Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/Archive 18

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Ideas to help reduce OTRS backlogs

People here may be interested in Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Ideas_to_help_reduce_OTRS_backlogs. Rd232 (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Alger FSGPF.jpg

Are there any tickets related to File:Alger FSGPF.jpg in the system? The Permission field on the file description seems to suggest this. If so, it's probably in French. Could you please check and see if some of the points I've listed in Commons:Deletion requests/File:Alger FSGPF.jpg could be cleared up? I would imagine some back-and-forth correspondence will be required. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:43, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

File:VIA6506calg1982.jpg,File:CDNbighill1986.jpg and File:VIA6569-890917 Tr71 Trillum, London, Ont 3 FP7A.JPG

The following files where deleted because of lack of OTRS permission. For some reason the emails I sent for all three images did not register. I sent them again when I recieved the notice and contacted the user who posted the notice on my talk page, but the deletion still occurred. I can resend the emails if necessary. I have complete proof of permission and have successfully navigated the OTRS process before. Thanks Samuell (talk) 16:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've gone through all the emails sent to permissions-commons and permissions-en and have not seen anything for these files. Please resend. – Adrignola talk 01:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The emails have been resent to permissions-commons. Samuell (talk) 02:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Based on the current backlog the emails should have gone thorough the process already, or am I wrong. I am beginning to suspect something is going wrong, but I'm not sure what. Samuell (talk) 00:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

We have not seen them. Please send to permissions-commons

wikimedia.org. Remember the dash and that's wikimedia.org, not wikipedia.org. – Adrignola talk 03:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

That's where I sent it, but I will resend it. I think there might be another problem. Hopefully it will work this time. Samuell (talk) 22:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

If you are attaching the files, keep in mind that we can restore them because they aren't truly gone. So they need not be attached. It may be that the maximum attachment size has been exceeded if you were attaching the images. – Adrignola talk 22:29, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No, but that's a good idea. I did attach a different text file to each, but the one I checked was 1.3 MB. Samuell (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, still no luck. I think my emails aren't going through. I'm not getting error notices and have had success with OTRS before. I will send them through my work email and see if that changes anything. Any other ideas? Samuell (talk) 18:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Well that didn't work. Can I send them to another address? Can someone forward them for me? It makes no sense to me as to why these emails won't go through. Samuell (talk) 01:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Try permissions-en

wikimedia.org, permissions

wikimedia.org, photosubmission

wikimedia.org, info-en

wikimedia.org – Adrignola talk 13:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I've sent emails to photosubmission. Maybe it will work this time. Samuell (talk) 00:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

No luck again. Can I email it to someone and have them forward it? Can I print it out and mail it? Shall I send it as a telegram? Semaphore? Smoke signals? Anything? Should I be worried that these emails aren't going through? Samuell (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

These all appear to be from http://www.railpictures.net. Please have the people who uploaded them there indicate a (specific) free license in the "Remarks" below each image here (Pierre Fournier), here (Colin Arnot), and here (Marty Bernard). – Adrignola talk 00:33, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

That's a good idea, but I really don't like bothering people who've donated pictures. I understand that my options are limited here since my emails are lost somewhere between my outbox and and OTRS reviewer. I am beginning to suspect that emails are being deleted by some sort of spam filter. Right now what I think I might do is post the emails and attachments on a friend's server. Would that be acceptable? Samuell (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

With your suggestion, I will have to bother each one of them anyway using the contact form on the site to ensure that the email addresses do in fact belong to the users at railpictures.net (since the site does not show email addresses for users). – Adrignola talk 15:42, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

RP.net prescreens all messages and sends confirmation of approval that includes the message. If I sent both that and all conrespondance (including the original message) would there still be a need to check with the RP.net user? I am also sending a test email to OTRS see if a can get any email though. Samuell (talk) 03:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm troubleshooting my email problems. I have resent one of the emails. Samuell (talk) 02:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

No luck, I'll try something different. Samuell (talk) 04:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Given the ever increasing processing time, could I get a confirmation of receipt? Samuell (talk) 16:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I give up on emailing it in. I'll see what else I can do. Samuell (talk) 23:55, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide me with any word/phrase in the emails so I can search the system again? —Pill (talk) 13:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

fake news & letter in your website

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

My question is about the article "Hyderabad CM Burgula Views about merger" with link "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hyderabad_CM_Burgula_Views_about_merger".

I would like to ask you to review the post and the images published. My explanation is, 1. How can a Chief Minister's letter be posted by his son who is not part of the government of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh nor India. 2. How the letter is valid when there is no signature of the particular person nor it is on his letter pad. 3. What is the proof that this letter is received by Shri U. N. Dhebar? 4. Where is the reply from Shri U. N. Dhebar or any acknowldgement?

I strongly reject this article and request you to remove it from your blog since publishing fake news will damage your reliability.

Awaiting for your reply & action

Thanks, Prakash — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.111.154 (talk • contribs)

The ticket 2011110710010121 referring to these images is perfectly valid. I'm not familiar with the underlying political issue, which judging by your message may be contentious, but there is no reason to delete them. Asav (talk) (OTRS) 06:25, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

User:Wvk

Resolved—Pill (talk) 13:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I want to see if these are real OTRS permissions [1], [2], [3], [4] because I feel that User:Wvk's may be putting false information.--Officer (talk) 23:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

User:Wvk is an OTRS member, their name is not in the volunteers list @ Meta, but it's verifyed here. ■ MMXX ^talk 23:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't think that is the question. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Apparently Officer doubt that Wvk is an OTRS member, but if Officer is requesting a review of the permissions, then they shouldn't remove the permission templates before an OTRS member approves. ■ MMXX ^talk 23:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Wvk is indeed an OTRS member, as far as I can see. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 00:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Concerning user:Officer look at Special:Contributions/Officer --Wvk (talk) 20:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Wvk, I have 9,230 edits and 1,269 image uploads and out all these about a dozen or so were nominated for deletion since 2006 because I choose to put complete info so that people don't get confused. [5] If you do the same then nobody will nom your uploads. Thank you.--Officer (talk) 19:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

File:Alexandre Evgrafov Selfportrait.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

There is an OTRS tag on File:Alexandre Evgrafov Selfportrait.jpg. Now the same user has recently uploaded other artwork by the same artist. Is the OTRS ticket sufficient to cover all of the user's uploads? Thanks. Wknight94 ^talk 13:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

ticket:2011101010002251 refers to File:Alexandre Evgrafov Selfportrait.jpg only. --Krd (talk) 15:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

We've received a notice (ticket# 2011111510078857) and are sorting it out now. Please don't remove any images until the matter is resolved. Thanks! Asav (talk) 07:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Ticket:2011012510013229

Resolved—Pill (talk) 13:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Could someone have a look to this ticket and give a comment on Commons:Deletion requests/File:Jozef van den Berg.jpg. It about claiming authorship for an image which had been confirmed to be created b sonebody else. Thx in advance. --Ju Ta 09:51, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Er is nog steeds niks gedaan aaan mijn bestand wat verwijdert moet worden, graag zo spoedig mogelijk Commons:Deletion requests/File:Jozef van den Berg.jpg. 29 November 2011 12:32. Helena

I'm working on it and left a note on the deletion request page you mentioned. —Pill (talk) 13:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Barryh2.jpg

Though the uploader, Thealize (talk · contribs), had sent a (sort of) permission for this file to OTRS, it has been deleted today without any reference to insufficient OTRS permission (but simply per the default no-permission tag). Did anybody check the permission? Was it dismissed? --Túrelio (talk) 07:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure myself, but I've contacted the volunteer who closed the ticket (ticket:2011110710003184). —Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Could somebody check the status for permissions

I mean these ones in particular

and

Ticket:2011102810016954

have the permissions been confirmed already?--RussianTrooper (talk) 14:30, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Info Tickets are in Russian. Anyone? —Pill (talk) 11:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

ah, but since you're just asking about the status, i'll give google translate a shot. in ticket:2011111510037392, the otrs agent asked for confirmation from the site owner (you were cc'ed as far as i can see) on 11/21/2011, but no reply seems to have been received so far. In 2011110310006198, the company was asked for confirmation on 11/06/2011 but no reply has been received as far as i can see. In 2011110310001701, we first sent out a further request to clarify some issues but that issue later seems to have been reconsidered by otrs agents, so the sender was informed on 11/30/2011 that he may upload the images provided that he includes "{PermissionOTRS | 2011110310001701}" (as a personal remark, i don't think that's a good idea given that these days we check whether that tag was added by an otrs volunteer or not). hope that helps, —Pill (talk) 11:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

File:John Stewart Bell (physicist).jpg : OTRS ticket check out

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

I had received CC-BY-SA-3.0 photo of File:John Stewart Bell (physicist).jpg from the owner (Queen's University Belfast). It was November 3. Same day I uploaded the photo to commons and I sent all relevant correspondence at permissions-commons-at-wikimedia.org. Even since the image status didn't change and no answers received to my mail box. I do realize that the OTRS checkout is run by volunteers at their spare time — as the most of any project activity anyway - so I wouldn't expect an immediate reaction. The previous OTRS checkouts took anything from 3 days and up to 2 weeks. Still it is 27 November now and it is close to one month OTRS is pending w/o any further comments and it makes me a bit uncomfortable. --Neolexx (talk) 17:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The correspondence has been sent November 3, 2011 in two letters: FW: Wikipedia: John Stewart Bell free photo : [1]‏ and FW: Wikipedia: John Stewart Bell free photo : [2]‏. --Neolexx (talk) 20:16, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I can confirm that we have received correspondence from you, and I have updated the image. The OTRS number is 2011110310005877. Please refer to the email you will now have received for further information. russavia (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

"I hope this is OK" in the answer was in the reference to my "Unfortunately I am struggling to find any free photo of you to illustrate the articles. "Free" means here to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), to remix, to adapt the work, to make commercial use of the work — while attributing the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Sorry for speaking some "legalese language", I am expressing the CC BY 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which is only allowed to use freely in the project. Do you have a picture Wikipedia could use in this manner?"

