User talk:Fir0002/Archive
Hello - thank you for providing images to the wikimedia commons. Please keep in mind that images uploaded to the commons should be useful to all users of wikimedia projects - this is possible only if the images can be found by other people. To allow others to find the images you uploaded here, the images should be in some place that can be found by navigating the category structure. This means that you should either place the images on topic pages (galleries), or put the images directly into a category, or do both. Which of those possibilities is preferred is however a matter of debate, see here.
The important point is that the images should be placed in the general structure somewhere. There is a large number of completely unsorted images on the commons right now, see Commons:Really unused. If you would like to help to place some of those images where they can be found, please do! Thank you. -- Duesentrieb 11:00, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
- Err, what is FPC? Generally, all images should be findable by topic - if that's not tha case it's a Bad Thing (tm) and should be changed. For your images of animals for instance, have a look at the structure of Category:Animalia - I'm not a biologist, but to find the right place to put those, I usually go to the wikipedia-article about the species, look for the latin name and try to find a page/category on the commons with that name. If it's not there, I move up in the taxonomy until I find something, then I place the image in the category/on the page.
- If you have more questions, please ask, i'm happy to help. You can also find me on IRC at #commons.wikimedia and a few other channels. Thanks for contributing! -- Duesentrieb 13:18, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
- A few examples: I have placed Image:Strucla sweet bread.jpg in the Bread gallery, and have added Image:Frost on ground.jpg to Category:Frost and Category:Soil. Note that there is no consensus about putting images into categories directly - If a find a gallery page that seems appropriate, I put the image there; otherwise, I put it into the category. But you can also just create gallery pages if you feel this is better. -- Duesentrieb 13:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
- Sadly, you are right about the featured picture candidates. This is pretty bad, especially because this images don't show up as orphans on the automatic listings. I have put up a comment about this on the talk page of the condidates. I hope I can get people to categorize the good images, especially. -- Duesentrieb 11:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Nice pictures
[edit]Wow, you've taken some pretty good pictures. Thanks for uploading them here! Dori | Talk 04:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
watz up i like yall pic can u sin me some on my email address at angelasmith11y@
hoo.com
Prizes
[edit]Hi, Wikimania was held early august in Frankfurt. It was a one-time competition. Do not forget to propose some of your images next year :-) Anthere 07:03, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Feather image
[edit]The orginal feather image is to be found in the Commons : Image:Green parrot feather.jpg . You're quite welcome to improve my dabblings. At the moment I just don't have the time. I have so much to do simultaneously that it would probably take a couple of weeks before I can give a go at it. JoJan 08:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi, your image is missing a licence/source specification. Could you add this information onto ? Thanks, Mattes 16:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Unknown moths
[edit]Hi Fir0002, which was the location for these images:
Maybe its possible to find out the species with this information. Could you leave me a short message under my german account? Greetings, de:Benutzer_Diskussion:olei.
Hello, I've uploaded a barrel-distortion-correct version of your Image:West face of melb war memorial02.jpg image. Let me know what you think. ~MDD4696 (talk • contribs) 02:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- Ooops, I meant to link you to the picture (fixed it now). I didn't use anything special, just Paint Shop Pro 7. Barrel distortion correction is not very complicated for image programs to do (it's just mathematical operations). It does lower the resolution a bit though. I used this page as a guide, since I had never done it before. It's not perfect, but I'm glad you like the results! ~MDD4696 (talk • contribs) 01:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Prime Minister paintings
[edit]Any of the paintings of recent prime Ministers are copyrighted to the artist (life + 50 years). You can only use them under fair use, and as such they probably shouldn't be on the commons.--nixie 07:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how you get things deleted on commons, you could upload the images that are being used in articles to Wikipedia and tag them with {{Fairusein}}.--nixie 12:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I have no image editing skills at all. :) pfctdayelise 04:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Please help others to find your images!
[edit]Hello - thank you for providing images to the wikimedia commons. Please keep in mind that images uploaded to the commons should be useful to all users of wikimedia projects - this is possible only if the images can be found by other people. To allow others to find the images you uploaded here, the images should be in some place that can be found by navigating the category structure. This means that you should either place the images on topic pages (galleries) or put the images directly into a category, or do both. To find good categories for your images, the CommonsSense tool may help.
The important point is that the images should be placed in the general structure somewhere. There is a large number of completely unsorted images on the commons right now. If you would like to help to place some of those images where they can be found, please do! Thank you. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 02:35, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, hm, I just noticed I told you this before... well, hopefully, you'll now be able to categorize your images with the help of CommonsSense - the CategoryTree may also be useful. You can also have a look at the list of all your uncategorized images... btw, you are currently Nr. 9 on the hit list of messy users, including bots ;)
I hope you find time to categorize your images soon. As you contribute a lot of really very good pictures, it would be a shame if the would be lost to the community. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 02:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
- I would like as an Australian editor to add my plea to this as well. I know it can be time consuming categorising pictures as well as uploading them, but it is important. Your photos of Narooma for example are not really illustrative enough to stay on the wikipedia article. I appreciate you were there at night, but that doesn't help the reader. However, to put in a commons link I would have to categorise them. I am sorry but I am not going to. I will spend the time uploading images I took in the day time instead. I hope you understand.--AYArktos 07:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Date and Location...
[edit]...are very valuable information for any image especially for life forms. It would be great if you would add these information to all of your images. I know: this is a lot of work but if you not shure about the species maybe its possible for experts to determine it and its possible to exclude similar species. :-) Many greetings, --Olei 22:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
You know, if you actually voted for your own images, this would very likely be featured... (min 5 support votes needed). pfctdayelise 14:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, have Featured--Shizhao 09:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Invitation
[edit]Hi Fir0002,
You may be interested in Commons:WikiProject Tree of Life
TeunSpaans 20:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Image:Strohräder.jpg
[edit]I'm not even sure what the difference is. Here, I defer to your judgment. Please, edit the image description page any way you see fit. Be bold. Arj 21:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Admin
[edit]You are now an admin on Commons. Congratulations! villy ♦✎ 21:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi! Your photo is not Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium). Actually it is Milk thistle (Silybum marianum). --Franz Xaver 08:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
If this image is redundant (which it does appear to be), I guess seeing as you're an admin you can delete it yourself now, no? :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
- And this one? Image:100 6850.jpg pfctdayelise (translate?) 11:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Misty Morning
[edit]Misty Morning is very pretty, but we agree that it looks fake!
Where was it taken, specifically?
(njaard on Wikipedia)
- Stunning! You should update its description with its location information. (wp:njaard) 86.4.31.94 00:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Unclassified Acacia
[edit]Hi! Your photos in Acacia#Unclassified images of Acacia are missing additional information, which could be very helpful for species identification. Where did you take this photos? To give an exact location would be best, but province/county/district should be sufficient. Were these trees/shrubs planted or did they grow wild? The date, when you took the photo, is also important, as some species are flowering only during a short period. There are about 1000 species of Acacia in Australia, many of them occurring only in a restricted area. So, knowing the location and date would reduce the list of species that have to be checked.
This is a general point, that your plant photos are missing these informations. Please, could you provide these information, at least with future uploads and for photos now categorised in Category:Unidentified plants or Category:Unknown flowers? Regards --Franz Xaver 13:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Cleaning up?
[edit]Hi!
In case you were "cleaning up" on your uploads, here's a gallery of images of yours which have been marked as redundant:
If you plan on deleting the above, please verify first that they're actually orphaned using the tool linked from the "redundant"-box and that the image they're redundant to is indeed the same. Cheers! —Gabbe 06:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
- Hi, I've been clearing up the duplicates category, which included a number of these images. However, I noted that you did not replace the use of the images on the en Help Desk when you deleted them, could you remember to do that in future? :) --Nilfanion 18:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
wikimania media contest
[edit]Hi Fir,
You can see a list of media contest prizes here : Commons:Wikimania_Media_Competition_2005/Prizes I know you wanted a t-shirt; I think that can be arranged instead if this is still your preference. If you could send me your address and shirt-size... Cheers, +sj + 21:37, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
ping
[edit]Ping
[edit]See my talk page. Again.
An invitation
[edit]I noticed that you have reviewed FP pictures and are asking if you could assist in the developement of Commons:Quality Images. and associated pages Commons:Quality images candidates ; Commons:Quality images guidelines thankyou Gnangarra 14:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Commons-l subscription
[edit]Hello Fir0002,
as per Commons talk:Administrators, I am asking all admins to subscribe to commons-l, a mailing list for Wikimedia Commons policy and project discussion. Since many admins are only on Commons infrequently, this is a good way to alert people about important happenings. The mailing list is nominally multilingual, but predominantly English.
If you are already subscribed to commons-l, I apologize for bothering you, and you are free to ignore this message. If you don't want to use your regular e-mail account, feel free to leave me a message, and I can send you a GMail invite. Traffic on the mailing list is relatively low, and we do not expect admins to read all messages to the list, but it would be nice if you could check on it at least every few weeks. Thanks for your time,--Eloquence 23:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Image copyright
[edit]Sorry that I never responded to your last question.. seems I missed it. Yes, of course, I think your new template looks fine. I also thought you might find this license interesting: {{Cc-by-nc-sa-2.0-dual}}. I am considering using it for my works in the future. --Gmaxwell 19:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:MG 9563.jpg
[edit]
Thanks for uploading Image:MG 9563.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{Cc-by-sa-2.5}} to release it under the Creative Commons or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. gildemax 20:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Fir0002!
Thanks for your interest in my photo. I took it in the evening. I don't remember the exact time, but it must have been around 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening. It was the first (and only) time I visited Kuala Lumpur. After arriving from Melaka in the late afternoon, I was really anxious to see the Petronas Towers, and I went straight there after I found a place to stay. It was a clear evening and the towers looked really impressive. I think I took the picture from a roundabout very close to the Towers, with my dear old Nikon FM2 camera. After my trip in Asia, I came back to England, and I had the film developed at a Boots shop, where they also gave me digital copies of my photos. The current picture is the result of the digitising process done by Boots. I suppose I could have got better quality by scanning it myself, but I never bothered to do it. Anyway, the picture has been very popular in English wikipedia, where it was even featured, which made me very happy :) AngelRiesgo 11:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
QI
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Your image has been reviewed and promoted
Congratulations! Dawn over field with hay bales panorama.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
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Admin news
[edit]Hello,
If you consent for statistics to be published about your actions as an administrator, please sign here: Commons:Administrator permission for statistics. (I expect that most people will not have a problem with it unless you are especially concerned with privacy.)
Also, please be aware that we now have a Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. Please put it on your watchlist, if you haven't already!
cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Admin news
[edit]Hello,
If you consent for statistics to be published about your actions as an administrator, please sign here: Commons:Administrator permission for statistics. (I expect that most people will not have a problem with it unless you are especially concerned with privacy.)
Also, please be aware that we now have a Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. Please put it on your watchlist, if you haven't already!
cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC) P.S.: Pardon if this is a repeat (bot debugging...)
EXIF info
[edit]Hi I noticed that most of your images don't have exif info. Do you strip it out during post processing? It would be nice if you could preserve it (I try to learn from the various settings). There are programs that can export and import the info (like http://www.exiv2.org). Dori | Talk 20:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
- Don't worry about the panorama, sorry I took your time, and good luck with the exams! Regarding the Exif info I'd still recommend you use something like exiv2 to keep the info around. What I do is run
exiv2 ex *.cr2
to extract the info at the onset, then keep the filenames the same while saving (for JPEGs), and runexiv2 im *.jpg
at the end to import them. Pretty easy and it preserves the info. As an added step you could runexiv2 -c "Copyrighted by me, contact me here" *.jpg
to add a string to all the images. Regards, Dori | Talk 07:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Quality Image
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Your image has been reviewed and promoted
Congratulations! Seagull on sale pier.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
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-- Alvesgaspar 22:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. I just wanted to tell you how beautiful this image was. Congratulations! guillom 11:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
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Thanks for uploading Image:Stephanie smith human cannonball - melbourne show 2005.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}} to release it under the Creative Commons or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. gildemax 16:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
please link images
[edit]Tip: Categorizing images
[edit]
Thanks a lot for contributing to the Wikimedia Commons! Here's a tip to make your uploads more useful: Why not add some categories to describe them? This will help more people to find and use them.
Here's how:
1) If you're using the UploadWizard, you can add categories to each file when you describe it. Just click "more options" for the file and add the categories which make sense:
2) You can also pick the file from your list of uploads, edit the file description page, and manually add the category code at the end of the page.
[[Category:Category name]]
For example, if you are uploading a diagram showing the orbits of comets, you add the following code:
[[Category:Astronomical diagrams]]
[[Category:Comets]]
This will make the diagram show up in the categories "Astronomical diagrams" and "Comets".
When picking categories, try to choose a specific category ("Astronomical diagrams") over a generic one ("Illustrations").
Thanks again for your uploads! More information about categorization can be found in Commons:Categories, and don't hesitate to leave a note on the help desk.--gildemax 16:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
FP promotion
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★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Giraffe08 - melbourne zoo.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Giraffe08 - melbourne zoo.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 11:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
FP promotion
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★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Hoverflies mating midair.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Hoverflies mating midair.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 14:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Please add a note on the locality, because a determination isn't possible without any information. Thanks.--Dysmachus 14:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
FP promotion
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★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Calliphora augur whitebackground.jpg, which was nominated by norro at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Calliphora augur whitebackground.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 16:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal: Picture of the Year and Picture of the Month contests
[edit]I have posted a new proposal on Commons talk:Featured picture candidates regarding the creation of FP-related contests and would like your feedback on the idea. This message is being sent to some of the regular contributors to Commons:Featured picture candidates. Alvesgaspar 16:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Signature
[edit]I noticed you seem to have reinserted your weblink into your signature, and if I recall correctly on en.WP at least this was considered as spam (it is a way to increase the google score of your site after all). Anyways, your decission. I was just wondering if as as an admin such an example should be set, or is the policy different on commons? Just say none of your bussiness and its fine by me... --Dschwen 23:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
- Nah, I never removed my weblink from my sig - I put it on my commons sig same time as my en sig. Not sure what the policy is on commons - haven't seen anything on it. If it's a big problem I can remove it, but as it is (especially since beyond uploading I'm not very active on commons and my signature doesn't appear often) I don't really see it as something that needs to be removed. Thanks anyway --Fir0002 www 07:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
POTY election implementation
[edit]Some help in needed to organize the POTY election. Please check the conclusions of the discussion in Commons talk:Featured picture candidates. What do you think of doing the election in the period 15-31 January? - Alvesgaspar 14:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
FP promotion
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★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Wild shortbeak echidna.jpg, which was nominated by Lycaon at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Wild shortbeak echidna.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 19:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
And what about the license ? WεFt 13:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
QI discussion
[edit]There is an important discussion going on here which might result in a snowball with unwanted results. Although I agree that the actual QI guidelines should be tuned up, I can't support a considerable degrading of the existing criteria, towards some "poor man's QI" model. - Alvesgaspar 14:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
FPpromotion
[edit]![]() |
★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Pardalotus with nesting material.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Pardalotus with nesting material.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Austrolestes cingulatus03.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Austrolestes cingulatus03.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 23:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Comet McNaught metadata
[edit]Hi I really like your picture Image:Comet P1 McNaught02 - 23-01-07.jpg. Metadata for the picture isn't showing. Not sure why not. Can you please add some info about exposure time, f number, lens focal length? For example, as per Image:Henty_Bendigo_Bank_former_Bank_NSW.jpg#metadata. Thanks --Golden Wattle 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
POTY 2006 competition
[edit]The arrangements for the Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition are almost complete, and voting will take place between 1st and 28th Feb. All the featured pictures promoted last year are automatically nominated. As the creator of one or more images nominated for the election we invite you to participate in the event. Alvesgaspar 19:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
FP promotion
[edit]![]() |
★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg, which was nominated by MichaelMaggs at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Young grasshopper on grass stalk03.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 15:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
There are now three versions of this image on commons, my original (three versions), your edit and another one. Could you possibly sort it out so that there's only one? Thanks. Gsl 07:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
POTY vote
[edit]One of the rules that was decided on for the competition was that self-votes wouldn't be allowed. So as of this time, your vote has been struck. If you vote just for images that you aren't connected to, that vote will be counted. I'm not entirely sure that these were the best possible rules; I'm just relaying them to you. Sorry, — coelacan — 09:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
POTY 2006 voting
[edit]Your vote at POTY 2006 was not accepted (no self votes, please!...). You are welcome to repeat the voting. Alvesgaspar 18:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry! Slipped my mind! --Fir0002 www 02:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- Next you want to support your own images, just move the results gallery to your userpage and place it next to a list of your images with numbers by them. Apparently thats just fine with the rules. --Gmaxwell 03:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- Did I miss something here? What are you on about Gmaxwell? --Fir0002 www 05:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- Not a constructive comment, plus you are assuming bad faith. Anyway, the issue seems to have been fixed. --Dschwen 10:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- Next you want to support your own images, just move the results gallery to your userpage and place it next to a list of your images with numbers by them. Apparently thats just fine with the rules. --Gmaxwell 03:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry! Slipped my mind! --Fir0002 www 02:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
POTY 2006 - oops!
