Commons talk:Welcome to Commons brochure/discussion of initial text

What is not allowed on Commons

Please add the need for proving that it was published under a free license.

[...] by releasing it under a free license. This must be either confirmed by sending an e-Mail to the Wikimedia Support team or providing a link to the source where it is published under this license and can be confirmed.

Thank you -- Rillke^(q?) 16:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather mention only the case in which the work is available on the web with a suitable license, and say that the source must be linked. (This section needs to be clearly connected with "Finding free photos" – which by the way, weirdly enough, doesn't seem to consider that Commons is one of the sources for those search engines.) OTRS is advanced usage. --Nemo 16:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd be ok with this. -- Rillke^(q?) 16:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I noted the source linking requirement in this section, and rearranged some of the content so that the 'finding free photos' section is nearby. (It's noted elsewhere, but it's worth repeating.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

File formats

.djvu is missing and it would be great if you could distinguish between photos and graphics:

• photos: JPEG/jpg
• graphics: SVG or PNG
• animations: GIF

Thank you -- Rillke^(q?) 16:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I left off .djvu (and .tiff) intentionally, as those are formats that won't generally be relevant to the sort of newcomer this brochure is intended for. Separating it into photos / graphics / animation is a good idea (with SVG added to animations as well).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In practice, SVG animations are not particularly useful on Commons, because the Mediawiki software converts it to a static PNG anyway; see Help:SVG#Animation. —LX (talk, contribs) 17:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Good point (although hopefully sooner or later that will change, but we can edit the brochure later on if it does).--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

free license - A copyright license

To explain the term you're assuming knowledge of half of it. Don't assume that people know what a license is; they'll hardly know what copyright is. --Nemo 16:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I added some explanation.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I clarified that they're public licenses. However, now the section What is a free license? duplicates most of the glossary content: "copyright" and "copyrighy license" bullets, definition of "free". --Nemo 10:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I think (not public) "copyright license" is a useful thing to have in the glossary, with the explanation of public licenses as part of the definition of free license. The intermediate category of public licenses (some unfree, some free) seems like unnecessary detail for this. I also think that mentioning the fact that there are requirements that come with the use of Commons media in the introduction is important. Many people will only read the intro.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, some concepts may be worth repeating many times; and yes, the "everyone in the world" part is not so necessary; I mainly didn't like the word "permission", that most people read in the old-fashioned copyright way "I've already authorised you, what else do you want from me?!". --Nemo 18:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Other free licenses

Seems not so useful. It would be more useful to explain how to identify public domain works and how to tag them, for instance the PDM. --Nemo 16:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It looks like aside from GFDL (which is almost all multi-licensed and is the work of the uploader), the most popular non-standard licenses on Commons have just tens of thousands of files. So these are edge cases; I've removed the bit about them.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Is it public domain?

At this point in the brochure, it would be more useful to explain that "public domain" doesn't mean "I found it in a public place/website where everyone can take it" and similar common myths. --Nemo 16:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Added a whole section about this, as the copyright myths aren't limited to public domain issues.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

NC

Most important topic to mention, at least an order of magnitudes more important than "Other free licenses" and "Is it public domain?" for a brochure: why NC is bad[1] (and commercial is not). If you manage to summarise this in a brochure-able format, you'll be able to say that you made a great service to the Community and the Commons. --Nemo 16:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

An order of magnitude more important than "Is it public domain?"? Given that Commons doesn't allow you to choose NC anyway, but there are lots of ways to upload things you think are PD but really aren't, I think that's a little hyberbolic. But I agree with the basic idea, and I'll take a crack at explaining in very brief form the spirit of free and NC isn't free enough.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Modifying existing Commons photos

Not interesting: too advanced and edge case, especially if compared to categories that are practically mandatory for all uploads if one hopes stuff to be found. Instead, mention the fact that descriptions in all languages are possible and encouraged. --Nemo 16:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I sort of agree about categories, although that's not reflected in the current design of the upload wizard (which hides the category section by default). I'll take another look at the category language and see if it can be strengthened. I'll add something about multilingual descriptions (wording suggestions welcome). I'd be fine with removing the bit about modifying existing Commons photos—it's not that important—but I'm curious to hear some other opinions first.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Consensus on this project is that all files should be categorised, and the fact that the Upload Wizard tries to hide it is indeed a bug. —LX (talk, contribs) 17:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I've reworked the categories stuff, removing the description of them as optional and moving the detailed explanation of them into the 'how to upload section'.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The glossary is key to dispelling common misconceptions

I recently did a major overhaul of Commons:Project scope/Summary, part of our first steps guide and not entirely unrelated to this stuff. In doing so, one of the issues I tried to address was that many of our introductory texts and policies throw around terms like "copyright", "free license" and "public domain" with expectations of prior knowledge that do not match reality. In monitoring new uploads and help forums, it's clear that many contributors come here with misconceptions about these terms, such as:

• "Content without a copyright notice is not protected by copyright"
• "Content from before the Internet existed is too old to be protected by copyright"
• "I own a copy of a photo, therefore I am the copyright holder"
• "The person depicted in a photograph asked me to post it on Wikipedia, so it's in the public domain/covered by some random license"
• "I didn't have to pay to access it, so it's free"
• "I saw an album cover just like this one on Wikipedia, and it said something about 'free use' I think, so this must be free as well"
• "It's been published, so it's in the public domain"

So, in the glossary sidebar, I'd suggest adding an explanation of what "copyright" means, then explain what "license" means, and only after that explain what a "free license" is, as these definitions build on one another. (Then you can shorten the "Free licenses" section a bit.) Defining what the terms don't include can also dispel some of the misunderstandings above.

I realize that some of this may interfere with the desire to keep things short, simple and friendly. However, Commons' problem domain is arguably more complex that Wikipedia's, and infringing someone's copyright can have more severe consequences than injecting biased encyclopædia content. I believe that exposing essential complexity is not a bad thing, because ultimately, empowering users to avoid serious mistakes is the friendly thing to do. In many cases, new users are well-advised not to be bold and instead ask if they're unsure; I'd strongly suggest mentioning Commons:Help desk at least once (though not in the glossary section itself). —LX (talk, contribs) 17:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! This is useful, and I'll work on revising the glossary soon. (Feel free to make edits to that section as well.) I was really shooting from the hip on that section in the first draft.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I've reworked the glossary to hit some of these points. I'm not sure whether a separate "commons misconceptions about copyright" section would be too patronizing. Thoughts?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I added a misconceptions section.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

m:Free knowledge based on Creative Commons licenses

I've copied this very useful brochure to Meta. Relevant part for this Commons brochure, IMHO: Am I ready to act against the commercial use of my content? If not, you should consider not to use the NC module in the first place. --Nemo 12:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)