Do I understand properly that I need to ask Prof. Whitaker to send another letter stating explicitly that that "OK" was in reference to the letter he was answering to? If so, what timeline do I have now? --Neolexx (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you will have to ask Prof. Whitaker to fill out the template confirming that he is releasing under a specified licence. This is so that he confirms for both us and himself that he understands the terms of the licence. russavia (talk) 02:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I will contact them again. --Neolexx (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Ticket:2011010710008341 (German)

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Would a German speaker please verify the content of this ticket, File:Shiraz 37.jpg uses this ticket, the ticket has been verified by its uploader User:Wvk. as I stressed in this undeletion request, the permission can't be useful when author or publication/public presentation date is unknown. also if permission is from Stockhausen Foundation, why/how it is used for this file. ■ MMXX ^talk 13:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Done took some time to solve the puzzle since this OTRS ticket contains mails about several images but the permission is ok for both images mentioned above --Neozoon (talk) 00:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Golden Rice Image

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

What are the restrictions on this image? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silver+gold.jpg

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 109.150.35.86 (talk)

The permission is not sufficient. I have tagged the image as such, and will nominate it for deletion. This will obviously given editors a little bit of time to get the permission in order, but re-use should not take place until such time as the deletion discussion is complete. russavia (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Check an existing ticket, please

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Can someone check ticket:2007042310007055 (probably in German) to see if it only covers de:Datei:Arbeitszimmer Stoiberaha.jpg or if it either verifies that de:Benutzer:Promifotos.de is Alexander Hauk or that he has permission to use/release Hauk's photos? This request is to settle an issue at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Farhad Darya.jpg. Thanks. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 11:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The ticket does confirm the permission for that specific image (and only that one). The sender is the creator. There's no mentioning of any relationship between the user and the Author. --Guandalug 15:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Noah Mills.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you please review permission for this file. I have forwarded the letter of consent from the author to you. I sent it a few minutes ago. Should be an email from Timur Mustafin. Thanks! --Teeemurrr (talk) 19:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The message has been received but not yet worked on (ticket# 2011120210019022). Please also have a look at the /FAQ, thanks! Cheers, —Pill (talk) 12:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Star Academy Winner 2008.jpg, File:Nader Guirat Crimea Music Fest.jpg, File:OxyMore.jpg

The files in the section title were uploaded by User:Mona MG and they were marked by me (User:Rsocol) with the {{Npd}} tag on November 2. They were deleted by User:Courcelles on November 10, but Mona MG said in my talk page that she had permissions to use the photos. According to her, the email with the permission was sent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org on November 14, but there was no action until now, despite the undeletion request. Please check what happened to the email with the permissions and advise Mona MG about any further action she needs to do. Razvan Socol (talk) 08:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I've replied on your talk page. —Pill (talk) 17:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Rene Morel in 2004.jpg

Can someone please verify the ticket for File:Rene Morel in 2004.jpg? I'm sure this one have one, because I received a copy of it at 20:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC). Armbrust (talk) 18:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Review of livius.org permissions: #2006112210022386 #2007022010005941

A significant number of images from livius.org are included on commons under these permission tickets ((35 with a quick search). However the descriptions for most of these images includes a "permission line" that says: "With permission granted by the authors to download, copy, re-format and redistribute the pictures for use on computers, computer networks or as a printed publication, provided that no fees are charged for their distribution." - This is obviously not an adequate permission for commons because of the "no-fees" clause. So it is important to find out what these permissions given actually says. Because, either we need to delete a significant number of images or we need to update the pages of these images to reflect the actual release so that it does not cause confusion.Ajbpearce (talk) 12:42, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Info French-speaker needed here. —Pill (talk) 13:31, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The French part of the two emails only gives context : the whole permission (which seems inadequate) is in English. Hope this help.--Bapti ✉ 16:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to note that the images have been (temporarily) deleted as a precautionary measure while we wait for a response here.Ajbpearce (talk) 13:04, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Bumping to note that this review is still required, to prevent automatic archiving for being more than 15D old. Ajbpearce (talk) 14:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the person who asked for permission added additional requirements to the license: "[...] The term of use of each picture shall be documented such as follows : "GFDL" license, with the added following mention "With permission granted by the authors to download, copy, re-format and redistribute the pictures for use on computers, computer networks or as a printed publication, provided that no fees are charged for their distribution"." This applies to the following images according to the email:

Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/Archive 18

# from ticket 2007022010005941 
> Image:Cave shapur3.jpg , loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/bishapur/bishapur-cave.html
> Image:Bishapur relief 4 1.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/bishapur/bishapur-relief4.html
> Image:Bishapur relief 2 1.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/sassanids/sassanid-reliefs.html
> Image:Bishapur relief 5 2.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/bishapur/bishapur-relief5.html
> Image:Kangavar2.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/kangavar/kangavar.html
> Image:Bishapur temple anahita 3.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/bishapur/bishapur-city1.html
# from ticket 2006112210022386
> Persepolis drain.JPG, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/terrace/terrace.html
> pipe.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/terrace/terrace.html
> persepolis terrace 4.JPG, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/terrace/terrace.html
> Persepolis treasury-2.jpg, loaded from the
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/treasury/treasury.html
> Staircase 1.jpg loaded, from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/xerxes/palace.html
> XPb.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-northstairs/apadana-northst[..]irs.html
> Apadana north 1.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-northstairs/apadana-northst[..]irs.html
> Apadana n stairs guards.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-northstairs/apadana-northst[..]irs.html
> Apadana east courtiers 1.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s3.html
> Chariot2.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s3.html
> Persia map.gif, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s4.html
> 01 medians 2.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s4.html
> 02 elamites 2.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s4.html
> 03 armenians.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s4.html
> 04 parthians.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s4.html
> 05 babylonians 1.png, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s5.html
> 06 lydians 1.jpg, loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s5.html
> 13 bactrians.jpg loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s7.html
> 14 gandarians.jpg loaded from the page
> http://www.livius.org/a/iran/persepolis/apadana-eaststairs/apadana-eaststai[..]s7.html

Cheers, —Pill (talk) 13:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, well that looks like they need to stay deleted then for a badly formed permission. There are a few images with these permission numbers left on the site. But they don't seem to be among those mentioned above. If the permission did not mention them, they would also need to be deleted. Ajbpearce (talk) 14:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, searching for those, I now found another email (ticket:2010090510006664) that contains permission for the following images:

Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/Archive 18

   1. File:365 Crete Earthquake, Apollonia, Map (Jona).gif
   2. File:365 Crete Earthquake, Apollonia, Pier (Jona).JPG
   3. File:Ancient Rome area map.gif
   4. File:Aristotle altemps s.jpg
   5. File:Babylon Map.svg
   6. File:Babylon map.gif
   7. File:Bar kochba coin1.jpg
   8. File:Behistun parthian relief01.jpg
   9. File:Behistun parthian rock2.jpg
  10. File:Behistun sassanid relief.jpg
  11. File:Binche milestone mus mariemont1.JPG
  12. File:Bishapur relief 2 1.jpg
  13. File:Bishapur relief 4 1.jpg
  14. File:Bishapur relief 5 2.jpg
  15. File:Bishapur temple anahita 3.jpg
  16. File:Carthage.gif
  17. File:Cave shapur3.jpg
  18. File:Chaeronea map.gif
  19. File:Coin gallienus ii adiutrix bm.JPG
  20. File:Coin varus rgzm.jpg
  21. File:Cyrus cilinder.jpg
  22. File:Elamite relief.jpg
  23. File:Eurysaces03.jpg
  24. File:Eurysaces04.jpg
  25. File:Firuzabad relief1 1.jpg
  26. File:Furii family tree.gif
  27. File:Kangavar2.jpg
  28. File:Kerei Lycian Inscription.PNG
  29. File:Lacus curtius1.jpg
  30. File:Lacus curtius2.jpg
  31. File:Lacus curtius3.jpg
  32. File:Leg xiv mainz inscr musius lm1.JPG
  33. File:Ludus01.jpg
  34. File:Ludus02.jpg
  35. File:Mithradates iv.jpg
  36. File:Mozia museum masque.jpg
  37. File:Mycale map.gif
  38. File:Mycale3 map.gif
  39. File:Nabonidus cylinder sippar bm1.JPG
  40. File:Nabonidus cylinder sippar bm1.jpg
  41. File:Orodes iii.jpg
  42. File:Parthian shot.jpg
  43. File:Persia map.gif
  44. File:Shergia 2.JPG
  45. File:Temple antonia.jpg
  46. File:Tigraxauda.jpg
  47. File:Valkenburg map.gif
  48. File:Vologases vi.jpg
  49. File:Xanthos river.JPG
  50. File:Xerxes canal 2.JPG
  51. File:Zh Chaeronea map.gif