[edit]When you came to modify your vote you also deleted more than 30 entries from other voters ([1]. Please be careful! - Alvesgaspar 10:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- Whoops! Dunno how that happened as I've uninstalled my Google toolbar. So yeah, sorry about that! --Fir0002 www 05:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Image deletion warning | Image:Australian infantry small box respirators Ypres 1917 edit.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. |
--Gsl 21:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
POTY 2006 - Final
[edit]Your image has been chosen as one of the 11 finalists of the POTY 2006 competition. Congratulations! Please check Commons:Picture of the Year/2006 - Alvesgaspar 00:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to say congrats. You take many many fine pictures and are a definite boon to Wikipedia. Thank you! - Zepheus 17:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/POTY_barnstar_3.svg/100px-POTY_barnstar_3.svg.png)
An image you created, Hoverflies mating in midair has been selected by the Wikimedia Community as being third in the Picture of the Year 2006 competition. Congratulations! -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
- WOW! That's awesome! --Fir0002 www 01:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Image deletion warning | Classical spectacular has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. |
A.J. 15:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Mamatus
[edit]Where, if I may ask, did you take the wonderful picture of Image:Mammatus cloud panorama.jpg?? 16:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
- Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia --Fir0002 www 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Wikinews Photo
[edit]Hey!
Can you take a quick look at User:Symode09/Wikinews, if you can help, I would really appreciate it
Symode09 16:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
This message has been sent to around 25 people
Image:Peacock portrait - melbourne zoo.jpg shows hybrid
[edit]I found out that the image is actually of a hybrid between the Indian Peafowl and the Green Peafowl. E-mail from Melbourne Zoo:
"Dear Frank, You are correct we do have a Hybrid blue and green Peafowl at Melbourne Zoo as shown in the photo in Wikimedia. Unfortunaltely in Australia with most bird importations banned for some years now, we have a very compromised Green Peafowl strain. The bird in question is a phase out for the Zoo but is currently used in our Asian Precinct to help get our conservation and educational messages across. When we are able to secure pure Green Peafowl we be endevouring to do so. Regards
Peter Courtney (BSc Hons) Divisional Curator Native Fauna Melbourne Zoo PO Box 74, Parkville Victoria, Australia 3052 Tel. (03) 92859407 Fax. (03) 92859360 Mob. 0400 906 593 pcourtney@zoo.org.au" Frankyboy5 14:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:Wild shortbeak echidna walking.jpg
[edit]
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Thanks for uploading Image:Wild shortbeak echidna walking.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}} to release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. ← Körnerbrötchen - @ 09:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Sigma 150 (answer)
[edit]I love it very much indeed and actually some of your own pictures with the Sigma confirmed my decision to buy it. Thank you for this. --Luc Viatour 07:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:Wild_shortbeak_echidna_in_protective_ball.jpg
[edit]
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Thanks for uploading Image:Wild_shortbeak_echidna_in_protective_ball.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}} to release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. odder 17:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Swifts Creek bushfire photo nomination
[edit]Just thought you'd like to know that I've proposed that this photo become a Featured Picture. The vote is here. Arria Belli | parlami 19:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
FP Promotion
[edit]![]() |
★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Dawn over swifts creek panorama edit.jpg, which was nominated by Arad at Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Dawn over swifts creek panorama edit.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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--Simonizer 22:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I use the canon 100mm macro lens. I do see you have some excellent snaps too :). Thanks for your comments.
Commons:Featured_pictures_candidates vs Commons:Featured_picture_candidates
[edit]You appear to be creating FP nominations as sub-pages of Commons:Featured_pictures_candidates rather than Commons:Featured_picture_candidates, perhaps you are using an old template. This has the annoying side effect that the back link to the featured picture candidate main page doesn't operate correctly from your entries. --Tony Wills 10:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Meet our photographers
[edit]A discussion is going here about the possibility of creating a page named “Meet our Photographers”, where our best creators would be represented. Being one of them, you might be interested in participating. Regards, Alvesgaspar 22:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
As a Wikimedian with at least 10 Featured Pictures to your name, you are cordially invited to add a profile of youself and your work to the newly-created Commons:Meet our photographers page. --MichaelMaggs 14:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
FP delist nom
[edit]Hey Fir, just a heads up, your aurora australis FP was just nominated for delisting Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/removal/Image:Aurora_australis_panorama.jpg. You might want to comment on that... --Dschwen 20:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Response
[edit]See my response. -- Ram-Man 16:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
FP promotion
[edit]![]() |
★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★
The image Image:Honeybee landing on milkthistle02.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Honeybee landing on milkthistle02.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so. |
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Alvesgaspar 08:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment
[edit]Hello Fir, I'm really glad you like my work. I've just followed your advice to nominate my Image:Lamas in the sunset San Pedro de Atacama Chile Luca Galuzzi 2006.jpg. Thank you. --LucaG 21:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
That image is very nice.. thanks for sharing it! --Alnokta 13:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:Chapel_on_island_of_ensay.jpg
[edit]
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Thanks for uploading Image:Chapel_on_island_of_ensay.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}} to release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. Meno25 15:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Administrative notice
[edit]Hi. This message is sent out to you because you are an administrator on Commons, and you made little use (or no use) of the admin tools lately: less than 5 times in the last five months.
Commons has a new policy on admin activity, Commons:Administrators/De-adminship, taken into use on June 13, 2007 (after a poll among users). According to that policy, admins who use their tools infrequently will be asked whether they still need their adminship, and if they do not respond or require them the removal of the tools will be requested.
If you feel you still need your admin tools, please sign at Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section within 30 days from the date this message was sent out. However, if you then don't make 5 admin actions in the following 5 months, you will lose the adminship without any notice.
This is not a comment on the considerable help you have given to the project in the past but reflects the wish of the community to see active administrators and to ensure that possible security breaches are minimized.
Deletion request
[edit]
[[:Images of Fir0002:Template:Delete|{{Images of Fir0002 are improperly licensed. Unless his templates Template:Fir0002 200, Template:Fir0002 20D, Template:Fir0002 17, and Template:Fir0002 150 are moved to userspace and substed in all cases, they and all they tag (all images of Fir0002) should be deleted.}}]]
— Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 01:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry about the above. What the proposed policy asks is simply if you would have any objections to the code in say Template:Fir0002 200 being replaced by that of either User:Lokal Profil/Testmall or User:Lokal Profil/Test which would then be substed. As can be seen from the code of both of these the non-license part of the template can still be reached (and modified) through a template which wouldn't be substed, through this template you can also just as easily find all the images which have been tagged with the substed version of Template:Fir0002 200. If you do agree to this change then I'll sort out what needs to be done with the old images and the only change for you would be writing subst:Fir0002_200 instead of Fir0002_200.
- This is not about distrusting you or believing that you would change your license in a wrongfull way. It's simply about trying to minimise the number of exceptions to the (proposed) policy. /Lokal_Profil 11:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
- Deletion debate has been closed --Tony Wills 08:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
- I think you will be interested in this. --Digon3 talk 14:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to let you know
[edit]that from now on I delete all your messages from my talk page with no reading. please do send me some more that i would have some more to delete. thanks for your cooperation.--Mbz1 13:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)mbz1
Could you please add where this picture was taken? --Anna reg 10:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC) thanks --Anna reg 19:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Hello, and thank your for sharing your files with Commons. There seems to be a problem regarding the description and/or licensing of this particular file. Please remember that all uploads require source, author and license information. Could you please resolve these problems, which are described on the page linked in above? Thank you. Siebrand 00:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
This message was placed by an automated process. Please go to Commons:Help desk if you need help.
Proposal concerning User PH-n templates
[edit]Hi, there is a proposal and vote concerning the {{User PH-0}},...,{{User PH-3}} templates, that you may be interested in. --Tony Wills 10:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Photo location
[edit]Would you be able to provide location and viewing direction details for the top photo of
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/The_great_dividing_range.jpg/220px-The_great_dividing_range.jpg)
. - [[2]]
Featured picture candidates Comments Order
[edit]Please dont reorder comments in a way that we are loosing the sens of it. If you didnt did that intentionnaly just forget this. ;) Acarpentier 21:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Le_Grand_Heron.jpg Featured Candidate
[edit]Since there is no opposition on Fir0002 point of view about the deasaturation background, I've deceided to replace it with the original background version. So you can replace your support in the alternate version since it's the same now. Thanks, ;)
Image deletion warning | Image:Pomegranate.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this image, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. If the file is up for deletion because it has been superseded by a superior derivative of your work, consider the notion that although the file may be deleted, your hard work (which we all greatly appreciate) lives on in the new file. |
66.65.30.2 10:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Hello, and thank your for sharing your files with Commons. There seems to be a problem regarding the description and/or licensing of this particular file. Please remember that all uploads require source, author and license information. Could you please resolve these problems, which are described on the page linked in above? You can edit the description page and change the text. Uploading a new version of the file does not change the description of the file. This page may give you more hints on which information may be missing. Thank you.
This message was added automatically by Filbot, if you need some help about it, ask its master or go to the Commons:Help desk. --Filnik 22:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hello!
Thank you for providing images to the Wikimedia Commons. Please keep in mind that images uploaded to the Commons should be useful to all users of Wikimedia projects. This is possible only if the images can be found by other people.
To allow others to find the images you uploaded here, the images should be in some place that can be found by navigating the category structure. This means that you should put the images into appropriate topic pages, categories, optionally galleries, or both of them (see Commons:Categories). To find good categories for your images, the CommonSense tool may help.
You can find a convenient overview of your uploaded files in this gallery.
The important point is that the images should be placed in the general structure somewhere. There are a large number of completely unsorted images on the Commons right now. If you would like to help to place some of those images where they can be found, please do!
Thank you. 78.48.8.63 10:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Adobe RGB profile
[edit]Hi Peter, nice to hear about you.
You are right, most of my pictures was developed in Abobe RGB colorspace because I used to develop only for print purpose. At first I only resized my pictures and uploaded them to Commons. Now I'm uploading new images in sRGB colorspace (Libya and USA) and I'll re-develop all my images in sRGB from RAW for Commons, but I need a lot of spare time to do that. --LucaG 22:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Detached MuVo photo?
[edit]I noticed that you uploaded Image:Creative muvo TX FM 512mb.jpg. Right now, on English Wikipedia, it's using a copyrighted image to show how the USB module fits into the battery module: en:Image:CreativeMuVoTX.jpg. It'd be nice to replace that image with a free one. There's Image:Usb mp3.jpg, but it only shows the USB module. Also, the angle is really bad and when shrunk, it sort of looks like the module is in fact twice as thick but only as wide as the USB port, instead of being about as think as the port but wider. Unfortunately, I only have a MuVo n200, which is a one-piece system. Since you uploaded the original MuVo pic, I was hoping that you may be able to take a pic with the two modules detached. Thanks! Kelvinc 19:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
- I could try it - but my MuVo has had a fair bit of use since and is a bit scuffed and the screen is slightly cracked. So I don't think it'll come out too well. --Fir0002 www 22:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Commons Guide
[edit]Hello,
Having seen a number of your pictures in QI and FP sections, I was wondering if you would be interested in sharing some of your knowledge and assist in writing of a photography guide for Commons users?
Could you please see this page:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photography_Guide_Project_Alpha
Please consider participating in this. Thank you.
--Thermos 16:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
- Hello,
- Unfortunately the project page was deleted because of lack of media (I suppose). An undeletion request has been filed and I hope to have the page up on later day. In the meanwhile, sorry for inconvenience. I will notify you on the further developments. --Thermos 03:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
- Project page has been restored to commons: namespace --Tony Wills 23:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
POTY2007
[edit]Hi, I'm writing to let you know that an image of yours that become a Commons Featured Picture during 2007 is now part of the 2007 Picture of the Year competition. If you have > 200 edits you are welcome to vote too. Thanks for contributing your valuable work and good luck.--Kushan I.A.K.J 17:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Template
[edit]- I used your Fir0002 20D Template for my User:Digon3/18-55_Lens license template. Hope you don't mind. Thanks. --Digon3 talk 19:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
perhaps the only encyclopedic image
[edit]-- carol 01:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Quality Image Promotion
[edit]![]() |
Your image has been reviewed and promoted
Congratulations! A day panorama - digital art.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
|
Should I apologize that your image went slumming? -- carol 00:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- lol - nah I appreciate your interest in it! :) --Fir0002 www 02:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
That looks a lot better. Thanks. Lycaon 09:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Your template
[edit]Hey Fir0002, just to let you know, I moved your license template to User:Fir0002/200 1.4 since personal licenses/templates belong in the userspace. I hope that's ok. Cheers, - Rocket000 15:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
- Oh... I see you have a lot more there in the template namespace. - Rocket000 15:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, I've moved them all.[3] I hope the names are acceptable. I'll have my bot update the image pages. - Rocket000 15:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:Fire_activity_swifts_creek_2007_edit.jpg
[edit]
![]() |
Thanks for uploading Image:Fire_activity_swifts_creek_2007_edit.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multilicense GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. Nilfanion 15:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Quality Image Promotion
[edit]![]() |
Your image has been reviewed and promoted
Congratulations! Restless flycatcher04.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
|
Lycaon 20:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Please link images
[edit]
Hello Fir0002/Archive!
Thank you for providing images to Wikimedia Commons. Please keep in mind that images uploaded to Commons should be useful to all users of Wikimedia projects. This is possible only if the images can be found by other people.
To allow others to find the images you uploaded here, the images should be in some place that can be found by navigating the category structure. This means that you should put the images into appropriate topic pages, categories, optionally galleries, or both of them (see Commons:Categories). To find good categories for your images, the CommonSense tool may help.
You can find a convenient overview of your uploaded files in this gallery.
The important point is that the images should be placed in the general structure somewhere. There are a large number of completely unsorted images on Commons right now. If you would like to help to place some of those images where they can be found, please do!
Thank you. BotMultichill (talk) 12:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Image Tagging Image:Bartgeier_gypaetus_barbatus_temp.jpg
[edit]
![]() |
Thanks for uploading Image:Bartgeier_gypaetus_barbatus_temp.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the media on Wikimedia Commons (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then you should also specify where you found it, i.e., in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. If the content is a derivative of a copyrighted work, you need to supply the names and a licence of the original authors as well.
If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag, then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then you can use {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multilicense GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have uploaded other media, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find all your uploads using the Gallery tool. Thank you. OsamaK 13:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Olivia Newton John Barnstar
[edit]If such a thing existed, you just earned it. -- carol (talk) 09:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- Except I confused Diana Ross with Olivia. Minus two points for me. -- carol (talk) 09:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- Had it been Olivia and not Diana who sang that song, it would have (I think) been a totally perfect barnstar. Do let me know what image you find to be the "generic automobile" image in that collection.
