better since they will be govt employees and perhaps more sympathetic to NZGOAL type policies. - SimonLyall (talk) 09:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You'd think that if you're the government, you shouldn't be afraid to share your pictures on the internet.--Anon 22:45, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Labour Party
I have contacted the Labour Party asking for some photos that we could use, I explained the license situation in the first email. I received a response, which sounded promising. But they wanted to check my "credentials at Wikipedia". I explained to them that it was a free encyclopedia and that everyone can contribute, told them I've been editing on and off for 6 years and linked to my current account and the images of politicians I've uploaded. There hasn't been a reply since then, but I'm still hoping.

It's strange to me that political parties don't take more interest in Wikipedia. There is a page on every single MP. Wouldn't it be beneficial to them if there were proper photos for every MP, rather than crops from low res pictures?--Anon 22:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I have heard back from the Labour Party. They've released a lot of their promotional photos that they have for the 2011 elections for use under CC-by-sa-nz 3.0! I've uploaded some today, I'll upload the rest tomorrow evening.--Anon 08:59, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

New Parliament
Some good news - I've been in touch with a political blogger who has access to the parliament and, I'm assuming, is around there a lot. While he has no current photos that he can share, he's volunteered to take photos of some of the MPs when the new parliament meets again and to release them under the CC license.--Anon 00:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool. I see you have filled in most of the labour party. David Farrar has indicated to me he'll try and get some photos - SimonLyall (talk) 09:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Archives New Zealand
I gave Archives New Zealand a call today and talked to the duty archivist (what a cool title). The good news: However: What I think we need to do: Thoughts? There website is and the search site  lets you refine searches to photographs etc. - SimonLyall (talk) 09:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * They have extensive photographs from government departments, official bodies and publications ( this included the "National Publicity Studios" ). There is a list of some of them here.
 * Most of the material is under crown copyright so they can make decision to release if they want (unlike National Library who mostly hold donated works and are limited as to what they can do).
 * For the sort of thing we want ( official photographs, public places, etc ) there is a good chance they could release them under a CC-by license.
 * Almost no photos are scanned and online
 * A good percentage of material is un-indexed.
 * Some material most of arranged to be available for a visit. I think you can "browse" a little material that is on microfiche etc.
 * If they need to do any sort of research there may be a charge
 * We have not got the official word that things can be released under a CC license.
 * Identify a small amount of material to start off with ( perhaps a dozen photos of PMs, GGs or a major event ).
 * Somebody in Wellington goes in with a good camera to get copies of the photos.
 * We send in an official request for the photos to be released into CC-by

Comments:The National Library is likely to be a better bet. I understand that (a) they have a huge collection (b) unlike ArchivesNZ where copyright is controlled by the generating unit, the NLNZ controls copyright on their materials (c) the NLNZ have an active and vigorous digitisation process during current dislocation from their main building in Wellington. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? Whenever I search their site any photos are from collections like "The Evening Post" or "K E Niven and Co :Commercial negatives" where there is no indication as to who actually controls the copyright. When I asked previously they seems very concerned about keep a close eye on any re-use of images so as not to scare off donations. I can find images and cartoons on their website that are just a year old, are you seriously telling me they control the copyright of those? - SimonLyall (talk) 21:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I know that using images from the Turnbull Library section of the National Library eg in a book is quite expensive Hugo999 (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