which now specifically states that "I agree to publish them under the free license :Multi-license GFDL, all CC-BY-SA [...] I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use these works in a commercial product, and to modify it according to their needs, as long as they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws." and does not impose further restrictions. The email address used is the one listed on http://www.livius.org/mail.html. There appears to be some overlap with the older email, for instance File:Bishapur relief 5 2.jpg was mentioned in both emails. Also, I don't quite see what action has been taken by the OTRS volunteer dealing with the second email. He just asked if this is a "general release" for all material from livius.org, to which the sender pointed out that it is not because there is also material on her site where she is not the rights owner. Hmm. So, to sum up, it appears that there is a valid permission email for the 51 images listed in the new email. Perhaps someone can manage to go through that list and identify deleted files (because if everything else is fine and all information is provided, I see no reason not to restore them) -- I'd normally do it myself but neither am I an administrator here nor, unfortunately, can I find the time these days. Cheers, —Pill (talk) 15:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Ho hum, ok - I will contact the admin who closed by DR and deleted the original 35 images and ask him to undelete as applicable. There are definitely some of those files included in this valid permission (including, frustratingly, I see - the image that I originally noticed had a bad permission and nominated for DR last month, not aware what bit of string I was pulling on :P ) Ajbpearce (talk) 22:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Long exchange of e-mails and pending request

Resolved—Pill (talk) 10:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I have recently received permission via e-mail to use an image from a website. However, the author needed some clarifications and since it was not possible to tag the picture with a Commons-compatible license on the website, I asked him to give me a permission for the file to be used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. The exchange of e-mails is pretty long and it's not in English, therefore I want to ask - would it be fine if I simply forward only the last e-mail (translated) with the permission to permissions-commons(at)wikimedia.org ? - Tourbillon 19:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, although we do have many foreign language speakers on OTRS. If you can tell me the language I might be able to give you a more specific email address to use. Stifle (talk) 17:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Well I sent the complete exchange of e-mails with an English translation (from Bulgarian) and the image was uploaded on 15 November, but I still have no response. I noticed that the picture is the only one left in the 15 November OTRS pending category (there were previously some 20 others) and I need it for a FA candidate, so any response is appreciated. - Tourbillon 09:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tourbillon, we received your email, and "image donor" has just been contacted to briefly confirm that everything is fine (so that we have the permission directly from him), now waiting for a reply. (I'm setting this to "resolved" because the original issue seems to be resolved, feel free to remove it again if you have further questions.) Cheers, —Pill (talk) 19:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Puh, I guess I made a mistake here. Based on the email, I thought you had only given us the translation of the last email, but you've translated everything, right? I'm asking because as I said, I've just asked him for confirmation -- in English. Normally this is no big deal, but since the original correspondence was all in Bulgarian, I fear that it might be confusing now :(. I tried to find an OTRS volunteer who speaks Bulgarian to translate a follow-up, but unfortunately there is none on our list. Do you know if he speaks English? Sorry again, —Pill (talk) 20:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not really certain if the author speaks English. I just wrote him an e-mail to ask if he will have any difficulties with composing a reply in English (in case he doesn't speak the language and does not understand what you sent him). He's usually quick in replies so I think we'll have an answer by 2-3 days. - Tourbillon 20:30, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, guess we're done here, I've added {PermissionOTRS} to the file page. —Pill (talk) 10:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks a lot ! - Tourbillon 10:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I`m worried about the picture((

Resolved—Pill (talk) 23:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Just a few words of a concern. I`m Russian. I have a very close Brasilian female friend who is dying from crack addiction now. I`m concerned. And I think that the picture on the crack-page of this web-site is objectively too attracting. The woman on the picture looks sexy. The hair, the eyebrows, the nails, the jewelry, the dress... The picture can produce a dangerous effect on crack beginners. I`m a former heroine addict (17 years of being clean) and I know about drugs(( I really want to help. Could you please remove this picture?.. Thank you for the time you`ve spent on reading this mail. Ania

Hi Ania, to which "crack-page" are you referring and to which image (this? File:Smoking Crack.jpg)? --Túrelio (talk) 08:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Images copyright information (Jane Reumert)

Resolved—Pill (talk) 00:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Nov 18 (11 days ago) i sent a request to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org regarding the following images.

They have now all been deleted and still no response to my request.

What now?

Best regards Apovlsen (talk) 10:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Ticket has been received -- Ticket:2011111810014973 -- permission as is isn't enough, but I have reinstated as there obviously is some permission - I just need to confirm it. You'll note when permission has been confirmed when I add the OTRS confirmed templates to the images, and you will receive email. russavia (talk) 12:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds very good, will you also make sure the images are restored? Best regards Apovlsen (talk) 12:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have temporarily restored the images to Commons, in order to confirm with the copyright holder that they have given permission, and so they can verify that the images in question are those they are given permission for. Once we receive this confirmation, all will be ok. If no response from the copyright holder is had within a reasonable timeframe -- I'd say maybe 2 weeks from now -- they will need to be deleted until such time as confirmation is received. But all should be good if we get the response we require. Cheers, russavia (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very good, will you also please rollback the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Reumert to the stage before deletion? Did you e-mail Jane Reumert to get the final confirmation, or how are you expecting to get a response from her? Best regards Apovlsen (talk) 14:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The images have been restored on the Wikipedia article page, and an OTRS volunteer has asked the copyright holder for confirmation. —Pill (talk) 00:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Not again!

Resolved

I posted on the Pump, and above on this very page, about a problem I was having with some images donated to the project from the RAF Museum.

I noted that even though the ORTS message was sent, most of the images did not receive an update noting this, and the single one that did complained about something that was left undescribed. The reviewer did not explain what the problem was, nor did they make any attempt to contact me during the process to explain it.

And even though this very page states there is a 15 day backlog for ORTS, the images were deleted again, after only 7 days. Again, without any warning or explanation.

This is beyond the pale.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:54, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Info The relevent ticket is 2011110710010121 MorganKevinJ^(talk) 16:56, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Maury, sorry about that. The problem is that there are huge fluctuations in OTRS backlog and that OTRS processing time is hence not always in line with the time limits imposed by the deletion policy. See also our /FAQ. Deleted versions can be restored later if the permission statement is found to be sufficient. Now, concerning the specific case you mention: The OTRS volunteer sent out an email to the copyright owner on Nov. 16 and asked for confirmation (we typically need permission directly from him in accordance with COM:OTRS). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he replied. —Pill (talk) 14:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Permission confirmed. The image has been restored and the other images have been tagged. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 14:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Betsy Foxman00.jpg

I've sent a number of emails to Scott Cameron re this image which has not yet received a ticket. I would appreciate some sort of response. cheers Paul venter (talk) 06:21, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for your question. Please have a look at our /FAQ -- usually, we cannot possibly process tickets within such a short period of time. That doesn't mean your email is lost somewhere, and you don't have to resend it, it's just that there are many emails and few otrs agents to deal with them :). I have now merged all your tickets to the one you got a reply to (ticket# 2011113010026722), so the OTRS agent in charge gets aware of them. The ticket is still open, and we'll send you a response as soon as possible. —Pill (talk) 12:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Pill, could you explain in simple English why Commons would think that "no restrictions" does not mean the same thing as "public domain"? In my book "no restrictions" means "carte blanche", "do whatever you like", "feel free to suit yourself" etc. I seem to be running up against a brick wall here..... Paul venter (talk) 20:19, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

[i haven't forgotten your question here, but unfortunately, i'm somewhat busy these days with other things, so it might take me till the end of week to respond. perhaps someone else can help your more quickly. apologies & cheers, —Pill (talk) 18:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)]

Ticket number #2011030410006577

I see that this ticked is used in many files from http://www.mapn.ro. Does it extend to all the files on this site or a specific set of files? Are there any conditions mentioned in the e-mail? Is the sender someone with a mapn.ro email address? Razvan Socol (talk) 14:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The sender is not, but the sender of the forwarded email is. If Google Translate is right, they "agree with free license to use them under Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 ("Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0"), indicating author photo and specify the source." and the permission statement refers to images on "http://www.mapn.ro/fotodb/". But if we need to be sure, we'll have to ask someone with proficiency in Romanian. —Pill (talk) 15:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Pill's assumption is correct. The tickes unambiguously frees all the images from http://www.mapn.ro/fotodb/ --Strainu (talk) 19:09, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of useful photos on that site (for example, the photos of the Ministers of Defence, in http://www.mapn.ro/fotodb/ministrii). Can we consider that the ticket applies to any photo that was or will be posted in http://www.mapn.ro/fotodb, or only to the photos that were available on a certain date? Shouldn't we ask that the copyright notice be changed on the site, so we can be sure that the sender is authorized to release so many photos? Razvan Socol (talk) 06:26, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The letter is signed by the director of the Public Relations department in MAPN and was sent from that department's email address, so I have no reason to suspect he's not authorized to do that. The wording is unequivocal about the fact that the person understands all the implications of the license (commercial use, the permanent nature of the release etc.). There is no date limit specified in that email. It simply says "the images in the photo gallery of the website http://www.mapn.ro/fotodb/". If you want to be extra safe, we can ask the user for the exact wording of the request, as only the response was included in the ticket. Asking for a license change on the website might be pushing it (personal opinion based on past experiences), but feel free to send them an email. Who knows, you might get lucky. :)--Strainu (talk) 21:14, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Aschmittnerwp.png