- There was a folk song that I heard a couple of times at most and I don't know the writer or the singer or the name of the song but the two lines I remember are this "tell me the car and I will tell you the driver" and "Black Ford Econoline, a friend of the devil is a friend of mine". Interesting (to some) would be my quests into the junk yards of Michigan for parts for my van -- different make and model. The vehicles I got my parts from had been in crashes so being at the junk yard made sense but the Ford Econolines that were there were all parked -- no obvious reason for being stopped there. In Michigan we have a saying, and I suggest that you only utter this acronym expansion if you are from Michigan, "Found On Road Dead".... -- carol (talk) 02:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Age of a red river gum tree
[edit]Hello Fir,
I doubt this tree was really 700 years old. See my arguments.
Friendly.
--B.navez (talk) 03:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
How can I remove objects from a image?
[edit]How can I remove objects from a image? David0811 (talk) 22:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Featured Picture template
[edit]Hi there. I thought you might find the following templates interesting.
![]() |
This user took the featured photo [[{{{1}}}]]. |
With this template, you can show which Featured Pictures you have uploaded to Commons.
Alternatively, you can use this template:
![]() |
This user has uploaded featured pictures on Commons. |
Here you can say exactly how many Featured Images you have uploaded to Commons. You simply add the number of uploaded FPs to the template.
I have also created two other templates for Valued and Quality images, which can be found here and here. What do you think? Could it catch on? Elucidate (talk) 14:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
May you can use {{Information}} for you images (fe. for Largid bug.jpg). Ma you also want move old contributions into an archiv. 68kB is quite a lot.
regards --D-Kuru (talk) 14:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Your work
[edit]Is really appreciated. Thanks for all your hard work. Also for your effort to create so many beautiful images! --Kanonkas(talk) 23:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Excellent Photography
[edit]The Photographer's Barnstar
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The Photographer's Barnstar | |
Thanks for contributing wonderful photographs to Wikipedia!. - Man On Mission (talk) 09:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC) |
Please link images
[edit]
Hello Fir0002/Archive!
Thank you for providing images to Wikimedia Commons. Please keep in mind that images uploaded to Commons should be useful to all users of Wikimedia projects. This is possible only if the images can be found by other people.
To allow others to find the images you uploaded here, the images should be in some place that can be found by navigating the category structure. This means that you should put the images into appropriate topic pages, categories, optionally galleries, or both of them (see Commons:Categories). To find good categories for your images, the CommonSense tool may help.
You can find a convenient overview of your uploaded files in this gallery.
The important point is that the images should be placed in the general structure somewhere. There are a large number of completely unsorted images on Commons right now. If you would like to help to place some of those images where they can be found, please do!
Thank you. BotMultichillT (talk) 05:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Image:SolOline-2005-04-27-095150 edit.jpg is uncategorized since 3 December 2008. BotMultichillT (talk) 05:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Image:MiamiSouthBeachPanoramaEdit2.jpg is uncategorized since 26 January 2009. BotMultichillT 05:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Link between photographers page
[edit]Hello.
I have made a topic called "More good photographers" on my user page. You could create a similar topic on your user page and you could include me in it. --ComputerHotline (talk) 19:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello Fir0002, did you note en:File:Projectionist.png and its usage on en:Tumblelog? Dunno if you care about the GFDL and correct licensing in such cases (I guess you do) … --:bdk: 11:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- No I was unaware of this - thanks a lot for pointing it out (and yes I do care!) --Fir0002 www 00:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
License Templates
[edit]Hi Fir0002, I noticed the discussion you had with Rocket concerning your license templates. I noticed that you transclude the templates directly in the image page instead of subst'ing them, which surprised me a little. May I ask you why they are not subst'ed?
Currently when the tempate is transcluded you could in principle completely change the license, for instance even retract it (which is not allowed AFAIK) without that being visible in watchlists. Of course, it would not take that long for folks to figure out if you made drastic changes as your excellent images are they are seen by very many users, but minor changes could probably be done without anybody noticing. It is not that I think you intend to do that, but I find the transclusions a little disturbing. Is there a point in this, which I am missing?
Cheers, -- Slaunger (talk) 08:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you for your fast reply. I think you can still achieve what you want while subst'ing see reply on my talk page. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstand how it would work, see my new reply. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
- I see you have done exactly, what I was concerned about: by this change from GFDL 1.2 or later to GFDL 1.2 only. Now, how can you possibly change a GFDL license from a ver. 1.2 or later to a 1.2 only? For me, it seems inconsistent with Commons:GNU Free Documentation License sec. 10. Now, if a person has used an image of yours at a time where where you had the GFDL 1.2 or later in the template, we could in good faith apply conditions in a later 1.3, when such a version is released. --Slaunger (talk) 10:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
- For your reference: Commons:User-specific galleries, templates and categories policy#Regarding licenses. --Slaunger (talk) 10:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstand how it would work, see my new reply. -- Slaunger (talk) 10:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
- Just letting you know I've seen your comment but it be a few days before I have time to right a proper reply. Thanks for your patience, --Fir0002 www 07:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Fir0002. OK, I will wait for your more detailed response at your convenience. Anyway your change was done in January, so a few days more or less does not really matter much. I am really looking forward to your reply though, as I am very puzzled by your license change... --Slaunger (talk) 08:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
- FYI. I noticed the issue with your license templates has been mentioned on Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Template:MMahdi. In you role as an admin here this does not look good, and I urge you to address the issue at your earliest convinience. --Slaunger (talk) 19:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger. I'm afraid I'll have to be brief but here's why I switched. First of all I should make it clear (so that you know my perspective) that I don't like Section 10 of the GFDL. Now to briefly go over my logic which lead me to switch:
- 1) I don't like the changes made in ver 1.3 which as far as I know essentially allows the user to switch to a CC-BY-SA license instead. It seems ridiculous that such a major change can be made to a copyright license without first consulting (or at least notifying) the contributor. For all I know ver 1.4 might now say that you can treat this image as released under a PD tag! If I upload a image under the GFDL I want it to be under the GFDL not the CC-BY-SA - how can a copyright tag depreciate into a completely different one? This is not maintaining the spirit of the GFDL as is promised in Sec 10.
- 2) As far as I can tell there is nothing on the upload form (or elsewhere for that matter) which says that the license of an image can't latter be changed to another which is supported by Commons. The reasoning is fairly obvious as, for example, it would be impossible for Commons to tell I had the right to upload under a particular license. For all it knows I could have been uploading a friend's images on his behalf and he had been under the impression I had been uploading them under xx license. Thus it would make sense, once the error is found, to simply relicense the image suitably. Similarly if I upload using an unaccepted license and am warned of this by whatever bot it is that checks copyright I'd be free to correct the license to a suitable one.
- 3) Finally, and here I admit I'm not 100% sure of myself, under a contractual approach I'd be free to change the license. Let me explain. When I upload an image to commons I'm essentially creating a unilateral offer for it to be downloaded and used according to the license terms (AFAIK). When a person does use it (according to the terms) they've accepted the offer and the contract is created. But I'm free to later modify my offer for new people to accept. The people who had accepted the original offer can use it according to the original license. But anyone accepting the modified offer will have to use it by the new license. However I may be mistaken here as I'm only beginning my law degree :)
- Hope this addresses your concerns, --Fir0002 www 11:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
- Quick comment 2 is gaming the system, and following the logic in 3 I might just as well change the license back to plan GFDL, as this license cannot be retracted. You are of course free to add additional licenses, or upload your pictures under different licenses to different sites (without disclosing that you already agreed to plain GFDL). --Dschwen (talk) 13:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure as following the logic of 3) you don't have the right to modify the offer (only the original copyright holder does). If you could prove you'd downloaded a copy of the image whilst it was under plain GFDL and then reuploaded to commons you might be able to claim that "re-upload" is a derivative and so license it under the GFDL. However in that case I don't think you'd be able to delete the 1.2 Only version because you wouldn't be able to claim a source. At any rate refer to my reply below --Fir0002 www 01:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
- Quick comment 2 is gaming the system, and following the logic in 3 I might just as well change the license back to plan GFDL, as this license cannot be retracted. You are of course free to add additional licenses, or upload your pictures under different licenses to different sites (without disclosing that you already agreed to plain GFDL). --Dschwen (talk) 13:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger. I'm afraid I'll have to be brief but here's why I switched. First of all I should make it clear (so that you know my perspective) that I don't like Section 10 of the GFDL. Now to briefly go over my logic which lead me to switch:
(indents reset) Hi Peter,
Thank you for taking your time to explain your motivation for the change. First of all, please be indulgent towards my English as I am not a native speaker. I sometimes find it difficult to find expressions, which accurately represent my true intention, and that may be apparent in the following.
1) Quite frankly, I was quite surprised myself when I learned recently that the GFDL or later probably implied an automatic transistion to CC-BY-SA. I does seem like stressing the intention in sec. 10 as well for me that this is actually possible. But then again, this is happening, and this is a personal interpretation of what is similar in spirit, and may seem surprising. However, whether you like it or not it is such that once you have licensed a work as a ver, e.g., ver. 1.2 or later, it is stated clearly in sec. 10 that a user of your work ...have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation....
Since the image pages where the license has been transcluded into prior to your license change has been published under GFDL 1.2 or later it is really non-revocable and changing it to ver. 1.2 only is really not something you can do and later claim is valid. Thus, it seems for me like you are walking on thin ice by reducing the license from 1.2 or later to 1.2 only in the transcluded templates. You can of course make a new license template and use that to subst into new images you upload.
2) I think there is huge difference between making an unintentional error regarding the license during upload and then do a very deliberate license change of material, which has existed here for a long time. It is very evident that you know very well, exactly what the change from 1.2 or later to 1.2 only implies, so I do not see that as a valid argument
3) I'm not a licensing expert, but I would be surprised if the you could do anything but add new possibilities once released. I would be very surprised if you could remove rights after publishing the material, such that new users have fewer rights than previous ones, but then again, I have never even studied law!
Anyway, tell you what: I would suggest you to do the following.
- Assuming you only want to license future work under GFDL 1.2 only, make a new 1.2 licensing template (there is some ongoing debate to disallow GFDL 1.3 only btw, don't know about 1.2 only)
- subst the 1.2 only into image pages you may have uploaded after you changed your license template replacing you old template on those new uploads as these have always been 1.2 only.
- Revert the GFDL 1.2 or later to GFDL 1.2 only change on your existing license templates. Then go through your images and subst the license template such that you cannot change the license again. As I have explained to you earlier you can do this in a manner where you still preserve a template after subsitution, with detailed contact information, the equipment used, etc, such that you can keep on maintaining that afterwards and get that updated automatically on you image pages. This will get you aligned with our user policies concerning the use of user-defined license templates.
As I see it your views on the licensing changes is quite non-standard, but then again, I am no expert, but I would suggest, to the benefit of our mutual doubts, that we published this discussion on a page with more traffic to get some further input. I don't know where the best place would be:, perhaps COM:VP or Commons talk:Licensing? --Slaunger (talk) 21:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for your reply (and no your English is quite good!), here's my response.
- 1) I don't think you can split the "new versions will be in the spirit of the GFDL" bit of section 10 from the "you can use a later version if that's specified" part. In other words if one condition is not met the other can't be enforced. I guess it then is necessary to objectively find out whether ver 1.3 does retain the spirit of the previous version. This is obviously going to be very difficult to do. For my part I would argue that any license which says that you can ignore its terms and replace them with terms from a completely different one has essentially ceased to be a license. If license A offers the same terms of license B, then license A simply becomes B and ceases to exist. This IMO can hardly be retaining the spirit of the GFDL, rather it is destroying the spirit of the GFDL as a distinct license and replacing it with CC-BY-SA.
- 2) I agree there is a difference, but unless you can point me to a policy which says you can't change the license of an image to another supported by commons I don't feel the need to revert that change.
- 3) It's certainly the case with contracts. Eg a new housing complex offers houses for sale at $100,000 initially and then a month later offers identical houses for sale at $200,000. It's only bound to honour the $100,000 price to those who'd previously accepted it.
- I'm really sorry to be so rude but I've already wasted far too much time on en:wiki with an argument on NC content and can't really afford another so I'm not terribly keen on the idea of shifting it to VP or licensing talkpage at the moment as I wouldn't be able to state my case. I'd ask to put it off till my mid year break in June but I suspect you wouldn't be happy with such an arrangement. But look if you can point me to a commons policy which forbids changes to image licenses I'd be happy to revert for all my pre-Jan08 images. With regards to my personal upload template I'll give consideration to your suggestion but I don't intend to upload any pics in the near future. Thanks, --Fir0002 www 01:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for your reply (and no your English is quite good!), here's my response.
- Hi again Peter. Thank you for further explaining your views.
- Yes, comitting yourself to a ver or any later is like committing yourself to the unknown. Although you may now have realized that you really did not want to make that commitment, and you are saying that you disagree with the direction in which future version of the licenses are heading, I do not really think there is anything you can do about it. It is like signing a contract or an insurance where you did not read the small print and later realized, hey, this is not what I wanted. Only here it is even more difficult as you do not know when you sign the contract what is printed in small text! So, I think you should really see it as a "lessons learned" experience and then in the future not commit yourself to such a license, if you do not feel it is in line with what you are willing to offer.
- I will look around for a policy. As mentioned previously, I am no expert, but i know some;-) I know the prevailing practise here is that removing rights in published materials is a definite no go. I guess that is implied by the text in the respective licenses, but I will get back to you concerning this.
- I do not think you can compare house complexes to immaterial property, but as mentioned previously, for the benefit of the doubt I really think we should bring in more knowledgeable users in this, like MichaelMaggs, who I consider very knowledgeable when it comes to licensing.
- Although I understand you are busy, and that this is an unfortunate time of the year for you to deal with this, I would strongly advice to deal with it very soon, as the issue with your changed licenses is popping up more and more frequently in other discussions. I am also very sure that if it is the time you would have to spend actually reverting the license change and doing the substitutions, there are other users here, who would like to undertake that task using a bot.
- Here is a list of policies applicable to this discussion (I will extend it as I dig up more):
- Other discussions related to this thread:
- Commons:Administrators/Requests and votes/Noodle snacks (2) and discussions referred to from there.
- Template talk:GFDL-1.2
- Best wishes, --Slaunger (talk) 07:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi again Peter. Thank you for further explaining your views.
- I see what you mean but what I'm saying is that I'm dubious whether the fine print is in fact legal given that in my mind ver 1.3 doesn't retain the spirit of 1.2. However it'd probably require a court case to settle that issue which is obviously something we all want to avoid!
- To be honest I'm not really going to be swayed on this issue by a few loudly voiced opinions. However I would definitely respect and comply with a clear policy if you can find one (and no talkpages don't count! :))
- You'd be surprised - the law really doesn't concern itself with the value of something in terms of a contract. And at any rate IP is well protected and I think you can draw a pretty direct analogy here with stock sites (which provide images under a certain license). But yes ask Michael and I'd be very interested in his response.
- Thanks for your understanding - I'll do my best to resolve this as speedily as possible. The main time issue I'm concerned about is having to cope with a large scale discussion which I simply couldn't do at the moment. But should you find the relevant commons policy I'll take you up on the bot offer! And yes I think I'll implement a change to my licensing scheme for future uploads - I think I'll just go with two separate templates, a copyright tag and a personal info template (eg {{GFDL 1.2)) and {{Fir0002 150MT))) --Fir0002 www 08:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi again Peter. I have contacted MichaelMaggs on his talk page here asking for directions regarding policies for changes in a license to a more restrictive one. He has promised to get back to me with an answer tomorrow.--Slaunger (talk) 22:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
<- I try to keep my comment as short as possible, but as long as needful:
- add 1)
"without first consulting [...] the contributor" {{GFDL}} says "Version 1.2 or any later version". In my opinion that is enough and you don't an extra consulting when something get changed.
"This is not maintaining the spirit of the GFDL as is promised in Sec 10." Section 10 of Commons:GNU Free Documentation License says "Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns." As I know the spirt is nowhere else mentioned in this text. However, I don't think that it's the Spirit of GFDL to make the reuse of any mediafile as hard as possbile or at least very hard. I also don't think that the integration of the plain GFDL text is a major part of the Spirit.