New Zealand MPs for Wellington & Hutt Valley electorates
I have created two subcategories of Category:New Zealand MPs for North Island electorates, ie Category:New Zealand MPs for Wellington electorates and Category:New Zealand MPs for Hutt Valley electorates. This is so that articles on any MP can have the appropriate subcategory added if they are amended. That is, unless anyone wants any other subcategories of Category:Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives by electorate for the greater Auckland or Wellington areas? Eg covering the Porirua and Kapiti areas? Hugo999 (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Approached the Nat Party (re Flickr licences)
I recently approached the National Party on flickr to see if they would be interested in licensing their photos CC-BY-SA instead of CC-BY-NC-ND. Here's the response: Harry, Thank you for your message. National is happy with the current BY-NC-ND licence on our Flickr photos (non-commercial, no derivatives, with attribution). This licence has been chosen because our photos come from many sources and the licence covers them all. Some of our photos are available for purposes outside the licence, with explicit permission. If you’d like to use an image or images in a way that doesn’t meet the BY-NC-ND licence, please request permission from us. Just let us know which photos you would like to use and how you would like to use them. Thanks and kind regards nznationalparty Good to know I guess! Ballofstring (talk) 00:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I was in touch with them 2 or 3 years back and got a similar response. That said, their offer of 'ask us on a case-by-case basis and we'll consider' is certainly an improvement.  Schwede 66  06:03, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Politicians and openly-licensed photography
Ballofstring, with reference to your project page entry to this topic, that's a nice piece of work indeed. If you wanted to further improve that, you could consider adding a section to it what all the various abbreviations means, and why NC or ND are not permissible. I request flickr license changes a lot, and many photographers miss the finer details. I've gone to the trouble of writing some detailed instructions for changing flickr licenses; feel free to make use of it, too.  Schwede 66  07:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi  Schwede 66  Thanks for the feedback! I've updated the post to give a bit more background about CC, and although it's a bit longer, hopefully it should answer people's questions! - Ballofstring (talk) 08:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Well done!  Schwede 66  09:00, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

2020 party list candidate photos
I've drafted a letter / email that we could send to registered parties, i.e. those who have a party list. The suggestion is: you give us photos for at least 80% of your list candidates and we'll add them to the party list article. Sound alright? Is 80% the right value? Please edit the letter as you see fit.  Schwede 66  20:01, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I’m writing to you on behalf of the New Zealand Wikipedians’ politics group. Would you be interested in having your party list on Wikipedia illustrated by photos of your candidates? What’s in it? * For your party and your candidate, more attention is drawn to them by having a photo. * For us, we like having photos to illustrate articles with. We have agreed that if we get photos for at least 80% of your list candidates, we will add the set of photos to your party list on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_lists_in_the_2020_New_Zealand_general_election

The respective list would be illustrated like in this example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_New_Zealand_dames_and_knights Just imagine your candidates there with a set of photos while the competition has a list only; wouldn't that be good?

If this is of interest to you, please note that photos can only be used on Wikipedia if they have been released under a free license. Derivatives and commercial use must be allowed, and the photographer needs to be attributed for any reuse. The most commonly used license is CC BY-SA 4.0 and the situation is explained on this page in detail: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

By far the quickest and simplest way of getting photos onto Wikipedia is for the copyright holder to upload the photos to Wikimedia Commons. Volunteers are available to assist (e.g. talk the uploader through the process). Be in touch if this is of interest to you.
 * I suggest not offering the slower option (of emailing photos) at all as it will really create a lot of work for WP volunteers to sort through. Better to just inform them to upload to Commons and have volunteers available to talk them through that process.MurielMary (talk) 21:01, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I am all for this and think the letter sets it out ok, giving them why and what an example of it will look like. Also a warning about the release under free license, though I would hope that they wouldn't worry about that too much either since they will be use to it. Only think I wonder is if you want some sort of guidelines to what type of photo we would like. Do you want to allow candid photos/selfies, are you looking for more passport type shots? It isn't clear from the letter who you mean to be emailed, someone here to then sort the photos or to the Wikimedia Commons team. If to them, then yeah I think it maybe a bit more confusing/slower to get them done. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  02:21, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how big a problem this is for NZ articles, but articles on Australian politicians often experience problems with candidates using them to promote themselves by adding spammy text and slick PR photos. I'm concerned that the wording of the suggested email here would likely encourage this kind of promotional behaviour given it all but states that they should be using Wikipedia to promote themselves. I'd suggest re-working the email to stress encyclopedic reasons for donating photos - e.g. to contribute to strong coverage of NZ politics. Nick-D (talk) 10:09, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, Nick, we don't want to suggest self-promotion using WP, but instead use the angle that a complete encyclopedia benefits from complete coverage, visually as well as in text. 2407:7000:9D03:4900:DC20:BDD2:7B5E:AE21 (talk) 12:04, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nick. That's not a big problem in New Zealand at all. In fact, I only recall one incident where a politician had her profile cleaned up by a paid contributor. I suspected I knew who was doing the work on the Judith Collins article and my suspicion was confirmed by Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men: Cameron Slater. This happened many years ago; that's how rare this in over here.  Schwede 66  19:21, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * In the lead up to the 2011 election Labour gave permission for a bunch of photos of MPs and candidates to be uploaded to commons (like this one) and there was no overt self-promotion afterwards. There is (was?) a similar situation with the Greens who allowed their photos on commons too. I am in favour of using images political parties "donate" for use.Kiwichris (talk) 02:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