Hi, permission has been asked for and received previously 02.12.2011 06:12. Please enter the OTRS brick accordingly. BR Polentario (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I had a rummage and found a previous ticket from you, but it didn't mention that file. Did you get a release for that particular file or for a collection of files? If not, you'll need to get a specific email for that file and send it to us. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I sent the file with the mail to permissions and Schmittner answered to that. As well the mail exchange explicitely mentions the photo on his webpage which is the one in question. Polentario (talk) 20:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Resolved--Krd (talk) 20:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Whether photographs are of a certain model, or not

Hi could someone find a way of confirming whether the photographs at Category:Lucinda_Harmony are actually of that model? Ticket no. 2011121310001001 has challenged these as not being her, however I find it hard to compare or find an authoritative source and the photographs there have been released on ticket no. 2007111210016632. One possible comparison site is http://www.modelmayhem.com/1585814. --Fæ (talk) 10:01, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Category:Hugo Gugg

Resolved--Krd (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Some paintings have been confirmed to be licensed with the GFDL with the ticket https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2011101210008921 Was File:Paestum ,.jpg not among them? This one doesn't have the OTRS ticket yet. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 16:38, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. --Krd (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Images copyright information (Orchidee3)

Dez 09 i sent a request to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org regarding the following images.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nanophotometer.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sample_Compression_Technology.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Low-volume_quantification_step_by_step_2.jpg

Please can you check the status for permissions?

Best regards Orchidee3

Orchidee3 (talk) 10:46, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear all,

the pictures mentioned above have been deleted now. As mentioned I have forwarded a copy of the email from the copyright holder to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org on Dez 09 2011. Up to now I didn't get a confirmation and the pictures have been deleted. What else can I do?

Thanks for your help Orchidee3 (Orchidee3 (talk) 09:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC))

Your request has been received and will be processed soon. Please do not reupload the images, they will be restored if there are no further questions. Thanks, →Na gy 11:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Nagy, I'm still waiting that the pictures are uploaded again. Do you have new information for me or are there further questions?

Thanks Orchidee3 (Orchidee3 (talk)) 01 January 2012

Cinefundas OTRS

This is another problem ticket I've come across now. According to ticket:2011020710001425 they are releasing all their images on CC-BY-3.0 license. However, from their website it is clear that they do not own the copyright of many images and quite a lot of them are user uploads where they assume that the user owns copyright based on the disclaimer. This is identical to the case of Kollywoodtoday where after similar loopholes were found we deleted their images. Relevant discussion of Kollywoodtoday is at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard/Archive_12#File:Sneha_Actress.JPG and Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard/Archive_14#Please_check. —SpacemanSpiff 06:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

e.g File:Amala-paul13.jpg is sourced to [6] which has an upload date of Jan 9, 2011. But the same image was available elsewhere [7] earlier, and it was part of a portfolio shoot [8], the other images of which are not all present on Cinefundas. I'm not sure what the process is for these (would a DR suffice, should we invalidate the OTRS ticket as there are lots of images credited to this ticket etc) and would appreciate suggestions. Almost all the images I've seen have been stripped of their exif data. We had a similar case on en.wiki (Bollywoodblog) where we had to delete all images from that OTRS ticket. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 09:39, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If Cinefundas does not have the copyright for the photo then the OTRS is ofcourse not valid. I can not remember how it started but it was probably something with a user that was in contact with Cinefundas and got them to send a perission to OTRS and asked me if I could check the ticket. I will think about it and see if I can remember who it was. If the user has contact with Cinefundas then perhaps (s)he could ask if they could explain the example mentioned above. --MGA73 (talk) 17:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This does seem like another Bollywoodblog case of a website generously allowing us to use what isn't theirs to allow using (or even to use themselves). I'd delete the lot preemptively and stop using the ticket as a valid permission. Coren (talk) 15:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I created Category:Files from Cinefundas to keep track of these images. From what I see in the cat, File:Sathyan23.JPG, File:Disha-pandey-6.jpg and File:Aparna-bajpai.jpg could be clean as they are taken at Cinefundas locations/events. However, the rest are doubtful. —SpacemanSpiff 06:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

File:ROGER.jpg

Français ; Fichier:ROGER.jpg avec la licence cc-by-sa-3.0 J'ai envoyé un mail le 15/11/2011 avec l'autorisation pour ce fichier. Peut être y a t-il eu une erreur d'envoi de ma part.

Je viens de ré envoyer ce mail avec l'autorisation ce 22/12/2011. no OTRS permission since|month=December|day=19|year=2011

Je viens de remettre OTRS pending en attendant que le nouveau mail avec l'autorisation soit traité. Pouvez-vous faire traiter ce mail avant la supression du fichier.
Merci (Artnord (talk) 14:51, 22 December 2011 (UTC))

Your message has been received and will be processed soon, even if the image gets deleted we will be able to restore it. Thanks for your patience (otrs:2011122210010225). →Na gy 15:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Check a strange ticket please

Hey there. Can someone please check ticket #2010072810031703 and see if that really allows File:MFAHWatkinBuilding.jpg to be licensed under the Apache-2.0 license? It seems awfully strange. Cheers, Sven Manguard (talk) 08:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sven Manguard, the ticket is valid. We have an email from an mfah.org adres confirming the release of amongst others MFAHWatkinBuilding.jpg under the Apache-2.0 license. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capo_Gallo_Oblada_melanura.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It says cc by sa. Clicking link of source, popup - everything is copyrighted.

The ticket is in Italian, so we need an Italian speaker to confirm the permission. The relevant ticket is 2008041910012671. russavia (talk) 02:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I have asked for help from Vituzzu, an Italian OTRS agent, on their talkpage. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed! --Vituzzu (talk) 13:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Duvalier.jpg source/author

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

As I get completely no response (whyever) at User_talk:Platonides#File:Duvalier.jpg please could someone else add source and author at File:Duvalier.jpg? Thanks. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 23:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

{{done}} Ezarateesteban 23:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Question Okay thanks! That's what I imagined ... So could please someone confirm here that the person who gave the permission had the rights to give permission? I just have the feeling (I cannot look in OTRS) that this is doubtful here - seems to be just a photo collected from somewhere. Physical ownership of the paper print doesn't make ownership of copyrights. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 14:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

if google translate is not wrong (ticket is in spanish), the sender claims to have inherited the image ("we have the paper originals"). but at least from google's translated version i can't really see whether that's because they inherited copyright or just the physical object. (but if the former is the in fact true, i don't understand why the author field states "unknown"). confused, —Pill (talk) 11:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

ping - DR? Saibo (Δ) 00:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

So be it... Commons:Deletion requests/File:Duvalier.jpg--Saibo (Δ) 22:22, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Polish ticket (skijumping.pl)

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

A batch of images very deleted because of the supposed invalidity of ticket 2007032510013279. Nobody in the deletion discussion seemed to understand Polish (conclusions made based on machine translation), so I would like someone to take a look again. As I understand it the rights owners were willing to release the images but no GFDL or CC-* licence was mentioned. Some notes on Polish Wikipedia are linked from the deletion discussion.

If sufficient permission never was given, it would perhaps be worthwhile to continue negotiations. That would be much easier for someone having access to the original correspondence or at least some summary of it and contact addresses.