- add 2)
Fir is (as I know) right. There is no page where you can find something like "you aren't allowed to change the licence to a more restrictive one after you have uploaded the file". I think that it's obvious why this isn't possible: (Just to note: As I know the CC-Legalcode says that you can't retract a CC licence. Please tell me if I'm wrong! Let's say the text doesn't say so fo that example to have a GFDL-like template) On Monday I would licence all my images under CC-BY, on Tuseday under CC-BY-SA, on Wednesday under 1.2-only, on Thursday as on Monday, on Friday as on Tuseday, on Saturday as on Wednesday and on Sunday under 1.2+. Depending on which day you find the image you would be allowed to use it under a different licence. You could use it on your personal webpage as long as you accept the restrictions of the licences which is attribution in every case and Share-Alike (or Copyleft) if required. If a new person C (A= author & uploader; B= guy with the webpage who reuses the file) sees the file on the webpage he can use it under the displayed licence. If we have four webpages (one for every licence) you would be allowed to use it under four different licences. If you change the licence on the image's descriptionpage on Commons (let's say to CC-BY-NC-ND) others could still use it under CC-BY(-SA) or GFDL (1.2-only or +), because it is in use on other pages which display the particular licence. Just to mention it for those who had forgotten it: Commons is not the base of your file and you don't have to dowload the original file from Commons if you want to use it. That system also protects you from mood swings of the uploader who may allows one day commercial use and the other not. That is in fact the real Spirit of free licence. (Moreover: Imagine that en.wikipedia only allows images licenced under GFDL: The file could be included on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, but has to be excluded on Monday, Tuseday, Thursday and Friday. That would be quite a wase of traffic and some kind of historyspam. Wouldn't it?)
"The reasoning is fairly obvious as, for example, it would be impossible for Commons to tell I had the right to upload under a particular license." Well we have to assume good faith. I claim that I'm the authr of all images in Category:Files_taken_by_D-Kuru. You just have to belive me, because you don't have to the proof that the images neither were taken by me nor that they didn't got taken by me. If you would upload a file under a wrong licence it just would be a blatant copyvio. If the file was published under a free licence, but you just have chosen the wrong one by an accident you have to inclide the correct licence of course with the note in the summarybox that the old licence is not the correct one. If the wrong licence has been kept for years the old version should may be deleted to aviod confusion.
- add 3)
Fir, you made a mistake which I mentioned above (The story with the webside). To summarise it that we have all here: You (person A) allow the usage under one licence. Somebody (B) uses the file on his webpage. Another guy (C) discovers that image and is allowed to use it under the same conditions as B was allowed to even you may have changed the licence in the meantime, because you don't have to download the image from the original source (If you would only be allowed to download files from the original source we would have to create something which makes it impossible for you that you can download images which were originally hosted on flickr). The next big mistake it is that you treat Commons as if it would be flickr. Commons is not a platform where you can host your images and give other people the permission to use your file under a free licence. If you upload a file to Commons you don't give only other people (guys B and C) the permission to use your file under the displayed licence. You also give Commons (and all other projects of Wikmedia) the permission to use you file under GFDL or whatever. If you allow Commmons to use your file under (for example) GFDL, everybody can download and use it under GFDL. Thereby Commons wouldn't be so much different to the webside of B (the guy with the webside from the 2) ). As Slaunger said: You are free "to add additional licenses".
The conclusion of everything is that you are may allowed to change the licencetemplate, but allowed to forbid the usage of the old licence. Moreover I think that changing the licence without any notice that the file can be used under a different one would be some kind of an attempt to buffalo a potential reuser.
Fir, I understand that you don't want that your images just can get used under CC-BY-SA-3.0, because you originally licenced them under GFDL. If Creative Commons wouldn't allow the use of CC-BY-SA-3.0 any longer (without publishing a new version), because they detect a big mistake in the licence which makes it possible to transfere any file into the Public Domain and Creative Commons would declare that every file licenced unde BY-SA-3.0 is now All rights reserved again I (and many other user) would have to search for a new licence before their files get deleted. If I were you I would I think that I would be really angry with GFDL. Just to mention it: "or any later version" was some kind of gambling (Maybe such licences completely disappear on Commons, because there is nobody who use that licences) and who expected that the Free Software Foundation would allow the exclude of the GFDL text when you use CC-BY-SA-3.0 instead. However, you once licened your work under 1.2+ and thereby Commons (and thereby every other person) is allowed to use it under GFDL 1.2+.
If you don't have enough time I can seperate the 1.2+ images from the 1.2-only images and move them to a different template. Sorry, it became a quite long text :-(
--D-Kuru (talk) 02:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
- I'm actually a bit unclear as to what you're getting at in some places (unfortunately I think that's partly due to a language barrier) but you'll see my position quite simply at Michael Magg's talkpage. But from what I gather from 2) you've got it right - theoretically I probably could change the license on every single day of the week (this would be a pretty stupid thing to do and I'm not going to!). I disagree that commons is not a platform (and if it's not it's misrepresenting itself as a "repository") - see MM's talkpage again. Finally, as I mentioned above, section 10 operates as a whole and if one part (the retaining of the spirit of the GFDL) is not met, you can't rely on the rest of that section. I don't think it's a particularly good attitude to simply shrug your shoulders and say "oh well, FSF has swindled me there's nothing I can do about it now". But this isn't my main contention (which is freedom to change what license I offer to commons/wikipedia users). Again refer to discussion on MM's talkpage) --Fir0002 www 04:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you D-Kuru for filling me in here with some good explanations. I do not have anything further to add, what do you think, Peter? --Slaunger (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi again Peter. I have gotten a reply from MichaelMaggs, which I suggest you read. The matter is apparently quite complicated from a legal point of view, and I will let the discussion be continued by users more knowledgeable within this domain. However, if you need my assistance for changing/substituting licenses, drop a note on my talk page. --Slaunger (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks Slaunger --Fir0002 www 04:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi again Peter. I have gotten a reply from MichaelMaggs, which I suggest you read. The matter is apparently quite complicated from a legal point of view, and I will let the discussion be continued by users more knowledgeable within this domain. However, if you need my assistance for changing/substituting licenses, drop a note on my talk page. --Slaunger (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
current discussion
[edit]I use your talk page (not MichaelMaggs') because I want to ask YOU six and a halph short questions:
1) Would you consider it as a valid action if a user would change the licence from
- a) {{Attribution}} to {{GFDL}} or a CC licence
- b) from CC-BY(-SA) 1.0+/3.0+ to GFDL or to a NC or ND (CC) licence?
2) You wrote "yes in theory you could reupload under GFDL+" what if your files get reuploaded using a bot (It doesn't matter if the file gets uploaded with a bot or by hand. The effect is the same I would say)
3) As I know the WMF thinks of banning GFDL (if the relicencing will happen). Let's say the WMF banns the GFDL (even it's a free licence, and so on and so on). Have you chosen/though of any licence under which you would (may) upload new images or would you stop contributing?
4)
- a) Let's say I have used a file on my page under GFDL 1.2+ (at that time when your images were tagged with 1.2+). (That's what I think, you may tell me what you think if you think different) Files under a free licence can be published everywhere and does not have to be downloaded from the original source. I don't know that you changed the licence so I keep the GFDL 1.2+ tag. If anybody else would download the file and use it under GFDL 1.2+ would you consider this action as a violation of your copyright?
- b) I guess that I know the answer but I ask you so that I can be really sure: If your files get relicenced, because everybody knows that your old files were 1.2+ (and all that you can't retrieve the licence stuff). Would you consider it as a violation of your Copyright if somebody would use your file under CC-BY-SA-3.0?
5) You changed the licence for so many images. Why didn't you change the licence here and here. I don't think that you have forgotten them.
6) I understand that you don't like that your images are used under CC-BY-SA. Is there a specific reason why you only want that your files get used under 1.2-only? Are you afraid that you/your files get comercially cannabalised or do you want to use it as a quasi-protection from commercial use at all. Do you just hate the guy who created CC? Is it because the "any version later"-clause? I use CC-BY-SA so if they want to relicence my images under CC-BY-SA they would run into open doors (exapt that "any version later" for CC-BY-SA sucks a bit) so you may understand why I don't really get it what is so bad about CC.
The explanation why I would support that you have that you have two different templates is that somebody may changes the template you use and than your files get relicenced even those which ever were 1.2-only and never 1.2+. Even some languagefixes are welcome it's not really hard work to do a second edit, is it?
--D-Kuru (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
- I thought about that what you said: "Your Honour I had a right to rob this person because the last five people I robbed didn't care" and "that "donation" text does not appear on the upload form I use"
- Wouldn't "Sorry guys you can't punish me for a robbery, because it's not mentioned in the law book I use" be the same?
- --D-Kuru (talk) 13:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
- Bots are irrelevant, the reason why it would be practically difficult to do that is you would have to conclusively prove that you have a copy of the image on your HDD which you had downloaded before the license change. You can't just redownload it from commons now (even if you used it in the past under GFDL+) because by redownloading it you'd be agreeing to use it under 1.2-only. Also I don't think you'd be able to delete the originals off commons as otherwise there wouldn't be any source information. Very messy scenario
- I haven't given this a lot of consideration, but my current position is that I would stop contributing if GFDL was banned
- I had forgotten about those when I first made the change and refrained from doing it after out of respect for this ongoing discussion
- True it wouldn't be unmanageable to have two versions of the templates, but I as far as I can see there are no grounds to change my licenses and having two is just opening the door for someone to change the license behind my back. We'll cross that bridge (two templates) if/when we need to.
- There is no comparison between those scenarios. The terms which are presented to on the upload form are the terms I accepted. What you're saying is "Your Honour I have a right to enforce the contract I made that said party C will pay me $100 because person B agreed to it". That term is irrelevant to me because I never saw it, nor was it ever presented to me, nor did I accepted it
- Finally I would suggest you slow down with Commons:Lawbook - it's not a bad idea but it needs to be created by someone qualified (a lawyer) and with authority to make such specific statements and to impose them on users. And as far as I can see you meet neither of these criterion. --Fir0002 www 05:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it be nearly impossible for somebody to proof that that guy had downloaded the image before the licencechange. Screenshots and metadata can be manipulated.
- Why don't you change the licence for all images tagged with the two mentioned templates. According to you that would be a valid action as they you have allready done. If you keep an eye on your templates you would (I guess) notice if somebody changes anything. If you don't think that you would notice it I think you wouldn't notice it for your existing templates as well.
- It's not an option to slow down with commons:lawbook. I created it to prevent such useless long discussions about if you are allowed to change the licence after you have once agreed to. Moreover: 1)most acepted guidelines on Commons are not written by lawyers as I can see 2) "it needs to be created by someone qualified [...] with authority [...] to impose them on users." I don't think a lawyer is the right guy for that job. The right guy for that job is the community which I have contacted.
- You gave an answer to the questions 2), 3) and 5) but I haven't found an answer for 1) a) and b), for 4) a) and b) and for 6). I would really be interested in your thoughts on 1) and 4). 6) is also interesting but minior important. An expansion for 1) would be if you would consider the edit as valid action if a new user uploads a file under 1.2+ (which can't be relicenced so far) and changes the licence to 1.3-only or 1.2-only because of some clause which says that all (past, present and future) uploads can be dual licenced by MMC sides under CC-BY-SA?
- A question I would be interested in would be about the reuse under 1.2+. If you upload a file to Commons anybody can use it. If I downloaded your file (before the licencechange) and publish it under 1.2+ (what was alowed at that time) anybody could download the image from my page and use it under 1.2+ (see explanation below). How do you want prevent that your file is used under 1.2+ (even that does not make any different from 1.2-only for not MMCs)?
- I think that a definition of the spirit was present all the time even it isn't explicit mentioned that it is the spirit. That is also a reason why I think that your files can still be used under 1.2+ even you changed the licence. The GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.2 from November 2002 says in "0. PREAMBLE"
"The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. [...] We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does."
I would say that the spirit of that licence is to keep a file free and not to keep the GFDL text your thoughts may differ. That is also the reason why I think that why you don't need to download the file from the original source (in the example above: Commons) because the use of a free licence is that you can use the file without having the challenge to contact the author.
- That's just my point - it would be difficult for you to prove that you have a copy on your harddrive which you had download prior to the license change. The onus is on you to prove this. You can't just now redownload the images from commons and try upload under 1.2+. By downloading the images from commons now, you are accepting to use them under 1.2-only - not 1.2+ as they previously were licensed.
- As I said, the main reason I hadn't changed the license on those templates was out of respect for this on going discussion. However given this discussion is waning I might go ahead and change them soon.
- The community seems less then luke-warm to the propositions you put forward given the response on the talkpage. Commons lawbook is currently (and correctly IMO) labelled as an essay which no one needs to follow. This makes it potentially quite confusing for users - not a good idea. There seems to be no clear community consensus for many of the terms you have created - and I would cynically suggest some of them are simply a retrospective attempt to justify someone reverting my license change.
- The answers to your questions have already been answered at length (by analogy) in the above discussions - I really don't feel the need to reiterate. The key issue would be whether commons was considered a user - and there are two sides to that argument as we've already seen. There are also numerous issues at a more individual level which I'm not going to address because I simply don't have the time and they have no direct relevance to my license change.
- Again as already discussed if you could prove you have a copy downloaded prior to license change you're free to use it under the license you downloaded it under. That said, it is questionable if the dual license terms of 1.3 are valid - a separate issue.
- I don't think going down that pathway for the "spirit of the GFDL" is going to help - I've added some emphasis to the preamble. Regardless as I've already said elsewhere, by dual licensing you effectively destroy the GFDL. It's quite obvious that 1.3 is not an incremental update to the license but simply a means to an end (converting GFDL content to CC). It no longer recognises the GFDL as a unique license. It makes the GFDL the CC. This destroys the spirit of the GFDL - the GFDL is no longer a license. All the pears have turned into apples. --Fir0002 www 07:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
- Fir, it seems entirely hypocritical of you to criticize the license migration as not being in the "spirit of the GFDL" when you yourself are clearly not using the license in its intended spirit (as a relatively hassle-free license for software manuals). Arguably, no one on Wikipedia has ever followed the spirit of the GFDL (especially not regarding media files), and this is precisely the problem. Kaldari (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
I added a subheadline so that the discussion is seperated from that one above. You can remove it if you feel like or move that discussion to a new headline.
You may know a way, but I don't know any way how I could really proof that I have downloaded the licence before the licencechange.
You know as well as I know that this discussion won't be waning any more if you change the other templates as well and it will also not be accepted and (as you said) I could now download the files and reupload them. Now there is no question about the licence situation around the images. If I would download and reupload them you wouldn't change anything if you would change the licences for that images. I'm a bit adamantine as you can see and thereby you can trust me that I would spend that time for downloading and uploading just to see what your next step will be.
"Commons lawbook is currently [...] an essay [...] quite confusing [...] not a good idea." That user who would be confused by this essay won'T find it. That user who would find it will know what "essay" means and (I guess) will not care about the content. "[...]no clear community consensus for many of the terms you have created - and I would cynically suggest some of them are simply a retrospective attempt to justify someone reverting my license change." Some of them are just suggestions and need to be discussed and no: I've not created them as justification for somebody to revert your licencechange. The main use/idea behind it should be/was to prevent such discussions which (I think you agree) end in nothing even they're maybe long.
You don't gave any answer to my question if you would consider the action as valid edit a user would change the licence from a) {{Attribution}} to {{GFDL}} or a CC licence b) from CC-BY(-SA) 1.0+/3.0+ to GFDL or to a NC or ND (CC) licence. (Maybe you did but I don't see it/understand it. The only answer I could find is that you would consider a 1.2+/1.3+ -> 1.2-only 1.3-only change as valid because you don't change anything) And these questions has of course a nearly direct link to your licencechange. An important part is how much licencechange is allowed.
Even the dual licenceterms are maybe not valid they don't effect new uploads. "This destroys the spirit of the GFDL - the GFDL is no longer a license." the GFDL will ever be a licence and all your 1.2-only images can only be used under 1.2 so that piece of the GFDL will be still alive in the future.
Some important notice you should care about:
- 1) "I've added some emphasis to the preamble." No you don't. The text before the Preamble says: "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed." Either you violated their terms of use or you created a front covertext. The template you use ({{GFDL-1.2}}) says "with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts" thereby you tell everybody that they don't need to care about the text and the restrictions in it below the licencetag which are not within the restrictions of the 1.2 text.
