Commons talk:Project scope/Archive 3

Mass upload of self promotional pictures

What about pictures about a person or institution where each single picture may be considered to be within scope, but by the sheer mass the entirety of the images is clearly self-promotional? Specifically, I'm talking about the Category:Mason Ewing. More than 100 pictures in this category and its subcategories, showing this user at all possible occasions, or his drawings. In the past, I have registered the VRT release for most of these images. Now there are again three tickets in support for approval, and I have to say, in the meantime I feel abused for self-promotion in my work as a support agent. Any opinions on this?

Pinging @Ewing Mason, to give him the opportunity to comment..

Cheers, Mussklprozz (talk) 09:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree that this user seems to abuse Commons by promoting himself and their company. On the other hand, other famous businessmen/artists and their companies also have hundreds of photos... --P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Seems harmless to me. A marginally notable person, probably bordering on Wikipedia-notable. I think it would be reasonable to ask them not to do a lot more of this, but I don't think what we have is all that excessive. There are probably a few people or organizations at about that level of notability where I've done a couple of dozen photos. - Jmabel ! talk 20:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused and naïve about this. The subject is apparently blind, so I can see perhaps a barrier to working with photos and/or uploading files here. But also seems to have his own account here, and the few photos I spot-checked are licensed with "Own Work". So I don't understand the burden to VRT in this case. Do we not allow most Commons users to upload "Own Work" without constantly hitting VRT? How is this a special case? Elizium23 (talk) 20:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I would also say that perhaps Commons has a systemic problem of scale.

I can see that editors on Wikipedia encyclopedia-based projects generally get involved in improving and expanding articles, the discussions and stuff that go on to collaborate on the projects. It's very interactive and it seems enticing to want to become an administrator in that milieu, so it's likely that a certain percentage of good editors move on to become admins.

However, Commons has a completely different culture, and it's rather isolating. I can easily see plenty of Commons users just sort of interested in shoveling all their free photos onto the website without concern for what others are doing, with no sense of collaboration or community, and those users are unlikely to show any interest in volunteering or adminship.

Commons is a popular place but I've often hit bureaucratic backlogs and delays that indicate a dearth of active admins.

I'm sorry you have to deal with such things. Elizium23 (talk) 20:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

This person has an article in 15 Wikipedias, so IMO it is sufficiently notable to have that number of pictures on Commons. Yann (talk) 21:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Yann, although it should be noted that some of these article are automatic translations by the same user. However, I can't see his notability challenged in any Wikipedia, so he is notable enough to keep the images in spite of his promotion efforts.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

On the side point about his being blind, why would that be any kind of issue? Blind people have great technology for interfacing with computers and the Internet. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Correct, @Ikan Kekek, so if this user owns his own account and is uploading his own work, (although it seemed far more likely to me that photographs are the work of a sighted photographer, rather than a self-timer) why in the world does VRT even need to get involved??? Elizium23 (talk) 22:46, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

There are a few common probabilities here; forgive me for being inaccurate or insensitive to disability:

1. Ewing takes all his own photos by self-timer and transfers copyright to his corporation. Ewing owns his own Commons editor account and uploads his own photos. This is the scenario which is indicated by the metadata they're providing. Commons:Username policy in fact requires that the owner of this account must be the person identified by that name, so presumably, Ewing has provided proof of identity to VRT as well.
2. Ewing is photographed by third parties and they provide the photographs to him, assigning copyright to the corporation, whereby he uploads the photos here and uses COM:VRT to affirm copyright transference. This is not indicated by metadata, because no third-party "authors" are credited.
3. Someone other than Ewing operates his Commons editor account and uploads photos on Ewing's behalf. COM:VRT is invoked as this person is a third party who affirms the proper transference and copyright, and right to upload said photos.

So, IMHO, something's not right here: either Ewing doesn't need VRT and shouldn't be burdening VRT with requests, or Ewing isn't being truthful about authorship/account ownership and we need to figure out why VRT is involved with this, if they doesn't seem to be necessary. Elizium23 (talk) 22:57, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think and didn't suggest that VRT needs to be involved. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:06, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello the whole Wikimedia team, I come here to clarify the situation about the pics I uploaded on the website.

• First at all I begin at the beginning, how these pics have been taken. That’s a photographer under contract with me. Together, we determined I’m the author of the pics because I tell him what I want, the shots, the style, the place. Of course he advices me on the details (exposition balance, etc) but I take the decisions and he pushes on the button. For the whom who don’t know that, I have been a sighted person for a long time before to turn tragically blind. But I wanna precise I have a contract with this photographer and he doesn’t ask the be credited as pic’s author for the above reasons.
• Concerning the uploading, the technology allows the disabled persons a great autonomy. That’s the same, even if some people can help sometime, I can manage a lot of aspects.

As Humanity and Inclusion ambassador, I intend to highlight that us, disabled persons wanna show to the world we can be independent. Make the same things as a sighted one is more reachable than you can believe. About the diffusion of the pics themselves on Wikimedia:

• Fortunately, I’m far from upload all the pics I have. I don’t consider Wikimedia as a ad platform because if I wanna get ad with my pics, first at all I’ll use the provided platforms. The few I have on have been taken by photographers I don’t know.
• Even if some ones can be surprised, I don’t flout about the Wikimedia Foundation’s community and collaborative minds. Due to my blindness, I cannot code articles, my vocal synthesis are limited. But I suggested articles to volunteers about persons marking the culture, like artists, athletes, politicians from Africa and Europe.

If I break the rules of Wikimedia, please apologize me but that’s not deliberately al all. On the other hand, I read your comments and I understand I upload so much. It seems more relevant to upload only the most important of them. Plus, I intend to highlight that the moderators of Wikimedia asked me this a day and I replied them. Finally I also wanna precise that if I put my own name of Wikimedia, that’s for transparency. For me, it seemed unwelcome to hide myself behind a pseudo/false account. I hope I replied to all your questions.--Ewingmason (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the legal intricacies of this, and this talk page is the wrong forum for hashing this all out, but if I understand correctly, this is not how Wikimedia Commons defines authorship of a photograph, but it definitely does explain why VRT is perpetually involved for every upload. Thank you for explaining. Elizium23 (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)