--LPfi (talk) 07:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I have asked for help from Odder, a Polish OTRS agent, on their talkpage. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The ticket in question was received in March 2007 (see the first 8 digits) according to the then-accepted procedures. However, there isn't any mention of any licence, and there is no information that the copyright holder (editor-in-chief of http://skijumping.pl) agrees to use the pictures from his website for commercial purposes (so we could use the {{Copyrighted free use provided that}} template). We cannot determine if his agreement applies to all uses of those images, or was thought to be for Wikipedia purposes only, as the Wikipedian who forwared the agreement didn't include his introduction e-mail (as we do now). Having said that, I agree with the deletion and hope that there would be someone interested in having all those images back :-) Regards, odder (talk) 12:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Russian language picture File:T-killah 2.jpg

Работа получена мной по электронной почте от правообладателя google translates as "The work received an e-mail me from the copyright holder". If there is any Russian speaking person wanting to do it, I think it would be good to explain to the uploader how he could register the content of the e-mail as an OTRS ticket. Teofilo (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

From what I can see, the issue is dealt with in ticket:2011122010016527. —Pill (talk) 21:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

File:NarutoStormGenerationXbox360.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

OwdneyTissu (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log · upload log) claims that an e-mail containing details of the permissions for this file's licensing have been sent to OTRS. Given that the uploader got the file from Google rather than from the copyright holder, given that they do not know what license the supposed permission granted, and given that they also pretended to be a license reviewer, and given that all their other uploads were blatant copyright violations, I'm suspecting that the OTRS claims are false, and that the uploader is simply trying to get another blatant copyright violation in under the radar. Was anything actually sent in? —LX (talk, contribs) 15:11, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I see no relevant email in the OTRS system. I'd say the claims are false. Regardless, the file has sense been deleted. Cheers, Tiptoety ^talk 07:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Rene Morel in 2004.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Can someone please verify the ticket for File:Rene Morel in 2004.jpg? I'm sure this one have one, because I received a copy of it at 20:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC). Armbrust (talk) 18:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. --Krd (talk) 20:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Another 2 files

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi! I have another 2 files, which weren't verified yet:

File:ISIS Magazine The Go Issue November 2011 cover.png permission was sent at 21:39, 18 November 2011.11.18 (UTC),
File:Mirus Futures logo.png permission was sent at 19:26 22 November 2011 (UTC).

Regards, Armbrust (talk) 17:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Done, thanks. →Na gy 07:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Heemskerck, WEF van 1868.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I've send you 7 mails. In one of them you will see the permission (File:Heemskerck, WEF van 1868.jpg) User:Henk Obee 06:39, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Your message has been received and will be processed soon. Regards, →Na gy 07:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Эппле жанна.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Could somebody with OTRS access check the ticket as it had been added by the uploader himself. --Túrelio (talk) 07:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The ticket number is valid and the file has been released under the licenses mentioned on the description page. Regards, →Na gy 07:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the very fast reply. --Túrelio (talk) 07:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Attack on Mangalore Pub Protest by NSUI.ogv

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Could someone please check if OTRS permission has been received for this? Joyson Prabhu ^{Holla at me!} 08:51, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

There is some correspondence with Daijiworld Media available, however the video above has not been mentioned so far. I would be very thankful if you could request another statement of permission regarding this file. Thanks, →Na gy 15:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Two permissions

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi!

About File:Riku Rantanen.jpg and File:Timo Rantatorikka.jpeg: I've sent permission couple of months ago. It's id is #2011080310006971 (it's written in Finnish). Kirjakas (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Your last message has been received, I'm sure the ticket will be processed soon. Regards, →Na gy 15:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Around the Rings permission

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why the pictures bellow have been tagged for deletion. The copyright owner itself (Around the Rings) sent the permission letter to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, so did I.

Regards; Felipe Menegaz 17:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

There is currently a backlog in the OTRS, the ticket number has been added to the files above. →Na gy 18:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Confirmation request for http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oakley_sunglasses.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello,
I already received an OTRS ticket:2011121210011654 for this picture, do I also need a confirmation from an OTRS agent to use it in the Wikipedia pages?
Thanks, Michele Laterza (talk) 10:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

No, it can be used in any Wikipedia article now. Regards, →Na gy 15:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Ticket #2011122010020021

Resolved—Pill (talk) 13:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Could someone please handle this ticket? The picture appears on the creator's Flickr stream: [9]. Cheers. Badzil (talk) 02:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Fastily took care of it. Badzil (talk) 12:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

NZ Labour Party photos

I have obtained permission to use quite a lot of campaign photos from the NZ Labour Party. I have uploaded these images in small batches, and forwarded the permission email each time I uploaded a batch of the photos. The earliest was around the 22nd November 2011. Now, I haven't received any confirmation from OTRS and the "This file is missing evidence of permission" is appearing on these images.

I suspect that this is just because there is a backlog in handling permissions, but could someone confirm that these emails have been received please. I have a few more that I plan to upload and it would be a pain if someone deletes them in the mean time due to some technicality.

See my contributions for a full list of uploaded images. One example is Christine Rose.png. --Sir Anon (talk) 05:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sir Anon, the emails did arrive (6 over the past weeks) but, as you guess, have not yet been processed because of the backlog. As long as you tag the images with {{OTRS pending}}, I think there shouldn't be any problems here on Commons. Apologies for the delay, —Pill (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, just saw the problem. I've added {OTRS received} to the older images, so they won't be deleted before the ticke has been processed. —Pill (talk) 12:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

OTRS for File:Edinboro logo.png

Resolved—Pill (talk) 11:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Would someone please double check the OTRS ticket on File:Edinboro logo.png? I'd like to make sure that the release was made by someone with an official college email address who would have authority to make that kind of release. I'm just double checking because colleges get very cranky when their logos are used.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

The ticket did come from an Edinboro University address, however I cannot find him in their campus directory.-Mys 721tx (talk) 00:13, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Did the email have his job title? Maybe below the signature line?--GrapedApe (talk) 03:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

He didn't include his job tittle in the ticket. Based on the information given by the university website about him, I believe that he should have the authority to license this image.-Mys 721tx (talk) 04:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking that out. I was concerned about the diff where the ticket was added ([10]) that said "(OTRS permission added by non-OTRS member)." Kinda weird.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess that's because the notice is displayed only if the OTRS volunteer editing here has previously been assigned to a special user group here on Commons. So there might be delays. Cheers, —Pill (talk) 11:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC) (Although, actually, I don't quite understand that. Because obviously it would mean that all OTRS-related edits from the time before we had this new system are tagged with "(OTRS permission added by non-OTRS member)." -- but that is not so. So why are my old edits not tagged wile Jimmys' are?)

Category:Nancy Kwan and File:Lee C. Bollinger awarding the 2003 Pulitzer Prize to Jeffrey Eugenides.jpg

Would an OTRS agent check the emails I sent regarding the images at Category:Nancy Kwan? Some of the images were tagged as missing permission and will be deleted within seven days. Also, would an OTRS agent check the email I sent with regard to File:Lee C. Bollinger awarding the 2003 Pulitzer Prize to Jeffrey Eugenides.jpg? The emails were sent in early December. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Only regarding the second issue: I've just added a pointer to the email on the image page, so there shouldn't be any risk of deletion for the time being. But please note that we're currently quite backlogged (see the figure in the intro to this page), so it may take some time until a response will reach you. Cheers, —Pill (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the OTRS ticket number to the Jeffrey Eugenides file. Would you add the OTRS ticket numbers to the Nancy Kwan files tagged by Special:Contributions/FSII? I am afraid those images will be speedy deleted after seven days. See my conversation with Fastily (talk · contribs) here. Cunard (talk) 01:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Three files needing verification

ResolvedFor the time being. —Pill (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi! I have another 4 files, which weren't verified yet:

File:Rotational Molding.jpg permission was sent at 15:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC),
File:Breathe With Me (group).jpg permission was sent at 21:39 23 December 2011 (UTC),
File:Mold graphics into rotationally molded parts.jpg permission was sent at 23:18 23 December 2011 (UTC),
File:Rotomolded parts.png permission was sent at 18:33 30 December 2011 (UTC).

Regards, Armbrust (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Armbrust, I left a note on the image pages indicating that an email has been sent. So there's no risk of deletion for the time being. Please note, however, that there's currently a huge backlog (see the intro to this page), so it may take some time, unfortunately. Cheers, —Pill (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Armbrust (talk) 14:25, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Meryl Streep by Jack Mitchell.jpg

Resolved—Pill (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Does the ticket by any chance contain the year when the picture was taken, or a useful link?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It does not. --Krd (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Abdulhadi Alkhawaja.jpg

Resolved

This work is a cropped version of (Nabeel Rajab along with Abdulhadi Alkhawaja at a pro-democracy march.jpg), so I have copied the OTRS permission details from original work to the new work. However after the edit I noticed it said in the edit summary "OTRS permission added by non-OTRS member". So I'm hoping it's all fine and I haven't done something wrong. Bahraini Activist (talk) 10:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for informing, it is totally correct added. An alternative would be (as I did a few min ago) to add the image under "other versions". (the best on both image pages) mabdul 18:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Is OTRS really "fit for purpose"?

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Commons:Requests for comment/OTRS 2012 is now available to give these issues a really good airing without overwhelming this noticeboard. Please restate or copy your thoughts there. Rd232 (talk) 20:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Bear with me while I express some thoughts that have worried me for a while now regarding OTRS and licensing.

Folk are (apparently) recruited to OTRS because they are able to communicate nicely which certainly is important in many of the queues. However, when dealing with licensing, I fail to see why that should be the criteria. Surely the issue should be that they are well versed in licensing. I note the comment made on what I have turned into a sub thread about training others - no one trained me at all. I assumed I would be receiving emails from corporates/webmasters and the like confirming licensing of images. Some were however many were from fairly generic hotmail style addresses. I assumed accepting authority from such addresses would be wrong and watched what others did and was surprised to find they seemed to accept them. I decided I was better devoting my time to things I understood better.