- 2) "you are required to release the image (or any subsequent derivatives of it) under the GFDL." Section 10 of version 1.2 ("FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE") says "If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation." Thereby I could download your file and reupload them everywhere under any GFDL licence I wish even the licence is 1.2-only.
"If you require a less restrictive commercial license please email me to negotiate terms." What would you call for that someone could use your file under CC-BY(-SA)?
--D-Kuru (talk) 17:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
- The only real way I can see of you proving that you downloaded the image before the license change would be if you had uploaded it to wikipedia (or another site with a suitably reliable time signature) before the license change. But as I've always said - proving it is entirely your problem and unless you do so you cannot upload the image --Fir0002 www 11:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
- If you're going to edit in bad faith I see no reason to continue this discussion. Baiting me to change those templates is not editing in good faith
- Unless you can settle these key points then you shouldn't be outlining rules in the lawbook. You're presenting an unjustified, one sided argument with no legal basis and deceptively entitling it the Commons Lawbook
- These questions depend on a lot of factors (eg what upload form they used) etc etc which I have neither the time or the desire to go into. The answer is not a yes or a no, it's the entire discussion we've just had
- The GFDL 1.2 only remains a license and that is why I'm happy to have my images under that license. That's exactly my point. GFDL+ with ver 1.3 does not continue to be a license - it's a channel to transition to CC
- Honestly - I added the emphasis not to modify it but to draw attention to you of some of the key parts of that phrase. I'm saying that using that preamble as your definition of the spirit of the GFDL is going to cause more problems for you and the community then it will solve
- Section 10 is tempered with the "must be in the same spirit" sentence. We've been over this already D-Kuru and I'm beginning to tire of it.
- You could not not "download your file and reupload them everywhere under any GFDL licence I wish even the licence is 1.2-only" because the current files are listed as 1.2 only
- I do not release images under CC. When people contact me I typically charge a small fee for a rights managed license. --Fir0002 www 11:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
- I neither want to bait you nor do I think that I'm editing in bad faith. I just want to be sure that I understand what you are motivated by and what do you think about some different ways.
- I think that you have heard about the result of the licencing update (which I would call "change"). Even I have not seen that statement by the WMF I'm sure that 1.2-only as only licence will not be allowed any longer. Would you relicence your images under a second licence if your images would get deleted otherwise?
- --D-Kuru (talk) 15:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I'd license under CC-BY-NC but I doubt that will get adopted. Otherwise no. Also just a quick FYI my replies will become much more sporadic (or completely non existent) until June 23 as my exam period starts next week. --Fir0002 www 13:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Some stuff
[edit]Hi Fir0002. I just wanted to talk about some stuff.
1) I noticed that you just changed the licence on User:Fir0002/200 without changing the licence for all old images. You changed the licence to 1.2-only on 2009-01-30 so Kangaroo and joey04.jpg is still licenced under 1.2+ even it isn't displayed on the image's descriptionpage, becuase it was uploaded long before you changed the licence. But I think you know that anyway. As an admin you should know that you can't retrive the GFDL 1.2+ licence even you may want to do so. I don't know how many images you have uploaded since the licencechange, but you may can move the new or the old uploaded files to another template. I know that it would be a lot of work, but I think we have a bot which is able to do so for you. However, If there is no responce at all I will do that for you and I won't care about what you may think or would like to suggest.
2) May you can move old contributions on your talk page to an archiv (~80kB is quite big).
3) What about using {{Information}}? It would be nice to have at least a description in english.
4) May you add a source to Fir0002.jpg before someone tags it with {{Nsd}}.
I have added nearly the same text to your uaser talkpage on en.wikipedia.
--D-Kuru (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
- Please refer to discussion above "License Template". I will endeavour to respond to you and other comments later today or tomorrow. Please understand that I have very little spare time during uni semester --Fir0002 www 01:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Quality Image Promotion
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Your image has been reviewed and promoted
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License
[edit]Hi, I would like to ask you, if you can double license this imagine File:Apricots.jpg? CC-BY-SA 3.0 would be perfect. I would like to use it in pexeso for children, but licensed just GFDL it is not possible. --Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
- Apricots.jpg is licenced under GFDL 1.2+ (+ = "or any later version"; as seperation of 1.2-only ({{GFDL-1.2}})). Thereby you can use it also under 1.3. As you can read on http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html (Section 11 "RELICENSING") you can use it under CC-BY-SA-3.0 or any later version. However, Fir may want to give you an additional permission.
- --D-Kuru (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
- Well, this is illegal in our country. We would not use files under GFDL 1.3 on cs wiki and distribute them under cc-by-sa 3.0 license. We would like to call for double licensing than. Which is the only legal way, how to offer files also under cc-by-sa 3.0 license.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 09:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- What is a "pexeso"? If this is only a one-time use I will probably give permission for it, but as a general rule I don't license my images under cc-by-sa --Fir0002 www 04:16, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- Well, it is not one-time use. It is cs.wv. So thank you very much for your time. Maybe could you tell me why you dont licence under cc licenses?--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- pexeso.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 21:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Your licensing change
[edit]Your legal analysis above is flawed as Wikimedia itself is a reuser (not merely a host). By applying the {{GFDL}} tag to your images on Commons, you granted Wikimedia a "world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration", as the text of the GFDL states. Unless your original licensing was fraudulent (i.e. you did not own the copyrights) any Commons editor can re-add the {{GFDL}} tag to your images since the original licensing contract is still in effect. This is also the standard practice at COM:DEL and OTRS when uploaders have tried to revoke their licenses. It is a bit troubling that as an admin on Commons you are setting an example for other editors to play fast and loose with their licensing. I understand your frustration with GFDL 1.3, but it is simply not possible for you to revoke your licensing without obtaining either the consensus of the community or agreement from the WMF to change the existing contract. If editors could simply revoke licenses at will, it would cause sheer chaos to the projects (precisely because we are reusers). Surely you can understand that. Kaldari (talk) 23:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- Please refer to the discussion here - the one on my page is out of date. Basically I don't see how Wikimedia could be a reuser - it is by definition a repository of free content. I.e it is where other people can come to get the files. In that sense it is the same as flickr. Thus no other commons user could change the license I choose to offer my images to the world. Note I'm not going against any commons policy so I can't see any disharmony between my role as an admin and me changing to GFDL 1.2 only. If there was a commons policy I would have followed it. As long as the license I am using is accepted by commons and the Wikipedias I don't see it causing "sheer chaos". It would only change the way the rest of the world can reuse the image. --Fir0002 www 09:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- I read the discussion, and have a couple comments in response. First of all, it is not necessary to have a policy about retaining licenses. The licenses ARE policy and they are perpetual and irrevocable. Your interpretation of the licensing terms runs counter to long-standing practices on Commons and OTRS. Also, and more significantly, it doesn't make sense. You claim that Wikimedia is not a reuser. Would you say that is true even in the case of your images which have been used in Wikipedia articles? Clearly your claim gets rather tenuous in that situation. Also your claim that your license change only affects "the way the rest of the world can reuse the image" is not true either. As you know, GFDL 1.2 is a strong copyleft (which is why photographers like it so much). This means that anything which includes a GFDL 1.2 image (such as a Wikipedia article) must also be licensed under GFDL 1.2. Assuming the relicensing proposal goes through, it is almost certain that Wikipedia articles will no longer be able to use GFDL 1.2 images (as CC-BY-SA will be the preferred license, and GFDL 1.3 the optional dual license). Thus your images will still be available on Commons, but will have to be removed from Wikipedia. In other words Wikipedia will no longer be a reuser of your images. If that's what you want, so be it. Obviously though there is a good chance that 1.2 will also be deprecated from Commons in such a situation. It's only a matter of time, IMO.
- Also, I should mention that I have a personal archive of all Wikipedia featured images up to July 5, 2008 on a CD. I was using them for a personal project that was never completed (so I am personally a reuser). Although I'm sure this sounds like a completely bogus claim, I can easily copy the CD and send it to you as proof (the files all have modification dates before July 2008). Although this only represents a small portion of your images, I could in theory, reupload them and restore the original license before August 1. As these are, pixel for pixel, the same images as the ones already on Commons, would this be any different than changing the licensing terms on the existing images? If so, why? Obviously there are some serious issues with your legal theories. But even more importantly than all of that, your actions (and the actions of those following your example) are throwing a monkeywrench into the license migration process. You may wonder why I care. Apart from the fact that I am on the license migration committee, I have personally been working on the issue of Wikimedia image licensing for over 3 years. There is a very long and tortured history that has led us to where we are today. If you are not aware of this history — including the issues that started the process, the efforts that were made to revise the GFDL, the political issues between the FSF and the WMF, and the very long and frustrating negotiations that led to the abandonment of revising the GFDL and the move to Creative Commons — you may not appreciate how fortunate we are to even have the opportunity to migrate. If you have the time, I would love to discuss these issues with you in more detail, either by email or over the phone. We need you as an ally in this effort, Fir, not as an obstacle. Kaldari (talk) 15:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Finally, you may be interested to know that the Commons upload form explicitly states: "When you upload your work to commons you are donating it to the world by using a free content license which allow everyone to use, modify, and redistribute your work for any purpose. This donation is non-revocable." Kaldari (talk) 19:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Also, your arguments about Carlill v Carbolic and contract law are completely irrelevant. The GFDL is a license, not a contract. Copyright law and contract law are completely different spheres. Groklaw even wrote an entire article about how the GFDL is not a contract.[4] Kaldari (talk) 15:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
- First off I'll apologise in advance for being curt but I'm under considerable time pressures IRL.
- Please refer to the discussion here - the one on my page is out of date. Basically I don't see how Wikimedia could be a reuser - it is by definition a repository of free content. I.e it is where other people can come to get the files. In that sense it is the same as flickr. Thus no other commons user could change the license I choose to offer my images to the world. Note I'm not going against any commons policy so I can't see any disharmony between my role as an admin and me changing to GFDL 1.2 only. If there was a commons policy I would have followed it. As long as the license I am using is accepted by commons and the Wikipedias I don't see it causing "sheer chaos". It would only change the way the rest of the world can reuse the image. --Fir0002 www 09:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- I disagree that a license is a policy. A license describes the conditions in which the image can be used. An example of a policy concerning licenses is which licenses are accepted on commons. A further policy example would be source description. These issues are obviously not dealt with by the license because they are specifically related to the operation of commons.
- Whether Wikipedia is a user is an interesting question. At face value they do appear to be a user, but they don't actually reproduce the image at all (they just link to the copy on the commons servers). The image would have to have been uploaded separately to Wikipedia for it to be considered a user AFAIK.
- If Wikipedia is going to be unable to use 1.2 content, then why make the transition to CC-BY-SA. That is just pointlessly losing a lot of valuable content. The mind boggles at such foolishness
- In theory I think you could reupload those image under GFDL+ but as I've already discussed elsewhere it would be awkward in practice.
- Unfortunately I'll have to decline your offer to explain the history which has led to this migration because as mentioned above I don't have the time for constructive contributions like uploading pictures let alone policy discussions. However my current impression is that it is a) deceitful to GFDL uploaders and b) going to lose a lot of content (and possibly contributors).
- I'm not sure where you're quoting from - that doesn't appear on the upload form as far as I can see. At least no the upload form I use
- Thank you for the link to Groklaw I'll attempt to read through it and respond to it sometime in the coming week. I haven't done a unit on copyright law so I might be wrong, but I'd be surprised if it operates substantially different to contracts as they appear to be very similar types of legal documents. --Fir0002 www 00:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not really that interested in hashing out the legal issues either. Wikipedia works because of consensus and collaboration, not because we're good at threatening contributors with legalese. I know that you are a reasonable editor and a very valued contributor. I've even heard WMF board members speak highly of you. It does seem, however, that you and some other photographers are contributing to Wikipedia under different assumptions than the rest of us. It is important to understand that Wikipedia isn't just a "free" as in gratis encyclopedia; it is also a "free" as in libre encyclopedia. Wikipedia doesn't belong to its contributors or the WMF, it belongs to all of humanity. While it is true that the contributors have (limited) copyrights in their contributions, in all the ways that matter, contributors give up their ownership privileges when they contribute to the project. This idea that you can contribute media to Wikipedia while still retaining control and ownership of it is not compatible with the goals and ideals of the project. This is the very reason that we are migrating to Creative Commons—to better align our licenses with the underlying principals of the project.
I feel that it is also important to dispel this idea that there is something sneaky or dishonest about this process. This process has been ongoing for years and involved extensive public participation. The final outcome is not ideal, but it was the best solution possible. I fought actively for retaining the GFDL under modified terms, but it didn't work out and I've accepted that. I'm trying my best to help with the solution that seems to have the most support. I realize, however, that it is probably not possible for you to fully appreciate the significance of this migration, and why, even though it seems like a drastic step, it is the best solution, since you have not been involved in the discussions until now. The only way I know of to help you appreciate this is to tell you this entire history of the issue. I know you said you are pressed for time, but I think it would be worth your while to educate yourself on what is going on instead of just throwing monkey-wrenches into the process.
To really understand the license migration, there's a huge amount of historical context involving the history of the free culture movement that you should be aware of. That information, however, would take a book to cover. Since no one has yet written this book, I will do my best to present a super condensed version:
In 1985, Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to support the burgeoning free software movement (a.k.a. open source movement). Lots of cool stuff came out of this movement, like Linux, Firefox, and most of the tools that the modern internet is built from. The foundation of this movement lies in a collection of unique copyright licenses developed by the FSF that allow people from all over the world to collaborate on creating software without anyone getting screwed over. The most famous of these licenses is the GPL, a copyleft license for computer software source code. As an afterthought, the FSF also created the GFDL license so that software manuals and documentation could also be created collaboratively.
The free software movement was so successful that people started wondering if it would be possible to apply the philosophies (and legal principals) of the free software movement to more than just software. In 2001, two separate and very important projects split off from the free software movement. One was Creative Commons, the other was Wikipedia. Neither of them had anything to do with software, but they were both intimately connected to the free software movement. These two projects would launch what is now known as as the free culture movement.
After creating a successful commercial web portal (Bomis.com), Jimmy Wales decided to turn his attention to a more erudite endeavor and launched an online encyclopedia that anyone could edit (although not the first). At the urging of Richard Stallman and the FSF, Wikipedia licensed all of its content under the GFDL. At the time, this was the only copyleft license in existence for collaboratively written text. Once images and sounds were added to Wikipedia, they too were licensed under the GFDL (for lack of a better alternative).
At the same time, on the other side of the country, Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law professor, and some other intellectual property activists founded Creative Commons. Inspired by the Free Software Foundation's GPL license, Creative Commons developed a collection of licenses that allowed people to share and collaborate on all sorts of media (not just software) without breaking copyright laws. Initially at least, ties were very close between Creative Commons and the FSF. Lessig would even serve on the Board of Directors of the FSF for several years.
In one of those interesting accidents of history, Wikipedia was in the right place at the right time and became hugely, amazingly successful. With this success, licensing issues (which had not really concerned people that much in the beginning) became more important. Now people were wanting to distribute DVDs of Wikipedia to schools in Africa; teachers were wanting to print off Wikipedia articles for their classes; bloggers were wanting to use images and excerpts in their blogs, etc, etc. What people soon realized, however, was that although the GFDL was a great license for facilitating collaboration and protecting the interests of both Wikipedia and its editors, it wasn't a great license for freely distributing information and media.
Of the provisions that were problematic, the most troublesome were:
1. Anything that included GFDL media was required to also include a full copy of the GFDL license (5 pages of text), a list of all the previous versions of that media, as well as a list of all the people who collaborated on that media. This means if a teacher wanted to print out the Wikipedia article on World War II for their history class, they would have to include about 100 pages of other junk with each copy of the article. And not only was this true for article text, but also for images and sounds licensed under the GFDL. So if someone wanted to include a GFDL sound on their radio show, they would have to recite half-an-hour of licensing text to boot.
2. Anything that included GFDL media was also required to be licensed under the GFDL. So if, for example, you wanted to include a GFDL image in a book you're writing, you had to release the entire book under the GFDL license as well. This basically meant that virtually no commercial products would ever include Wikipedia content (for better or worse).
