User:Wnt/Courtesy deletions

Background

All uploads to Commons must comply with out licensing policy. In short, this means that, with very few exceptions, all images must be licensed under a "free" licence, such as the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike licence. In particular, a free licence must be perpetual (non-expiring) and irrevocable. In short, once you release something under a free licence, you can't take it back.

The COM:IDENT policy further requires that when Commons participants photograph persons in private places they must obtain consent.

The COM:COPYRIGHT policy requires that material have a valid license in the country of origin and in the United States.

Upload requirements

Unless the image violates our licensing policy in some manner, or is otherwise illegal in the State of Florida, Commons is under no legal obligation to remove material, but Commons policy is considerably more restrictive.

In some cases photographers may submit material which is legal to display in the United States, but unknown to them it was subject to additional requirements or prohibitions in their own country.

Creator consent

There are a number of plausible scenarios in which the uploader or photographer fails to give meaningful consent for a CC-by-SA license:

• Virus infection
• Third party prank
• Careless configuration of mass upload software
• Mistaken selection of photos
• Embedding of personal information in EXIF data, watermarks, or high-resolution pixels.
• (Controversially) Uploads by minors. According to Geoff Brigham, WMF General Counsel, regarding removal requests by minors, minors can give binding CC-by-SA consent. Even so, we may be more cautious in borderline cases or where personality rights are concerned.

Subject consent

There are also scenarios in which the subject of a photo does not give consent, which range from imprecise communications about the license or manner of publication to outright abuse for purposes of personal humiliation. Another scenario is that an uploader chooses to create an alternate account to submit human photos anonymously (so that COM:IDENT does not apply) but unknown to them there is some way by which the photographic subject can be identified, making the photos subject to the policy.

Evidence of consent

When an uploader, subject, or photographer could make a statement, though untruthful, that would force deletion of content under Commons policy, they clearly actually have the power to have material deleted. Under this circumstance, it is counterproductive to force them to make such a claim simply in order to have this done, because such statements undermine Commons' reputation. These individuals should be able to say openly that they changed their mind when making a request for courtesy deletion, provided that they did not previously make efforts to assure us that the material did have their consent.

While Commons wishes to accommodate mistakes and misunderstandings, its functioning requires that media at some point be considered truly "published" and not revocable at will indefinitely. There are many circumstances in which significant evidence for consent may already have accumulated before an objection is raised, in which case material should be kept:

• The uploader develops a photo in an article, or does further work with the photo. The present practice under common speedy deletion criterion is that the original author or uploader can requests deletion of recently created (<7 days) unused content. Author/uploader requests for deletion of content that is older or in use should instead be filed at the normal Deletion Requests page.

• The photographer and/or subject communicate specific consent by COM:OTRS.

• The photo reaches Commons indirectly via a site that does some verification on its own, such as a reputable publisher.

The amount of information about these items is limited, so decisions for courtesy deletion will tend to work out according to a presumed balance of possibilities, to some degree skewed by issues of the material's actual usefulness and the severity of privacy issues involved.

Deletion requests

Please bear the following in mind when nominating one of your uploads for deletion:

• Be calm and explain why you want it deleted. Please give more detail than "I don't want this here anymore".
• We are not legally required to follow your wishes.
• Deletion does not revoke the licence.
• Even if we delete it, we cannot stop others from reusing it if they found it here under a free licence.

Requests for courtesy deletion will be decided on the following criteria:

• Is the file freely licensed?

  If no, it will be deleted as a copyright violation.

• Is the file within our project scope?

  If no, it will be deleted as being outside our scope.

• How long ago was the file uploaded?

  The longer ago the file was uploaded, the less likely deletion.

• Is the file something we have lots of, or something that is pretty much irreplaceable?

  We are more likely to delete an image of the Eiffel Tower, which is easily replaced, than of a newsworthy event. You may be able to help by uploading a version of a photo that you are sure is acceptable to replace the one you want deleted.

• How good is the quality of the file?

  We are more likely to delete low quality images.

• Is the file in (non-trivial) use on other Wikimedia projects?

  Each legitimate use of a file in WMF projects reduces the likelihood of deletion.