However looking at the OTRS licensing of some tickets (including those of Fæ's) I really do fail to see the necessary rigour in them - certainly not to a degree that would satisfy me as a somewhat more experienced Commons admin than I was. I certainly think we should not assume because there is an OTRS ticket that the licensing is valid. I feel there are real questions over the validity of some tickets and some of the OTRS folks real understanding of licensing. I've a feeling OTRS may not be "fit for purpose" now. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Neither do OTRS ticket tags guarantee that the pictures are indeed free as tagged nor are such tags in general untrustworthy. We have the same problem as in other areas: We trust, for example, most users that the photographs they upload are indeed their own as claimed unless we have reason to doubt that. An absolute guarantee can nearly never be given but what we can do is to fix errors as soon as their are indications that claims are incorrect. In case of OTRS, we have, among others, correspondents who are not familiar with copyright and thereby incidentally granting licenses they cannot and occasionally also OTRS members who, as Herbythyme worries, have perhaps a less perfect understanding of licensing. Regarding this I want to point out a few things:

The communities in the projects ultimatively decide in general what is to be trusted or not, and what is to be accepted or not. OTRS, in general, is a service which allows people to contact us without sharing their email addresses and possibly other personal information. But, to take up a recent example, whether the claim of a book author to have the copyright of his book cover is to be trusted and accepted (until serious doubts appear) is a decision that shall be made by the community.
Everyone is free to ask OTRS members (preferably at this board but also through contacts) to take a look at a particular ticket. And we have a sufficent number of Commons admins who are at the same time also OTRS members who can be easily asked and in general trusted. And the abstract information can usually be shared like, for example "the author himself stated explicitly that he owns the copyright of the book cover" or "no, he wasn't asked who actually took the photographs".
Things get challenging in case of old tickets. We are possibly inclined to ask some more questions the OTRS member did not raise at that time. This gets in part more critical the older the tickets are because OTRS practice changed also over time (as our project did). The more aged a ticket is, the more difficult it might get to re-contact the correspondent and to find an understanding for new questions. This comes possibly to the point that we have to decide how we proceed with a case where we fail to get additional answers. But this is also up to the community and the admin who closes a deletion request.
There exist various tricks to check the authenticity of an address. I personally check whether the address is published somewhere officially, or check if the associated domain is owned by the person in question or some entity associated with him, and, in each case, check the email headers for forgery. If this is not the case, I try to find an official address and send my response either exclusively to that address or at least Cc: to that address. It is not uncommon that prominent people use hotmail or other popular addresses but we should of course not take such an address as proof of identity. This is, in my opinion, important as we should not leave a loophole here for our most penetrant violators.
Regarding communicate nicely vs. real understanding of licensing: Those queues requiring understanding of the latter belong mainly to the permissions hierarchy. Not every OTRS member has access to them and access to permission queues should only be given to those who have an understanding of this area. This is ultimately done by OTRS admins on base of various processes. However, we have at Commons the OTRS bit. If we decide to mistrust a particular OTRS member, we are free to remove that bit. Likewise, we are free not to hand out that bit automatically but, in case of non-admins, to do this through some community approved process.
Training is an important point as well but possibly best organized through OTRS and the local Wikimedia chapters.

In summary, I want to point out that what OTRS shall do and what not and how all this is regulated is up to the community at Commons for cases at Commons. Likewise it is up to us in whom we trust in OTRS matters at Commons and in whom not. If folks feel uneasy about the current practice, I suggest to open a discussion for a policy for OTRS members working in Commons. --AFBorchert (talk) 14:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

(written at the same time as AFB's comment above) I have not looked at Fae's OTRS work, so this is a general comment. Two things concern me. First, Commons:OTRS tells the user explicitly to forward the e-mail. Second, as Herby says, many OTRS volunteers routinely accept e-mails from hotmail and other anonymous addresses. It seems to me these two things give the person supplying the permissions two different levels at which he or she can create a permission from nothing. While we assume good faith as a general rule, we use OTRS to provide a backup when we have decided not to assume good faith. Why then, do we allow the user to get around that easily using OTRS?

We do need to remember that we have a number of users who will exploit any weaknesses in our systems to advance their agendas. That can certainly include forging permissions. If we want OTRS to serve as a solid source of permissions, then we must require the permission to come directly from the licensor, not be forwarded by our uploader, and require that the permission must come from an address that is verifiable. That may occasionally cause difficulties if the licensor does not have a verifiable e-mail address. At that point, I would fall back on requiring a postal letter.

I think we can get around the issue of having OTRS volunteers who do not understand copyright, by requiring them to report who the e-mail is from and what it said. Problems arise when, for example, the author of a book sends permission for something that only the publisher can license. Knowing that the e-mail came from the author, the Commons DR discussion can make an intelligent decision. If the OTRS volunteer says only that the permission is OK, we have a problem. I first became an OTRS volunteer on precisely this issue -- an OTRS volunteer insisted that a permission was OK and I was quite certain that it was not -- it seemed incredible to me that the publisher had freely licensed an important copyrighted character. It turned out I was right. We do not, of course,need to know the e-mail address from which it came -- part of the reason for OTRS is keeping such things confidential. But, if it came from an anonymous address, the OTRS volunteer ought to report that as well -- just the domain, not the specific address. 24.147.138.146 15:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The publication of email address received through OTRS is in my opinion an absolute no-go. And it is also not necessary. We shall explicitly require OTRS members to check email addresses where necessary and decide in whom we can trust to do this properly. It is a trust relation similar to that of admins and, see my proposal above, is perhaps best treated as such by requiring that all active OTRS members at Commons need either to be an admin or approved by the community. --AFBorchert (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I really do appreciate the input of experienced and respected OTRS agents such as Pill and AFBorchert (& the postings to involve others in this too). This should not simply be about one or two OTRS agents but about the whole system.

I have looked through some OTRS files and, while many are fine, I would have to ask in some cases whether the agent ask the simple question "Can I have any confidence the person I am in touch with can offer valid licensing and do they (the licenser) understand what that actually means?". To me that question should be the beginning of any OTRS licensing ticket process. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

This is indeed the most important question. And it lays also to some extend in the discretion of the OTRS member processing a ticket and his or her application of common sense. But we have a similar question in quite regular user uploads: Do we have confidence in them and do they understand what these free licenses mean? A frequent misconception is that people believe that they are donating their picture for Wikipedia or WMF projects only. This is not a surprise because many readers are not familiar with free licenses and this is the reason why our email templates not just refer to a free license but summarize their most important key points. Another typical misconception is that ownership of a picture means that such a free license can be granted. I had quite a number of lengthy exchanges where we had not just a contact with some depicted prominent person but also with the photographer. At times, we deleted the initial upload and waited until the prominent person found another photographer willing to accept a free license. All this requires also some training and experience as some questions should be asked but without trust it gets too burdensome. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:04, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with you here (though I am interested about the idea of training - I never had any!).

I guess I am wondering how to make the system better for those with less experience/knowledge. One suggestion would be that Commons folk were responsible for decided who had permission access - I don't that will be appreciated by the powers that be given the process is at best not transparent.

However I also wonder whether a checklist/standard response form might help less experienced folk to deal with some of the greyer attempts to license media. If folk user the COM:OTRS form it isn't too bad but many don't do that so the explicit question "what makes you think you can freely license this?" (maybe put a little more politely) is often not cover in tickets. If nothing else such a form would enable OTRS agents to indicate that they had used "due diligence" is establishing that the person had the right to license the media. Based on most of the copyvios I delete here "own work" and the real legal ability are not well understood by people generally & would not have been by me 5 years ago. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The point of this weekend's OTRS workshop in London, was to provide an opportunity to share best practice, discuss improving the governance structure, work out new ways of inducting/training new OTRS volunteers, improve the OTRS tool itself and make better use of our "knowledge base" in the form of case study examples and the (underused) OTRS wiki. One of the outcomes of this weekend was to regularly deliver events (every 6 months), encourage other chapters to get involved and do more to collaborate in the "virtual world" in the form of live webcasts and screen capture training videos to engage with people who may not be easily able to travel to such events. I can see no better solution that persisting with these forms of best practice sharing and gradual (non-bureaucratic) process improvement. The irony that I was the UK trustee that pushed the idea of this workshop and included it in our budget to improve the overall quality of our responses and at the precise time of delivery Pieter Kuiper has me in his targets for a exhaustive and exhausting series of complaints and personal attacks (some relating to OTRS tickets dating to the first few weeks of my volunteering for OTRS) is not lost on me. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

While I understand the point a workshop in London fails to communicate with/engage with the vast majority of folk involved in this. Communication on wiki is required here - hence this thread. If things can be learned from it by others that is good but nothing should be a substitute for involving the widest possible community.