3. The GFDL was incompatible with Creative Commons licensing. This meant that while everyone else was free to trade media back and forth using CC licenses (which had become the de facto standard for non-software media). Wikipedia was left on a licensing island all by itself.
4. The GFDL was only designed for U.S. legal jurisdiction. While Creative Commons licenses are designed for worldwide use, the GFDL is specifically tailored to U.S. copyright laws. For an international project like Wikipedia, this is a big problem.
5. Although this was not problematic provision per se, being licensed under the GFDL basically left Wikipedia at the legal mercy of a single person, as Richard Stallman was not only the founder of the FSF, but also its figurehead, chief license author, and benevolent dictator.
The Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikipedia community addressed these problems with a two-pronged approach. In actual practice, all of the problems above would be completely ignored. Reusers of Wikimedia content were never expected or asked to actually follow the problematic parts of the GFDL license. If you read through our instructions for reusing or mirroring Wikipedia content, you'll see this is still the case today. We just ask that you credit Wikipedia, mention the GFDL license, and link back to the original media. On the Wikimedia discussion lists, this was called the "wink and nod" policy.
At the same time, however, various people, myself included, began lobbying the FSF to address these problems. Because Wikipedia was the largest user of the GFDL license on the planet, we felt it was only fair that we have some input on revising the wording of the license. Between 2006 and 2008, the FSF solicited feedback on the GFDL license and released periodic drafts of a new GFDL 1.3 license. In these drafts, they made limited concessions to the requests of Wikipedia activists, but essentially retained the spirit and purpose of the original license, namely supporting copylefted software manuals. Gradually discussions stalled as the two sides became more entrenched in their positions and less cooperative.
In 2008, however, the Wikimedia Foundation stepped in and began negotiations with both the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons. The result of these long and tedious negotiations were that the FSF would keep the GFDL license exactly how it was (dropping all the proposed revisions), but allow Wikipedia to migrate to a Creative Commons license. Although such a move was completely unprecedented (and legally tricky), it seemed to be the only solution that would make (almost) everyone happy. The FSF got to keep its licenses intact and Wikipedia got to finally join the rest of the free culture movement under the Creative Commons banner. Plus it would mean that our licensing policies could finally be sane and we could ask people to actually follow them to the letter instead of using the wink-and-nod policy.
I hope this has helped you to better understand how we got to where we are today and why the migration is important. Let me know if you have any questions about anything and what your thoughts on this are. I would really like to move forward in a spirit of cooperation rather than conflict. Kaldari (talk) 00:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for this commendably lucid summary of the situation. I think the key factor here is a difference in ideals/philosophy. As I indicated in the NC discussion on en.wikipedia I do not, to put it bluntly, contribute to commons in support of the general free culture movement. I contribute to Wikipedia out of wish to contribute to universal knowledge. I upload to Commons to facilitate the usage of my images in other wikipedias. It's as simple as that. So ideally I would like to contribute under a NC license, but this is not accepted. As already discussed at length on en.wikipedia I personally think it's a huge mistake for Wikipedia to place more value on being a part of free culture then in being the best gratis encyclopedia it can be. The focus is all wrong - if you ask John Citizen what he wants from a free encyclopedia he'll say "I want an accurate, comprehensive, multimedia rich resource I don't have to pay for". That's the goal I'm supporting. Most of the problems you raised with the GFDL could be simply solved by adopting a CC-BY-NC license.
- If people want to contribute to contribute under CC licenses that's fine, but you need to respect the wishes of people who haven't chosen this license. People don't choose randomly - if I want to upload under the GFDL and not the CC I've done this for a reason. And this must be respected. If you want to promote free culture/CC license than do it with an opt-in system for those who are happy to dual license - but you're not in a position to give my images a license I haven't consented to. That's a decision for the photographer alone.
- I have to disagree that this process has been open - the first I knew of this whole issue was after 1.3 had already been released. I would have expected at least some kind of notification on my talkpage.
- Although I appreciate that this migration probably means a lot to you, my image rights mean just as much to me. I contributed with the understanding that my images would be used according to the GFDL license only. So nothing personal, but I'll have to maintain my position. --Fir0002 www 06:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
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File:Richard Bell artwork.jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry.
If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues. |
--sугсго 09:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Reuploading your files
[edit]Now that the results of the relicensing poll have been announced, I would like to ask you once again to reconsider your position. Your photographs represent a sizable and valuable contribution to Wikipedia, and it would be a shame to leave them out of the migration, IMO. If you still intend to keep your licensing templates as 1.2-only, I will be reuploading all of your en.wiki featured pictures (up to July 5, 2008), as I am a reuser of those images under the previous licensing terms. If you need proof of this, I can provide it. I still have all the files with their old modification dates (from when I downloaded them) as well as the unfinished InDesign project files I was using them in. I would like to ask you as a courtesy, however, how you think it would be best for me to go about reuploading the images. Would you prefer:
- I upload them under a new file name and nominate the old ones for deletion (as duplicates)
- I upload them as new versions of the same files and change the licensing of those files accordingly
- I relicense those files only (without reuploading) with your explicit approval
Kaldari (talk) 15:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
- First off I appreciate your request and I'm sorry to disappoint but I will not be changing my position. Secondly, I'm not terribly impressed by the results of that poll. Only 397 votes or a total of just over 2% of the votes came from all of the "special" projects combined. It seems more than a little unjust, doesn't it, that the outcome should be largely decided by people who will not be effected in the slightest by the change. I really can't see how it can possibly be binding on me. Thirdly, the poll in no way overcomes the underlying issue of whether v1.3 retains the spirit of the GFDL
- In terms of you reuploading there's obviously not a lot I can do but make the following observations:
- How do you propose to show the old modification dates? Screenshots are obviously inappropriate as they can easily be manipulated...
- Of those three alternatives the first would be my preference (in the sense it's the least objectionable!). However I'd be curious to see what would happen in that scenario as surely commons would need to retain the originals in order to prove source information...?
- Lastly, I would again suggest that it is morally reprehensible to attempt to go behind the intentions and wishes of the originally uploader. I'd have hoped that a contributor would be given at least that much respect by the commons community. If you want to run a project based on altruism, look after your contributors. The discussion on the Licensing talkpage seemed to suggest the community would be happy with this. They images are licensed according to an acceptable license - be happy with that :) --Fir0002 www 11:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
- In the vast majority of cases, I believe the license migration will actually be fulfilling the intentions and wishes of the original uploaders far better than the GFDL did, as I believe that most people contributing to Wikipedia are more interested in sharing their work than exercising their copyrights. In your case, however, I believe the community has been sufficiently accommodating. I think relicensing only your en.wiki featured images is actually a pretty generous compromise. You can paint yourself as the victim if you like, but in the case of featured images especially, you benefit from the exposure that Wikipedia gives you. Unlike featured article writers, who remain virtually anonymous, featured picture photographers are acknowledged by name both on the photo pages and on the main page when they appear. Getting your name and work seen by millions of web surfers isn't trivial. So I must challenge your claim that uploading images to Wikipedia is purely "altruistic". I think it's a win-win situation in most cases. Regarding whether or not the vote is binding on you, it doesn't matter, as according to the GFDL it is completely up to the discretion of the site "operator" whether or not to relicense. The vote was to determine whether or not the WMF would choose to relicense. It was only binding on the WMF, not Wikipedia users. Regarding the modification dates, I could snail mail you a copy of the CD if you like. The project I was working on was actually to write a book about Wikipedia photography (and image licensing). It was going to be freely licensed with any profits going to the WMF. The project was on hold, however, due to the migration. Here are some sample pages: [5][6][7]. (I can't host these images on commons because of the licensing conflict between GFDL 1.2 and cc-by-sa -- you can't make a derivative work using both as sources.) This project is a perfect example of why this migration is so important. Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
- "I believe that most people contributing to Wikipedia are more interested in sharing their work than exercising their copyrights." I disagree on that, I do believe that users/uploaders like to share their own work while holding some rights to the work. I see some pit falls with Creative Commons licenses and that is all the re-user has to do is just use the name of the uploader (IE: Username) without linking to the user or works and no use the name (IE: Real name) of the Author and it isn't seen as a breach of the licensing. At the moment I have have at least 20 sites using my photographs that are not attributed and most of them will not respond to my emails.
- In the vast majority of cases, I believe the license migration will actually be fulfilling the intentions and wishes of the original uploaders far better than the GFDL did, as I believe that most people contributing to Wikipedia are more interested in sharing their work than exercising their copyrights. In your case, however, I believe the community has been sufficiently accommodating. I think relicensing only your en.wiki featured images is actually a pretty generous compromise. You can paint yourself as the victim if you like, but in the case of featured images especially, you benefit from the exposure that Wikipedia gives you. Unlike featured article writers, who remain virtually anonymous, featured picture photographers are acknowledged by name both on the photo pages and on the main page when they appear. Getting your name and work seen by millions of web surfers isn't trivial. So I must challenge your claim that uploading images to Wikipedia is purely "altruistic". I think it's a win-win situation in most cases. Regarding whether or not the vote is binding on you, it doesn't matter, as according to the GFDL it is completely up to the discretion of the site "operator" whether or not to relicense. The vote was to determine whether or not the WMF would choose to relicense. It was only binding on the WMF, not Wikipedia users. Regarding the modification dates, I could snail mail you a copy of the CD if you like. The project I was working on was actually to write a book about Wikipedia photography (and image licensing). It was going to be freely licensed with any profits going to the WMF. The project was on hold, however, due to the migration. Here are some sample pages: [5][6][7]. (I can't host these images on commons because of the licensing conflict between GFDL 1.2 and cc-by-sa -- you can't make a derivative work using both as sources.) This project is a perfect example of why this migration is so important. Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
- Now with the GFDL to CC I feel that uploaders should be contacted and given the right if they accept or don't accept the changes rather then just change the licensing under the noses of the uploader who still hold some rights to the works. I think that it would be a big mistake which could hurt the Community. Maybe WMF needs to look at how it can allow the copyright holder can freely share works without hurting Wikimedia project and the uploader and also give some advice on how to handle copyright breaches plus what to do. Just my thoughts. Bidgee (talk) 03:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
- @Kaldari: I think in many cases the license migration will be in line with the intention of the uploader - but that is why Bidgee's suggestion makes so much sense, don't force the change on people who don't want it but allow those who do to opt-in. You're perfectly free to have your own interpretation of my motives but I can assure you that my featured pictures afford me no great exposure. If I was after exposure I'd be using my real name - and I wouldn't care about this migration because CC still requires attribution. Also it's not much of a compromise that you offer - you're basically taking the best of my images (i.e. those dearest to me). And if we're at the point of compromise, isn't that acknowledging that changing to 1.2 only is a valid action (in that you're happy to leave the majority of my images as 1.2 only)? OK fair point on the vote - but I still think it wasn't really a good basis to form a decision because it was largely voted on by people who won't feel the effects (it's like me voting for the Prime Minister of NZ - I don't really have any connection with the vote). Interesting project that you were working on, but tools such as this make a snail mail disc somewhat inconclusive. Also in terms of the migration it's not really that much of a justification because if you'd contacted me I'd have been happy to grant you permission (and I'd have been appreciative of the ping on how my images were being used). Bottom line: I think given moral implications, the comments on the licensing talpage, Bidgee's comments above and the comments here I still think the most appropriate course of action is that you respect my change to retain GFDL (1.2 only) licensing on my images. --Fir0002 www 14:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- @Bidgee - I couldn't agree more and I'm glad you understand my position. --Fir0002 www 14:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Although I still believe that your license change is not legally valid (at least for images used on Wikipedia), I'm not willing to push the issue. It looks like a consensus is building for an opt-out option, and I'm willing to accept that as a gesture of good will. As you have pointed out several times in your own arguments, though, I am fully entitled to reupload the images that I downloaded under the original license. Regarding my project, a few clarifications: I fully intend to notify every photographer whose images I decide to use in the book and allow them to opt-out if they choose. I had actually already begun this process and obtained permission from several Wikipedia photographers last year. Regarding the burden of proof, I'm not really that concerned with whether or not I can convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I downloaded the images. I know that I did (and so does my girlfriend who helped me sort them all). My reason for downloading them is completely plausible and the fact that I downloaded them as a reuser is clear. If it needed to be decided in court, I'm sure that I could convince a reasonable person of its truth. If mailing you a CD isn't adequate, I have to ask how it is practically possible to ever prove that anyone has ever downloaded anything. If it's not possible, then your arguments about the validity of relicensing are just a game of 3 card monte. Either downloaders should be entitled to some degree of trust or revoking licenses should be prohibited completely. You can't have it both ways. Regarding the issue of compromise, if you're not willing to make any compromise on your end, I don't see why I should be asked not to exercise my right to reupload those images. I'm a fairly reasonable person. If you have a better compromise to offer, I'm willing to listen. I might be open, for example, to only relicensing photographs that I want to use in the book (so that I don't have to deal with the legal limbo created by the GFDL's ambiguous definitions and potential strong copyleft conflicts) in exchange for your explicit permission to use them. Does that sound reasonable? It would certainly save me a lot of effort (as I don't really want to spend hours reuploading all those images and going through the deletion nominations). If not, do you have any other suggestions? Kaldari (talk) 16:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- I'm glad you (and the community) are moving towards accepting an opt-out system as a gesture of good will and it is something I am obviously keen to do.
- Regarding the proof of you being a reuser I think you probably could establish that you are indeed a reuser as you have a perfectly good reason to have downloaded the files. I'm just saying that there isn't much point posting me the CD because it doesn't really show anything. However one thing does strike me about this book project - given that you are unhappy to include the images in your book under the GFDL why did you download GFDL images to be part of it? It does seem as though when you downloaded them you never had any intention to actually use them under the terms of the GFDL. Instead, you presumably intended to keep them until they could become "converted" to CC?
- That leads me to something I discovered recently in the terms of v1.3. If you are going to use those images under GFDL+ in order to use v1.3, you won't be able to use the relicensing clause. As per section 11, only a Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site can use that clause to relicense GFDL content to CC. That being so, and your project not being a MMC, you wouldn't be able to relicense my GFDL images as CC-BY-SA.
- In terms of you reuploading I'd suggest such an action would go against, and significantly sour, the community feeling that users should be allowed to opt-out of this migration. As I've already said, my FP photos are very dear to me and it would be a very bittersweet act of "good will" if you would go behind the opt-out scheme by uploading those FP's. Furthermore as I've also already mentioned I'd be surprised if the deletion nomination would be successful because that would lose the source information of the photos (however I'm not an experienced in DR so I might be wrong). But most significantly, clause 11 of 1.3 only allows relicensing where the work has been "incorporated prior to November 1, 2008". So you won't gain anything (in terms of migration) by reuploading now under GFDL+ (its too late).
- In terms of a compromise I think I can offer something. But first I'd like to point out that since you were intending to allow photographers to opt-out of your book project, wouldn't a simple solution be me opting-out of your book project? By anyway I am quite happy to give you permission to use the images (for free) under a Rights managed or even a Royalty Free license for use in your book project. Let me know if that suits you --Fir0002 www 13:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- When I originally started the book project, I was fully intending on using images under the GFDL. In fact, I even went through the motions of adding the entire license to the appendix of the book. That was back when the GFDL 1.3 draft was out and the plan was just to fix the GFDL for images. As you know, however, all the changes to the GFDL were dropped in favor of migrating to CC-BY-SA. So I thought that would be even better — I could just license the book under CC-BY-SA and not have any problems. Now, however, I'm back to the drawing board as a good portion of the images I was interested in are GFDL 1.2-only (13,000 and growing on commons). As you state above, even though I am a reuser of the images under GFDL 1.2+, I can't migrate the images to CC-BY-SA myself. That's why I would have to reupload them to Commons before August 1. Regarding the November 1 issue, if you read the section carefully, you'll see that that isn't an issue. All of the images were incorporated into the Commons prior to November, and your works weren't published outside of Wikipedia anyway (as far as I know). Regarding your suggestion of doing specific licensing just for the book, you have to realize that that would defeat the whole purpose of the project. The book is all about freely sharing photography and advertising all the great images that are available for reuse on the wikimedia projects. Are there any images whatsoever that you would be willing to license to the world (in perpetuity) under anything other than GFDL 1.2 or CC-NC? Surely there must be at least a couple good images that you would be willing to let go of. As they say, the best way to prove you truly love something is to set it free :) Kaldari (talk) 17:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps you could make two editions of the book, one with GFDL content and one with CC only. There are three or four good photographers on commons who only license under GFDL (User:Mdf included) and a number dual license so I don't think you'll have too much issues filling it up. Also does the v1.3 migration thing work the other way - ie would you be able to publish CC media in a GFDL book anyway? Otherwise I think that you could still use images with a special permission since they are still available for reuse on commons under the GFDL (just put a little asterisked note next to it perhaps).