We are underway
Thanks, everyone. I've removed the slower process option. I'll start sending this and will document progress below. Chip in if you can help.  Schwede 66  09:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Ka pai, if you get inundated with replies/photos. Please reach out to me on email and I'll be happy to help. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  20:18, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Haha, I wouldn't expect a big response. But I'll happily ask for help as I'm reasonably busy at present.  Schwede 66  20:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Heads up. The Labour Party is making photos for its 86 candidates available. Yeah! We will be doing the uploading. I'm just clarifying with a Commons admin whether we need to include a boilerplate message with each upload. Would certainly appreciate if somebody could do the honours of uploading once we are all go. I'll post details here when it's sorted. If there's a keen Wikidatapedian around, I suggest that entries could be made for those candidates who are not on Wikidata yet.  Schwede 66  22:20, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * happy to do all the uploading, both on Commons and to the article here if you need. Hopefully they will be ok with the boiler plate as will make it easier to copy and paste. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  00:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Might as well ping Podzemnik. Sustainable NZ has also just replied. They want to upload themselves. I'll let them know how to do that.  Schwede 66  00:52, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

We've sorted the process for the Labour Party photos. I will sort out some email comms between party officials and the team at Commons. You can upload the photos. Please include the following words in the description: "OTRS pending" Thanks for your help! If you wish, you could upload the lot to Category:Members of the New Zealand Labour Party and we can then categorise those photos; important is to have the person's name as part of the filename, though. My preference is for an individual to (eventually) have both an entry in Wikidata and a category in Commons. Thus, ultimately there should not be individual photos in that category; just sub-categories. But if you'd like to tackle this in a different way please do.  Schwede 66  09:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Will get started sorting and uploading this morning. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  19:00, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * First 20 on the list have been uploaded, got a copy of all the photos so will get the rest up soon. So hopefully between the team at Commons and the Labour Party, we can get the rights to use them sorted. Have added them to the Category:Members of the New Zealand Labour Party category as well as Category:New Zealand Labour Party and Category:2020 New Zealand election
 * All done, now just got to wait on the rights and we can start adding them to the article. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  22:31, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Google sheet of the Labour candidates with existing Wikidata entries. I'll add the new ones in shortly. DrThneed (talk) 03:00, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Oops, I should have checked to see if some of their profile photos were already their. First one I checked (Kevin Davis), I've gone and uploaded basically a duplicate of. Don't have time until tomorrow to go through and check the others. NZFC  (talk) (cont)  04:09, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * All Labour Party candidates now have an image on their wikidata. I categorised pics on Commons where there was an existing category (I didn't create new ones as, as far as I could tell, everyone that didn't have one had only one pic and it told me they shouldn't get a category unless 2 or more). Have marked on the Google sheet which people have Wikipedia pages, and have made sure those all have an image now. DrThneed (talk) 08:41, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wow, awesome job all involved. The candidates images and associated metadata look great. Kiwichris (talk) 04:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I assume from that list, candidates that already had pages and haven't had the image on Wikipedia updated/added are duplicate photos I've now uploaded? Go through and request my duplicates be removed?, how you getting on with the other parties? NZFC  (talk) (cont)  05:03, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * No no, not at all! I think I spotted one duplicate that wasn't really a duplicate as it was differently cropped. I was just prioritising my efforts to those that had no image or a not great image (not having had time to update them all). Not having participated in this project or political stuff on Wikipedia I also didn't want to just rock up and assume that replacing all old photos with new ones would be what was wanted.
 * FYI, I have added "political party" statements to the Wikidata entries for all the Labour Party candidates. Am working on a spreadsheet for Green Party list, to ensure all have wikidata, and check who has wikipedia pages. I also need to add 'electorate' statements to these entries to say where people are standing, yes? DrThneed (talk) 05:10, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm just as new at this as you, just wanted to help out as well. I think it would be a good idea, so there is a record of who was standing in/for what electorate for the 2020 Election. NZFC  <sup style="color:black">(talk) <sup style="color:black">(cont)  05:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking splendid. I've dealt with the OTRS request. What needs doing is to populate the party list table with photos.  Schwede 66  09:33, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Done for Labour Party NZFC  <sup style="color:black">(talk) <sup style="color:black">(cont)  00:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry assume this maybe answered else were and also is the case. That page is just for members on the list, as there is five Labour candidates that aren't on the list but are competiting in electorates instead. We wouldn't add them to the bottom their and they are just captured on the Candidates by electorate page instead? NZFC  <sup style="color:black">(talk) <sup style="color:black">(cont)  01:06, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I was also wondering similarly, as far as I can tell there is no place on Wikipedia you can see a complete list of a party's candidates (one of the reasons I'm making Wikidata for them all at least, so a search will find them). Not sure how it's best handled though. Oh, and those Labour pics on the list page look fantastic! DrThneed (talk) 21:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Google sheet for Green Party candidates (not many Wikipedia pages here) DrThneed (talk) 07:40, 1 October 2020 (UTC) Google Sheet for NZ First candidates DrThneed (talk) 09:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Putting them all the Google sheets with the Qids in one place (more coming soon):
 * 1) ACT Party candidates Google sheet
 * 2) NZ First candidates Google sheet
 * 3) Green Party candidates Google sheet
 * 4) Labour Party candidates Google sheet
 * 5) National Party candidates Google sheet