Additionally - while I hate the way form filling has become an industry - a more bureaucratic process may well be advisable when it comes to licensing both from an agent viewpoint and that of the Foundation. If challenged the Foundation should be able to point to something approximating to due process - licensing is not about being nice it is about staying within the law. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Wider engagement and the open representation of OTRS work was extensively discussed during the workshop. Better use of :meta to share best practice and policy was a key recommendation rather than leaving these areas to languish unseen on the closed OTRS wiki. If there are specific processes only relating to Wikimedia Commons OTRS queues then publishing some of these on Commons would also make sense. With regard to bureaucracy, improvements on such governance were discussed (for example I took an action to write little more on the suggestions to improve the accountability of the OTRS admin group decision process), whatever the improvements, there was a strong demand to keep any systems as light-weight as possible for the pragmatic reasons of encouraging OTRS volunteers to actually use them, use them correctly and not increase the overall burden such that our queues are likely to become unmanageable as a result. Please also remember that we do not ask OTRS volunteers to make legal judgements or to give such advice, we can only ask them to make reasonable attempts to follow policy and even though quite a few of our volunteers have some form of legal experience, we are unlikely to be in a position where every licensing related ticket can be reviewed by someone with very high levels of competence in interpretation of copyright law in multiple legal systems. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I have two concerns with this - one of which is not really my problem (or that of Commons, the other is.

I have a feeling if licensing were seriously challenged the idea that "we have a system for more questionable licensing but is not really that rigorous" might not be the best approach but that is not my worry.
As a worker on Commons I have tended to assume that an OTRS ticket number means the file is ok - I realise now that it may be wise for folk on Commons to take closer looks at OTRS licensed material if seen as warranted.

This should be moved anyway I guess. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment on tickets by agent Fæ

Per this edit by Fæ. I feel that he is far more permissive than policy on Commons. See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:Richard Norris Wolfenden.jpg. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Note, the image referenced was uploaded on 5 September 2010 and has already been double checked by another OTRS agent. During Pieter Kuiper's image stalking campaign (as can be seen by the deletion notices on my talk page) he has rapidly raised an infeasibly large number of deletions for me to be expected to find reasonable time to comment on or review. He has also accused me of lying as an OTRS volunteer, turned a number of Deletion requests into an opportunity for personal attacks and tampered with the scope of a Deletion request after opinions had been expressed on the original nomination.[11][12][13] --Fæ (talk) 22:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The OTRS agent uploaded File:Richard Norris Wolfenden.jpg with a {{PD-Old}} template, which he had claimed to have verified in his ticket; yet he knows no year of death. And he uploaded File:The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists - cover for web.jpg, again declaring that OTRS had verified permission, yet he did not have permission from the publisher who holds the copyright for the book cover. OTRS agents must not make declaration that a copyright status was verified without making really certain. Or is the ticket just a rubber stamp on any email that comes in? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Related to: "The OTRS agent uploaded File:Richard Norris Wolfenden.jpg with a {{PD-Old}} template, which he had claimed to have verified in his ticket; yet he knows no year of death." Err that is really common since the documentation is not always good at that time. en:Richard Norris Wolfenden says that the person on the image died 1926 - so if we would take that date - then it is indeed PD-old! We don't have a crystal ball! mabdul 01:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You should know that the death year of the sitter is not very relevant. An OTRS agent should not declare that {{PD-old}} is verified if there is a possibility that less than 70 years have passed since the author's death. Don't you agree? /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 01:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sry, read the DR now. Strike my last comment. So, no an OTRS agent shouldn't verify when/that a photographer died when tagging PD-old, how should he/she do that? Defacto most of the PD-old images are unknown either then made and/or then the photographer died. Although this should go to the DR: why do you doubt that the image is not PD-old / not believing the author of the bio? mabdul 02:03, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The author of the biography did not say when the photographer died; adding the {{PD-old}} template was Fæ's idea. I am still surprised by you saying that sloppy declarations of verification would be "really common since the documentation is not always good." That should get commons admins worrying about the value of those yellow tickets. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 02:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Pieter, @File:The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists - cover for web.jpg: These are tricky issues. Speaking for the German-language part of the OTRS team, we discussed them on both of our last workshops. The point is that in my (and other users') opinion, it is unreasonable to demand access to contractual documents between an author and an identifiable person who claims to be a rights owner. Not only is this often not possible at all because no written contract exists or one only exists as part of another contractual relationship or one does only vaguely exist and has to be derived from another contractual relationship based on a complex set of legal requirements around a "Zweckübertragungsregel" (principle of assignment limited to purpose) which I'm sure also exists in some form in jurisdictions other than those of central Europe, b) out of place given the loose requirements that exist on-wiki (with just one click, you can usually put aside all doubts -- just claim you're the author). As pointed out in my presentation on copyright and personality rights related difficulties in the permissions queues, this basically leaves only one reasonable way of dealing with such issues: First, Check yourself it you think it's likely that the person explicitely claiming to be the owner of the required rights is that person indeed. Now if you think it is likely, you can accept it. If, however, you think it is rather unlikely (for me, in the case of a book cover, it is unlikely as long as the releasing entity is not the publisher), my way of dealing with the issue would be to send out another email in which you explain the process of a transfer of rights of use and the legal requirements to this. In particular, I tend to highlight the right to attribution which, in droit d'auteur territory, is inalienable to some extent). But then again, if the person confirms to have understood all this and stands by her claim and if, at the same time, the person is identifiable in that she uses an official email address or an address otherwise indubitably assignable to a certain person or entity, I would add an OTRS tag to the image page.
If I look again at the case you pointed to here, I see that no email requesting clarification was sent out (we can probably discuss whether that would be advisable), but that otherwise the situation pretty similar to what I've described above: Identifiable person expressis verbis states that he owns the necessary rights for a release and goes on to release. —Pill (talk) 13:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I would not believe the subject of a portrait who stated that he had acquired all the rights in cases where no contract exists and the author is a professional photographer. Such releases are many times more expensive than it is to have a family photo in a photo studio, so one would pay for getting that in writing. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that has anything to do with my point. The point is that it is unreasonable to require someone to email us contracts they made with other people or entities. —Pill (talk) 15:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yet the ticket says that you verified permission. In cases where you believe the implausible declaration that a professional photographer transferred rights without a written contract. I would recommend to remove the word "verified" from the text of the ticket. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You're off the point. I was never talking about a "professional photographer [who] transferred rights without a written contract." Also, the absence of a written contract was just one example for a case in which it doesn't make sense to demand a copy of the contract. —Pill (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I think an issue is defining some of the terms such as "verified".

Having uploaded images to other website I have had to have my email address verified before I could upload. I'm not suggesting that here however it does seem as though we are likely to get what we deserve if we don't take licensing very seriously indeed. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, but that's what I meant. I would certainly not accept a release for an obviously professional photograph or, as here, a book cover for which the sender claims to be in possession of the rights required for licensing it freely if the email is sent from some dubious email address. —Pill (talk) 16:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The "verified" language was added to the template in 2008. Im Template talk:PermissionOTRS#The word "verified" should be removed or replaced i propose to remove it. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

With regard to the verification of the email address for the book cover referenced above this was verified before the ticket was granted in line with OTRS guidelines as can be seen by the verification note added to the original OTRS ticket. --Fæ (talk) 16:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Some lengthy thoughts ...

Parts of this have been written quite some time ago; it's so lengthy because I originally intended to send something similar over our permissions mailing list. Apologies to anyone who tries to read it ;). (I've added a new section to not completely mess up with the discussion above.) —Pill (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