- I see your point, but if you are going to upload the versions of the files you have on your computer, doesn't that fall under the definition of republishing on commons as a new work? Particularly since you are intending to delete my old versions? In which case it would seem the Nov 1 clause would apply...? A lot of my photos are obviously published on my website but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head whether they were published on my website or here first.
- I'm not actually familiar with that saying but it doesn't really strike me as true. I mean to take the extreme case take a look at marriage - you don't set your spouse free when you get married, you give a "until death do us part" vow to stay together. But anyway back to reality, if there are any images I'd be willing to "set free" in perpetuity they wouldn't be my best photos they would be those I don't really care about that much. A lot of my old Kodak photos would fall into that category. As I'm sure you already know, my philosophy in contributing to wikipedia is not go give my pictures away to the world but to spread knowledge. That's what wikipedia stands for to me. --Fir0002 www 14:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
- Just a quick note - I probably won't be checking or replying to any further comments until my exams are over on June 23. Email if it's very urgent. --Fir0002 www 13:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
- When I originally started the book project, I was fully intending on using images under the GFDL. In fact, I even went through the motions of adding the entire license to the appendix of the book. That was back when the GFDL 1.3 draft was out and the plan was just to fix the GFDL for images. As you know, however, all the changes to the GFDL were dropped in favor of migrating to CC-BY-SA. So I thought that would be even better — I could just license the book under CC-BY-SA and not have any problems. Now, however, I'm back to the drawing board as a good portion of the images I was interested in are GFDL 1.2-only (13,000 and growing on commons). As you state above, even though I am a reuser of the images under GFDL 1.2+, I can't migrate the images to CC-BY-SA myself. That's why I would have to reupload them to Commons before August 1. Regarding the November 1 issue, if you read the section carefully, you'll see that that isn't an issue. All of the images were incorporated into the Commons prior to November, and your works weren't published outside of Wikipedia anyway (as far as I know). Regarding your suggestion of doing specific licensing just for the book, you have to realize that that would defeat the whole purpose of the project. The book is all about freely sharing photography and advertising all the great images that are available for reuse on the wikimedia projects. Are there any images whatsoever that you would be willing to license to the world (in perpetuity) under anything other than GFDL 1.2 or CC-NC? Surely there must be at least a couple good images that you would be willing to let go of. As they say, the best way to prove you truly love something is to set it free :) Kaldari (talk) 17:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- Although I still believe that your license change is not legally valid (at least for images used on Wikipedia), I'm not willing to push the issue. It looks like a consensus is building for an opt-out option, and I'm willing to accept that as a gesture of good will. As you have pointed out several times in your own arguments, though, I am fully entitled to reupload the images that I downloaded under the original license. Regarding my project, a few clarifications: I fully intend to notify every photographer whose images I decide to use in the book and allow them to opt-out if they choose. I had actually already begun this process and obtained permission from several Wikipedia photographers last year. Regarding the burden of proof, I'm not really that concerned with whether or not I can convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I downloaded the images. I know that I did (and so does my girlfriend who helped me sort them all). My reason for downloading them is completely plausible and the fact that I downloaded them as a reuser is clear. If it needed to be decided in court, I'm sure that I could convince a reasonable person of its truth. If mailing you a CD isn't adequate, I have to ask how it is practically possible to ever prove that anyone has ever downloaded anything. If it's not possible, then your arguments about the validity of relicensing are just a game of 3 card monte. Either downloaders should be entitled to some degree of trust or revoking licenses should be prohibited completely. You can't have it both ways. Regarding the issue of compromise, if you're not willing to make any compromise on your end, I don't see why I should be asked not to exercise my right to reupload those images. I'm a fairly reasonable person. If you have a better compromise to offer, I'm willing to listen. I might be open, for example, to only relicensing photographs that I want to use in the book (so that I don't have to deal with the legal limbo created by the GFDL's ambiguous definitions and potential strong copyleft conflicts) in exchange for your explicit permission to use them. Does that sound reasonable? It would certainly save me a lot of effort (as I don't really want to spend hours reuploading all those images and going through the deletion nominations). If not, do you have any other suggestions? Kaldari (talk) 16:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Dr.RAM.jpg
[edit]Hi Fir0002,
I've deleted Dr.RAM.jpg but also left a link in the deletion log to show that your version is available. Bidgee (talk) 15:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
File:Fields outside benambra.jpg in UNEP report.
[edit]I'm just informing you that your photograph (File:Fields outside benambra.jpg) wasn't attributed to you. The photo can be found on the bottom of page 20 on the Impacts of climate change: How can we adapt? report. Bidgee (talk) 16:20, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot for drawing that to my attention - I'll send them an email tomorrow... --Fir0002 www 14:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
licencetemplates
[edit]What do you think about including Category:Taken with Canon EOS 20D in all your EOS 20D templates?
--D-Kuru (talk) 00:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Umm sure that looks fairly harmless. --Fir0002 www 14:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- It changed/fixed your edit to <includeonly>[[Category:Taken with Canon EOS 20D]]</includeonly> so that User:Fir0002/400 (and the other licencetemplates) are no longer categorised in Taken with Canon EOS 20D (Now only the images get that category). Of course you are free to revert my edit.
- Other suggestion: Canon 70-200 L.jpg is categorised in Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L USM. Category:Taken with Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L USM does not exist so far, but could be filled up because you sorted the images by lens. Would you include that category too if it would be created?
- --D-Kuru (talk) 14:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for the change D-Kuru, I'm happy to do the 70-200mm fact too... --Fir0002 www 13:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- I included Category:Taken with Canon EF 17-40mm F4L USM on User:Fir0002/17, Category:Taken with Sigma 150mm Macro on User:Fir0002/150 and on User:Fir0002/150MT, Category:Taken with Canon EF 85mm F1.8 USM on User:Fir0002/85 and Category:Taken with Tamron SP AF 28-75mm F2.8 XR Di on User:Fir0002/20D.
- What about including Taken with Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L USM on User:Fir0002/200 1.4 as well? It is still the same lens even it is modified isn't it? I included Taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark II on User:Fir0002/5D 200 because you agreed to include the taken with EOS 20D category to all the other templates. I also included Category:Taken with Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L USM. Of course you can remove and/or correct the categories if they're not right.
- Do you have any lens-images for User:Fir0002/400? Please do not subst the licecetemplte as you did on Ramesh Mashelkar Apr09.jpg.
- --D-Kuru (talk) 21:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I would say that the teleconverter images are appropriate in the same cat as the lens as they show how the lens performs with a TC. Strangely enough I don't have any images of the 400, I must get round to taking one... --Fir0002 www 11:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Opt-out discussion
[edit]Hello Fir0002, I am trying to develop a larger consensus around the opt-out issue. Consistent with that, I have started a new section on the talk page and plan to advertise it widely. Your previous comments are linked from that page, but I am mentioning it here in case you want to address the issue directly in the new thread. Apologies, for the duplication of effort, but I think restarting this is more likely to gain participation rather than trying to draw new voices into an thread that had already grown stale. Dragons flight (talk) 00:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- Considering the amount of license and relicense talk here I cannot promise I have read it all. :-) However I suggest to put the stuff back to GFDL 1.2+ and opt out of relicensing, or at least try to use {{GFDL|migration=opt-out}} in your (transcluded) templates to make your pictures to populate the Category:License_migration_opt-out list. (Or add the category manually to your template.) So far it seems "nobody" wants to opt out...
- And I see why it's so, you want to eat, equipment costs money, etc. I guess it's fair that you want a balance between sharing and earning. --grin ✎ 07:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK I'll add {{GFDL|migration=opt-out}} to my templates - transclusion is still in the works though --Fir0002 www 09:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Transcluded user templates with embedded license templates
[edit]Hi Peter,
As we discussed some months ago, your transcluded user templates containing embedded license templates are not compliant with existing Commons policy. You wrote then that you thought you would extract the license templates from the user templates. I've not pursued this issue further with you for some time, due to the related debate about the license migration, and your change to GFDL-1.2 only. However, now this discussion seems to have settled (correct me if I am wrong?), and I think it is time to address the transcluded user templates with embedded license templates again. Since you are not the only user using templates in this way, I think it is in order to do a principal discussion about whether the existing poilcy should remain unchanged, or yours and other template transclusions should be modified. I have tried to summarize the current situation in a factual manner at User:Slaunger/Sandbox/COM:AN message, and I would like to give you the opportunity to review it and correct factual mistakes (or my probably numerous grammatic and spelling errors, not a native speaker) before I post it to COM:AN. I am in the process of also notifying Benjamint444 and Fcb981 (I have already notified Muhammad Mahdi Karim). If you are aware of other user, who also transclude user templates in a similar matter, please tell me such that I can engage them in the discussion.
Best wishes, --Slaunger (talk) 13:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
- Hey Slaunger, you certainly timed your request well, finished my last exam today :) Made some mods to the text, nothing too major. Let me know if you're happy with it. Otherwise I still prefer my current templates because they are the quickest way to upload and so would prefer a modification in policy. But failing that I'm happy to upload with a custom template (w/o license) and a separate license template. I was fiddling around a while ago with making a template which would substitute the code for the custom template and the license template during upload - this would keep it all in one package. Eg ((MyLicense)) would add to the image description page the code "{{CustomLicense)) ((GFDL-1.2))" but I couldn't get it to work. Any ideas?
- As for other users I've seen quite a lot of users adopting my style of template but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Best thing I suppose is to approach this one at a time. I'll let you know if I came across any more... --Fir0002 www 12:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I hope you did well with your exams, and that you can now enjoy some vacation and perhaps some photography. I am OK with the changes you've made. I had overlooked which dif your change occurred in, so I am glad you corrected that. Yes, many users have adopted this methology of using templates this way. Muhammad pointed me to a category, User custom license tags, where I think a lot of other cases exist as well.
- Yes I have an idea of how your proposed two-level templates could work. The top level user template {{MyGFDL-1.2}} would simply contain "{{My}}{{GFDL-1.2}}", where {{My}} is your personal template telling about the equipment used, how to contact you if reusers wants to negotiate other terms, that you would appreciate to receive a mail, when images are reused, etc.
- But then, instead of transcluding {{MyGFDL-1.2}} onto you image pages, you should subst it, like {{subst:MyGFDL-1.2}}, which will then expand to {{My}}{{GFDL-1.2}} on each image page whereby you would be compliant to the policy and still have the possibility to maintain and change your personal {{My}} template. Now, if you want to retain your current look, where the license template is embedded into {{My}}, that can be done as well by modifying the user template {{My}} such that it takes a standard license as an argument, i.e., {{My|GFDL-1.2}}. Then {{MyGFDL-1.2}} should instead contain just that code, and when you subst it, it is this code which appears in each file page, since the license is given as an argument to the template it is not formally embedded in your license template, but rather given explicitly as a user template argument on each file page. That would then imply that if you were to later change the licensing, for instance, by adding {{CoolNewLicense}} that would need an edit on each file page adding the new license as a second argument, i.e., {{My|GFDL-1.2|CoolNewLicense}}. In that manner your license change would appear in the file history of all affected files as they should.
- If you are interested in the latter scenario, I would be willing to help you implement it. In that case I would suggest that I am allowed to make entirely new user templates in your user space using names, which are derived from the existing ones. I.e., I would not change any of the templates you have there (he, I can't as you've protected them), and once they have been tested and approved as functional by you, we could ask a bot operator to replace all occurances of your existing user templates on your existing +1700 images, with new ones, which specify the license in each file page instance.
- I am unfortunately caught at a bad time assisting with that as I will be at sea (work) beginning Saturday, and after that vacation in Switzerland and Italy for a total of two weeks. But the period July 20-31 is an open period for me. Anyway I could start, as with my proposed process nothing will be broken while work is in progress.--Slaunger (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- I've had a try and I don't mind how User:Fir0002/MyTemplate looks, and will probably go with that over the argument style which I'm not familiar with. I'll probably go ahead and make the new templates soon, but first I need to think over whether I want to dual license under GFDL-1.2 and CC-BY-NC as this would be the last easy opportunity to implement it... I'll let you know tomorrow so that we can get started on changing the template structure --Fir0002 www 05:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. The side-by-side style is surely also the most transparent and simple one to implement and maintain, so I am happy that you find that side-by-side templates look alright. Interesting thought to add the CC-BY-NC, which is not permitted on its own but acceptable together with the GFDL-1.2. I understand if you need to give that a good thought first. --Slaunger (talk) 06:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- Ok I've decided to go with a dual 1.2 and CC-BY-NC style - see User:Fir0002/400/sample here for what I'd like the replacements to look like. So next question is who has a bot to do the replacements? --Fir0002 www 13:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- Well, while you have been thinking about the CC-BY-NC, I've made some simple pywiki scripts for SlaungerBot dedicated to these kinds of tasks, and I have applied for bot status (no comments yet though on that request). I would like to use your template replacement for doing an evaluation run over 10 file pages, if that seems OK to you. More såpecifically, I propose to do the following:
- I make a manual edit on one of your file pages doing the replacement we have agreed upon. When we have agreed that this is the way it should work we will go to step 2.
- I do a test run (if I am allowed to) changing ten files pages with the bot. The result is evaluated by you and the bot approvers. If everything is OK, and my bot is granted the bot flag, we go to the next step.
- I let the bot do the template replacement on all you file pages.
- If my bot is not granted the bot flag, I know there is some bot job request page here, and I propose we then ask the job to be done there.
- One concern about your way to do the CC-BY-NC template. You use the {{Cc}} template to do that, but according to its documentation, one should really create a dedicated license for the purpose, when the number of uses is more than a few. I think that is the case here. Also concerning the use of the category parameter, should it not change its behavior depending on whether it is on the template page or when it is transcluded? That can be done with the <noinclude></noinclude> and <includeonly></includeonly> tags. --Slaunger (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- Another thing: I noticed the phrase "...and you are required to release the image (or any subsequent derivatives of it) under the GFDL...." Since you would now be dual license under GFDL-1.2 and CC-BY-NC should it not state "...GFDL or CC-BY-NC..." Or, more seperated from the license "...one or more of the licenses listed below..."? --Slaunger (talk) 14:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- Your proposal sounds pretty good, but I've realised I'll be busy IRL this weekend so we might need to wait till you get back on the 20th of July for the change - have a good vacation! --Fir0002 www 06:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. Lets suspend the actual bot work until July 20, but until then I think you should work on somehow getting a standardized CC-BY-NC template incorporated, list all subpages specialized with various configurations of your equipment, and also consider specifying the opt-out thing explicitly as mentioned above. --Slaunger (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I am back and ready! I am however, still concerned about the rather strange use of the {{Cc}} to make a CC-BY-NC license. It is explicitly mentioned in the template documentation for cc that it should be considered to make a dedicated template, when you are using it many times (as i beleive is the case here). Have you investigated if there is a more standardized way to include a CC-BY-NC on top of the free GFDL 1.2 only license? --Slaunger (talk) 18:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger, hope you had a good break! I think that's the best way to have it - seems like a dedicated template has been tried before and deleted. Let me know what you need from me in terms of this changeover --Fir0002 www 12:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it was a nice break. Hmmm... yes I see it has been tried before. I would rather like to be sure that actual edits being done with my new SlaungerBot are not controversial. Therefore I would like to get second opinions at Commons talk:Licensing that this would be an acceptable manner to make a CC-BY-NC, or ask for the creation of a dedicated CC-BY-NC template. For instance with an additional argument addition-to-free-license=true argument, which has to be set for the template not to display an ugly "A standalone CC-BY-NC is not allowed. It can only be used together with a free license" - or something like that. The additional argument should be there to avoid a user to casually use CC-BY-NC as a standalone license. Would that be OK with you?