I've followed up with ACT, the Greens, and National (i.e. those parties we can reasonably expect to be in the next parliament), and sent them another email:

Morena,

We have not heard back from you on the initiative below. Given that advance voting starts today, maybe some attention could be given to this?

If you wish to see what such an initiative looks like when it’s been actioned, please check out the Labour Party list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_lists_in_the_2020_New_Zealand_general_election#Labour_Party

I'll let you know if we get another bite.  Schwede 66  18:24, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I've added every candidate I can find. There are supposedly 677 candidates (according to the summary at the end of this article) but after adding all the List candidates and all the electorate candidates, I have 676. Sob. An imaginary chocolate fish to whoever can find out who is missing! I haven't bothered doing Google spreadsheets of QIDs for the rest, but if you want them I can. In the meantime, this query will find you all the candidates in the 2020 election and show you who has an image in Wikidata (686 results currently because some people have more than one photo).DrThneed (talk) 04:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm I like puzzles, will see if I can find who is missing later (or a case of if someone has since pulled out). Don't think we will need QIDs for everyone. Shame if we can't at least get more photos of the main parties. NZFC  <sup style="color:black">(talk) <sup style="color:black">(cont)  04:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, I think it may be Michael Feyen, he definitely isn't in my list. He was a candidate and then withdrew, I don't know exactly when, but it was before this article (20 Sept). But the Newshub article was 19 September, reporting 677, so...shrug? DrThneed (talk) 05:46, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thoughts on this, I have uploaded some photos for the National Party from what was already on Wikipedia. From the list DrThneed provided, there is 22 photos that could be added for the 76 members in the list? NZFC  <sup style="color:black">(talk) <sup style="color:black">(cont)  22:48, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm very much against that. I've written to all the parties that they will get photos added to their party list table IF they make those available via Commons. National hasn't done so and given that the set would be very incomplete, I do not believe that we should add those photos.  Schwede 66  03:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

So are the Labour provided images OK to use? After all this time they still have the OTRS pending. Kiwichris (talk) 21:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure. This either resolves itself or it does not. If the latter, the images will be deleted. But they can be used for as long as they are on Commons.  Schwede 66  16:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Labour Party images
I moaned to my local Labour MP yesterday about the permission not coming through from the party hierarchy. And what do you know? After weeks of inaction, the permission has finally been sent to the OTRS team. The licenses should thus be changed shortly and there should be no risk of anything getting deleted. Yeah!  Schwede 66  01:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Great stuff! Thanks for all your work (and moaning) in getting these images here. Kiwichris (talk) 05:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)