@AFBorchert, sounds nice but I'm not sure that this will solve our issue here; as I see it, it's essentially rather a way to pass the buck to the community. Here's my point: Almost all criticism regarding OTRS actions that came to my attention here was not the result of an agent's lack of knowledge of copyright law, but the result of procedural errors (or claimed procedural errors). If an agent accepts the permission for image material on www.coca-cola.com sent from fluffybluffy@yahoo.com, the problem is, to put it simple, not that she doesn't know copyright law but that she believes everything. Working in OTRS requires you to make a (difficult) choice between practicability and, if you will, ultimate perfection of the permission statement. There's always a way to dig deeper, so you'll always need to make some sort of a compromise. But, then, the Commons community doesn't know how a certain user will make her choice. The community also doesn't know how other agents would react in certain scenarios. They will often not even have a clue what scenarios are likely to occur. You can be the most competent copyright wonk, yet completely mess up with the process, and likewise, you can have no profound knowledge of copyright law and still do fantastic work by just leaving cases to others where the issue at question requires knowledge of the legal provisions.
So this obviously gives a pretty dire picture. In fact, it's not so dire because agents aren't idiots. And because there's an easy fix to these issues: common guidelines. If you want to understand the source of such procedural "errors," you shouldn't single out individual agents who may or may not have made certain mistakes, but you should ask about the guidelines these agents follow. And you'll find ... nothing. Because there are no common guidelines. The whole permissions process is as unregulated as you can think of. Speaking for permissions-de and permissions-commons-de, tickets in these queues are processed by a group of German-speaking volunteers. People can request access to these queues, and we'll make a vote on an internal Wiki where everyone of the current team can comment on the candidate. If accepted, the new volunteer will be given a list of possibilities to interact with other volunteers (through a German-language IRC channel, a mailing list for German-speaking volunteers etc.), she will be advised that whenever she has a question, she may feel free to get in touch with other volunteers; she'll be given a link to a handbook, and will be invited to join us at our semiannual workshops, the expenses for which will mostly be paid for by the German chapter. Until this weekend, the German team was the only one to have workshops at all; from what I know, only the German- and English-speaking volunteers have an own IRC channel; except for the handbook for permissions-de (and, to a small extent, permissions-en), none of the tutorials even addresse detailed procedural questions (only technical issues like which template to choose etc.).
That's a big nothing on a regulatory scale. The fact that this system typically works quite well is quite good proof for me that obviously our choice of candidates can't be so bad, just imagine what would happen if this were implemented for other user groups in our local communities. For me, however, it is far from desirable. I have some ideas with respect to what we should accept and we shouldn't accept, and I've thought about such issues many times and in many mail exchanges, so I'm trying to pass these ideas on to new volunteers if they ask for a second opinion. Many others do the same, and I assume this is also true for other language-versions of permissions. But our ideas might differ, and this creates huge problems. One of it is deeply-rooted in the organization of permissions. Because French people want to email us in French and German people in German, there are different queues for these languages, such as permissions-fr and permissions-de. They have grown and continue to grow out of the associated communities on Wikipedia. A few years ago, a new type of queues was created for Commons-related issues, namely permissions-commons-fr etc. There's essentially no difference between these. People regularly send Commons-related issues to the former type, and everyone with access to the former type will also have access to the latter type and vice versa. (This also makes me wonder how AFBorchert wants to separate here. Also remember that images on, say, dewiki with an "OTRS tag" will regularly be moved to Commons at some point anyway.) This makes it inevitable that not only may different Wikipedias have different standards for their permissions queues, but also will there be different standards within one single project: Commons. (Btw, this is not to say that heterogenity only exists between different language groups. In my perceptions, he de group appears to be quite homogenous in conduct, but I do not think this is representative.)
Anyway, back to Commons. The implications of this heterogenity are huge and manyfold. Imagine you forward a permission statement from a famous politican to permissions-commons. It all works fine, and you'll get a reply that an OTRS tag was added to the image page. You send another statement the next day, but suddenly things work out quite differently. The volunteer dealing with your latest email has quite a different idea of how such cases should be dealt with and goes on to send an email to the politician asking for direct confirmation. Later, you receive an email that everything worked out fine (if it hadn't, you would not have been notified). Next day, you send a similar statement and are told that direct verification is necessary and that you yourself should get in touch with the licensor to make her comply with this procedure. On another day, you forward yet another release of exactly the same type, to which you don't receive a reply at all. You wonder what has happend with it and ask again. It turns out that you image has been tagged already but that the volunteer just doesn't reply if a permission statement was accepted. One day later, you're just fed up with this system and ask on this noticeboard what exactly you should do. And one of us comes across and as we plough through all the tickets you've created in the past week, our only response is that every single volunteer dealt with your email in a regular way, that no mistake has been made by anyone and that, in the absence of any common policy, we also can't tell you how the next volunteer will respond to you (if at all).
While this story is of course a bit of an exaggeration, similar stuff happens all the time. And it is, if you will, the mother of all those problems discussed here. What if we agree in this discussion that volunteers should do this or should do that? That won't change the structural deficits of the whole thing. What you can do is to establish quasi-standards, as the workshops and some other factors do it with permissions-de. You can be pretty confident these days that if you forward a statement of permission to permission-de, it will not be accepted. But you could just go on and send it to permissions-commons, and you will often find that what used to be a big problem in one place suddenly isn't a problem at all in another (sometimes you'll also find the contrary). Or you'll find that what used to be big problem with one specific agent isn't a problem when another agent takes over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's possible that you'll always get the same reply. It's also not desirable that we introduce a 100-page long rule book on how exactly certain situations should be dealt with. But that's not what I mean. My point is that there should be some common sense: Do we believe everything regardless of the email address used or should we in some way attempt to get direct confirmation? Do we send a confirmation email to people if everything is ok? Should it matter in any way if the person behind the email address is identifiable and should we attempt to get permission from an official address? These are important questions of very general relevance and there should be consensus among all volunteers with access to any permissions queues.
I understand that some people here wish to make the Commons community part of the selection process of new volunteers. But I believe that this is not a solution to the issue raised here. And one final thought: Imagine you gain the impression that I accepted many permission emails that you think I should have looked into more closely. What should you make of this? Can you really conclude from that that I should not have access to permissions? I think that would be wrong. How "deep you dig" is not a personal characteristic or a qualification that you have or have not acquired over time. It's not something like "communicative skill" or "understanding of copyright law." It's just the reflection of some personal assessment of what OTRS should do. This makes things much easier because the question gets reduced to whether or not I am ready to change the way I deal with tickets. And that exactly is the point of universal guidelines. —Pill (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Very useful posting indeed - thanks. I need to read it properly however one thing that does come over to me is that I wonder how much folk here who are not on OTRS actually know/understand about it and addressing that is something that might help all concerned. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, well worth reading. And I agree that OTRS should have written procedures for what is sufficient evidence of permission and for what should be considered reasonable inquiry. This will also make it easier for volunteers to say: "I am sorry, but according to my guidelines this is not acceptable on Commons." /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 13:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What Pieter Kuiper said. Rd232 (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we need a more thorough writeup of good OTRS practice. This was also one of my suggestions above. My main point is that OTRS is not an activity which can work independently from the community at Commons. It is important that those interested who are not themselves OTRS members get an idea how OTRS tickets are processed and how reliable they are. It is similarly important to see how processes can be improved and which expectations the community has in regard to rigour in OTRS cases. And as OTRS members from a wide range of countries are fortunately working for Commons, it would also be helpful to collaborate more intensively in establishing good standards. As Pill and others have pointed out, some chapters are organizing meetings, trainings and channels of communication. However, OTRS members from other areas fall short of this kind of support. At Commons we have the greatest need for standardisation in regard to permission tickets and hence we should do this in our own interest. --AFBorchert (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Totally agree - and these guidelines should be public. Actually, I'm not really clear why OTRS tickets can't be at least semi-public. For instance, why couldn't {{PermissionOTRS}} give some details of the ticket? Name of the OTRS submitter, the organisation they're acting for (if any) and domain of the email address would ordinarily be OK, and helpful especially for those without OTRS access (but also those with, in giving an at-a-glance understanding of the ticket). Optional "details" would also help. Of course, this would be more work, and OTRS is backlogged anyway, but in principle, wouldn't it be good? Rd232 (talk) 20:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Next steps

Two things. I'd like to point out some somewhat related discussions on improving OTRS, archived here. And I'd like to suggest that perhaps the general topic of "is OTRS fit for purpose" would be a good candidate for a standalone RFC. This particular discussion has already got a bit confused, not least by the subsection on one particular user's OTRS tickets, when the issues are much more general. Rd232 (talk) 11:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes - I did say I'd hijacked it and while rfc doesn't tend to work on Commons this is probably too important to leave as a thread. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I suggest the whole of this section is moved to be the background of a sub-page RFC with an additional short summary of the issues raised so far. I have no problem with my past OTRS tickets for Commons files being further scrutinized as examples to illustrate policy forming discussion, particularly if they are flawed in illustrative ways. I was another OTRS volunteer that received no formal training or a recognized peer review process to support tickets I found difficult. It should be kept in mind that improvements here may be wider than just Wikimedia Commons OTRS practices and we may consider shifting/splitting those discussions to :meta as necessary. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

RFC - OTRS 2012

I've created Commons:Requests for comment/OTRS 2012. I think it best if users contribute their views there again, copying and pasting if necessary, rather than someone attempting to move everything. Rd232 (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/Archive 18

Ideas to help reduce OTRS backlogs

File:VIA6506calg1982.jpg,File:CDNbighill1986.jpg and File:VIA6569-890917 Tr71 Trillum, London, Ont 3 FP7A.JPG

fake news & letter in your website

User:Wvk

Could somebody check the status for permissions

File:John Stewart Bell (physicist).jpg : OTRS ticket check out

Ticket:2011010710008341 (German)

Golden Rice Image

Check an existing ticket, please

File:Noah Mills.jpg

File:Star Academy Winner 2008.jpg, File:Nader Guirat Crimea Music Fest.jpg, File:OxyMore.jpg

Review of livius.org permissions: #2006112210022386 #2007022010005941

Long exchange of e-mails and pending request

I`m worried about the picture((

Images copyright information (Jane Reumert)

Not again!

File:Betsy Foxman00.jpg

Ticket number #2011030410006577

Whether photographs are of a certain model, or not

Images copyright information (Orchidee3)

Cinefundas OTRS

Check a strange ticket please

File:Duvalier.jpg source/author

Polish ticket (skijumping.pl)

Russian language picture File:T-killah 2.jpg

Another 2 files

File:Heemskerck, WEF van 1868.jpg

Two permissions

Around the Rings permission

Confirmation request for http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oakley_sunglasses.jpg

Ticket #2011122010020021

NZ Labour Party photos

OTRS for File:Edinboro logo.png

Category:Nancy Kwan and File:Lee C. Bollinger awarding the 2003 Pulitzer Prize to Jeffrey Eugenides.jpg

Three files needing verification

Abdulhadi Alkhawaja.jpg

Is OTRS really "fit for purpose"?

Request for Comment on tickets by agent Fæ

Some lengthy thoughts ...

Next steps

RFC - OTRS 2012

Navigation menu

Search