- I have by the way initiated a parallel process with Jean-Pol GRANDMONT, and done the first 20 replacements (out of 1800 for this user) in a bot test run, which is awaiting review and 'crat approval at Commons:Bots/Requests/SlaungerBot such that I can get a bot flag. Feel free to comment there as well if you like.
- --Slaunger (talk) 12:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Yup sure, that sounds fine. Let me know what the decision on Commons talk:Licensing is --Fir0002 www 12:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger, hope you had a good break! I think that's the best way to have it - seems like a dedicated template has been tried before and deleted. Let me know what you need from me in terms of this changeover --Fir0002 www 12:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I am back and ready! I am however, still concerned about the rather strange use of the {{Cc}} to make a CC-BY-NC license. It is explicitly mentioned in the template documentation for cc that it should be considered to make a dedicated template, when you are using it many times (as i beleive is the case here). Have you investigated if there is a more standardized way to include a CC-BY-NC on top of the free GFDL 1.2 only license? --Slaunger (talk) 18:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
- OK. Lets suspend the actual bot work until July 20, but until then I think you should work on somehow getting a standardized CC-BY-NC template incorporated, list all subpages specialized with various configurations of your equipment, and also consider specifying the opt-out thing explicitly as mentioned above. --Slaunger (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- Your proposal sounds pretty good, but I've realised I'll be busy IRL this weekend so we might need to wait till you get back on the 20th of July for the change - have a good vacation! --Fir0002 www 06:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- Well, while you have been thinking about the CC-BY-NC, I've made some simple pywiki scripts for SlaungerBot dedicated to these kinds of tasks, and I have applied for bot status (no comments yet though on that request). I would like to use your template replacement for doing an evaluation run over 10 file pages, if that seems OK to you. More såpecifically, I propose to do the following:
- Ok I've decided to go with a dual 1.2 and CC-BY-NC style - see User:Fir0002/400/sample here for what I'd like the replacements to look like. So next question is who has a bot to do the replacements? --Fir0002 www 13:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. The side-by-side style is surely also the most transparent and simple one to implement and maintain, so I am happy that you find that side-by-side templates look alright. Interesting thought to add the CC-BY-NC, which is not permitted on its own but acceptable together with the GFDL-1.2. I understand if you need to give that a good thought first. --Slaunger (talk) 06:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- I've had a try and I don't mind how User:Fir0002/MyTemplate looks, and will probably go with that over the argument style which I'm not familiar with. I'll probably go ahead and make the new templates soon, but first I need to think over whether I want to dual license under GFDL-1.2 and CC-BY-NC as this would be the last easy opportunity to implement it... I'll let you know tomorrow so that we can get started on changing the template structure --Fir0002 www 05:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
(indents reset) OK, I have opened the thread Commons talk:Licensing#How to dual license with one free and one cc-by-nc-sa license?. You may want to read my post to review the way I have presented the case. --Slaunger (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Tony Wills informed me that there is a {{GFDL or cc-by-nc-sa/2.5}} is alsmost what you are after as it is combined GFDL-1.2 and CC-BY-NC-SA/2.5. However, you have requested CC-BY-NC-SA/2.0. Is the version of the CC-BY-NC-SA license important to you? --Slaunger (talk) 10:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
- Might need to amend it to pass through the migration parameter. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
- A related issue which I do not understand is why you still insist on using the GFDL-1.2, in the Opt-out discussion above it seems like you agreed to revert back to GFDL and then indicate that you opt-out of the license migration, but in the new licens template sample you still use GFDL-1.2??? --Slaunger (talk) 19:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
- Happy with CC-BY-NC 2.5 - see below re: GFDL 1.2 (and no I didn't agree to revert to GFDL in that discussion, I was merely agreeing to add in the migration opt out cat to my images --Fir0002 www 13:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- You wrote above "OK I'll add {{GFDL|migration=opt-out}} to my templates - transclusion is still in the works though", that is not GFDL-1.2. Thus, it is quite understandable that I interprete that as a statement from you indicating an acceptace to revert back to GFDL with the opt-out parameter added, which then leads me to a state of confusion when I realize that you new template still has the GFDL-1.2. With that interpretation I perceived that as a kind of sly move. If you are now telling me that you really meant {{GFDL-1.2|migration=opt-out}} it is an entirely different business. --Slaunger (talk) 13:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- Happy with CC-BY-NC 2.5 - see below re: GFDL 1.2 (and no I didn't agree to revert to GFDL in that discussion, I was merely agreeing to add in the migration opt out cat to my images --Fir0002 www 13:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- A related issue which I do not understand is why you still insist on using the GFDL-1.2, in the Opt-out discussion above it seems like you agreed to revert back to GFDL and then indicate that you opt-out of the license migration, but in the new licens template sample you still use GFDL-1.2??? --Slaunger (talk) 19:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
- Might need to amend it to pass through the migration parameter. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Do you still have an unedited copy of File:Buses in canberra.jpg? I'm after the rego for the Greyhound Pioneer so I can Ident it so it can be added to a category and description. Bidgee (talk) 13:44, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- I do but I'm slightly concerned with possible privacy issues so I'm a reluctant to provide it --Fir0002 www 05:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- You can just email it (Rego number as the fleet number has it's last number missing) to me (I'll not make the rego public) just that it's hard for me to do an Ident of the bus body and chassis. Bidgee (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK I'll give you an email sometime next week (I don't have the originals with me in Melbourne). --Fir0002 www 13:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
The GFDL to GFDL-1.2 thingie again again again
[edit]Hi Peter,
Despite very many and long discussions about this I still do not feel the Community has reached consensus on this matter. I think it is a very important discussion, so I have re-opened it at the village pump. Cheers, --Slaunger (talk) 20:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
- Sigh. Not sure why you're bringing it up again but anyway. The consensus was simple - as a gesture of good will my reversion would be honoured. And I'm more than a little frustrated that you should be reopening this debate when again I'm trying to focus on my uni studies. I had assumed this would be all sorted by the end of my break (two weeks ago). --Fir0002 www 13:17, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- I am sorry to hear tyhat you are frustrated by me bringing it up again. But the original reason for your reversion was the CC-BY-SA migration of the GFDL 1.3, which you thought was not in the spirit of the GFDL 1.2 or later. Since, after that discussion opened, the comminity allowed as a courtesy for these insisting to opt out of the migration, that argument no longer applies, does it? That implies IMO that the original objective you had for the change was since then changed and there is a good reason to revisit that change. What is the problem with the GFDL license when the migration=opt-out parameter is given? Can you point out to me where that simple consensus you are referring to has been stated? The discussion have been long and spread into several threads, and I may have overlooked it. What also trigged me was that Benjamint444 suddenly replicated your change, which kindda indicated that it was on the verge of becoming "practise". --Slaunger (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- See my replies on the VP - basically the problem with the GFDL is what you pointed out, why should I/we go through the pain of this migration debate sometime in the future. It's much better to permanently solve the issue. Re: Benjamint, it will could only become practice in regard to users opting out from this migration. The license change is a direct consequence of the migration and is not likely to cause great issues with regard to "general" license swapping (which incidentally I don't think is particularly problematic and probably more common than you think). --Fir0002 www 14:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- Also take a quick look through this section which clearly accepts the idea of a license change as an acceptable way to opt out of this migration --Fir0002 www 04:42, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- I think that was an idea suggested but was really a non-starter, it was rejected in favour of the simple opt-out. Which you were happy with at the time. Only a month ago you agreed that the GFDL with opt-out was what was going to happen. I think the migration issue is practically dead anyway (you have opted out, your files are not going to be migrated to CC-BY-SA).
- It appears that you are worried that future GFDLs might do something similar. I don't really think that there is a real possibility that any other changes of this significance will ever happen again. I think the FDL people are happy that we're no longer trying to drive changes to the GDFL. This was a major change that took many, many years to negotiate and it looks like you are fighting a battle to protect yourself against something that is unlikely to happen. It might give you peace of mind to change the licenses, but the precedent for the project would be too great. --Tony Wills (talk) 05:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why you say it was a non-starter, because at the risk of sounding big headed I fully took up the option. Further I can't see that it was rejected at any point in favour of the "simple" opt out. Before that diff gets twisted any more, I should make perfectly clear I was only agreeing to add in the opt out tag to my templates because User:grin seemed concerned that no one was opting out. I wasn't agreeing to GFDL "simple" opt out because I was, and still am, very concerned with a future revision of the GFDL pulling a similar stunt to this migration. I'm afraid I don't share your optimism and don't think a temporary fix is the best option. What would happen if I ever left the project and something like this happened again!? I don't think any harmful precedent would be set, because as I've already mentioned any future case would be easily distinguishable on the grounds that this relicence was a direct consequence of the migration. So it would only set a precedent for any future migration attempts (which would be a good thing IMO). Furthermore as I've also pointed out I think the community already does do the sensible thing and exercise discretion in terms of relicensing on a case by case basis --Fir0002 www 06:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- The re-license isn't necessary as a "direct consequence of the migration" if you're allowed to opt out. From your arguments, changing your license is to protect against unknown future changes, not the migration. So the precedent appears to be that when a user realises unforeseen consequences (or hypothetical consequences) of their licensing, that they should be allowed to change the license - basically everyone who is not a lawyer or who hasn't had their lawyer go over the licenses could claim that and amend their licenses.
- Another aspect is that WMF "published" that photo, along with that license, and changing which license the image now shows, does not "un-publish" that former license - it has still been published and changing what the image page now shows is just deceptive.
- I am not sure what discretion the community shows about re-licensing (cite cases?), corrections of obvious mistakes are of course allowed within a short time of initial publication, corrections of incorrect licenses must be made whenever found. I think other cases are only 'allowed' because they haven't been brought to the attention of the community as a whole (individuals may have turned a blind eye). The discussion of an ability for users to 'change' licenses is something that needs to be had at a much higher level, discussion on talk pages, and other forums here, really doesn't have enough weight for such an important issue. Unfortunately your profile (and standing) is far too high for the community to turn a blind eye or let it slide.
- I think that it is much more likely that, at some time in the future, GFDL will no longer be accepted by WMF, than the likely-hood of GFDL being again opened up like this. --Tony Wills (talk) 07:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- That's a very broad formulation of the precedent and there is no reason to make it that broad. Although the time relevance of the migration is now over, cast yourself back a month and precedent might simply be formulated as an option for opting out from the migration (as expressed in the Taskforce link I gave above). The precedent would then become "a user can modify their GFDL license to become 1.2 only if they do not wish to participate in the migration". If you really felt it necessary (to make this a distinct precedent to {{GFDL|opt-out))) you could add the further qualifier "and the user now feels concerned that the "future versions" clause may be exploited again in the future to relicense their work under a license they do not want". Because the opt-out was an act of courtesy, I see no reason why it would not extend to allow concerned users to solidify the terms in version 1.2 (which I've said over and over is a commons-accepted license and contains similar terms to 1.3 bar clause 11).
- "Publishing" on WMF is not really an issue - IMO it's a conceptually misleading way to look at it. For example say I first "published" my image on my website under an all rights reserved, there's nothing stopping me offering it on commons under GFDL 1.2. I'm free to license my image as I choose. Essentially you're making the same argument as before regarding people who downloaded prior to the license change. And as I've already said, yes they can use it under that license, but I'm free to offer new users a different license. Furthermore as I've already suggested such downloaders would not care about the change because they were happy with the terms of 1.2 when they downloaded the image. For them nothing has changed.
- I haven't been watching for these kind of things so I've only got the example I gave at the VP - but as I've said it makes little sense not to give contributors that freedom as long as it conforms with the accepted license on commons.
- Hmm I suppose it's possible that the GFDL will no longer be allowed, but that makes it all the more likely that another migration attempt will be made as commons will loose quite a bit of content if it does drop the GFDL. Seems unlikely that they would do that. --Fir0002 www 14:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I disagree with you that what you had back there in mid May was consensus for allowing you to revert from GFDL to GFDL-1.2. That was an envisioned solution at that time. Later in mid June, the the actual templates implementing opt-put were made, which specified exactly how to opt-out. It was there clarified that it had to be done by specifying an opt-out migration parameter to the existing GFDL kicense. As I interprete what has come out of my renewed post at the Village Pump, other users agree that it is not OK to opt-out by going from GFDL to GFDL-1.2. If you insist on the GFDL-1.2 for files uploaded by you prior to your license restriction, you will have to try to find another solution to the transcluded license issue you have, as I am not willing to let my bot extract GFDL-1.2 license templates on your images uploaded prior to your license change, as I feel such edits will be non-compliant to Commons policy and clause 10 in the GFDL. --Slaunger (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger, for my part I'd disagree with your analysis. 1.2-only relicensing was a solution which had quite a bit of support and was never overturned. There was/is no suggestion that the previous discussion was nullified by the one you link to. Rather that was discussing a much more broad and generalised template in which opting out was just one of its six parameters. Although there did seem to be some users on VP who disagreed with the way I opted-out, no convincing arguments seem to have surfaced. I feel I acted on a valid consensus on the Taskforce page on opting-out and upon valid concerns as to the future of the GFDL. Also I'm not sure of what commons policy you're concerned you'd be violating if you performed the transclusion...? Clause 10 of the GFDL is pretty irrelevant to this - if the relicense is acceptable (which I maintain it is), then it has no operation. It's a shame that you are unwilling to help with transclusion (particularly since you were so keen on it in the first place!) but if that's the position you wish to maintain I guess I'll have to look for another bot-operator or do it myself manually. Bit silly but I suppose it's got to be done... --Fir0002 www 12:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to see the "support" you had for your license change. It was not overturned by me because I did not have the nerve to get into another lengthy heated argument. You are an admin and not just some user where this can be resolved by protecting the personal license template according to policy. Do not mistake that for support. --Dschwen (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Migration talkpage linked above. Surprised with your comment given your ambivalence to the issue but glad the argument was avoided --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to see the "support" you had for your license change. It was not overturned by me because I did not have the nerve to get into another lengthy heated argument. You are an admin and not just some user where this can be resolved by protecting the personal license template according to policy. Do not mistake that for support. --Dschwen (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I will btw also be off-line until August 8. By the way, do you recall, that almost two years ago, you wrote on August 20, 2007 when your license templates were up for discussion: ... The templates are safe, they're protected and hence can only be edited by trusted users. I'm not going to suddenly mass relicence my images, ...? I stumbled across it via a link from the talk page of Fcb981, who I am assisting in a similar way. --Slaunger (talk) 23:27, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
- Fair enough, I guess I'll wait till then before seeking assistance elsewhere to see whether you have changed your mind. Haha well I think that quote is more than a little out of context don't you think? Two years is a very long time and my change was to completely unforeseen circumstance. If you're going to apply that kind of a time-freeze then you'd have realized that I haven't actually changed my license because back in 2007 my images were licensed according to v1.2. That's really what makes this all so ridiculous - this issue seems to hinge on petty bureaucracy since to the end user there is no effective difference to the licensing terms of 1.2 only and 1.2+! The reflex response to that no doubt is "precedent" but as I've pointed out above such a precedent can be construed narrowly and effectively have no further application (if and until another migration attempt is made). Finally (to return to your original point) if your read that comment in context of the surrounding comment it was addressing any concern that I would license the images under a license not accepted by commons (such as CC-BY-NC or (c) All Rights Reserved) - a key phrase you left out was "I think my years as a contributor testify well enough that I'm dedicated enough to the project" (ie I'm not going to suddenly make all images unavailable to the commons). --Fir0002 www 12:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Slaunger, for my part I'd disagree with your analysis. 1.2-only relicensing was a solution which had quite a bit of support and was never overturned. There was/is no suggestion that the previous discussion was nullified by the one you link to. Rather that was discussing a much more broad and generalised template in which opting out was just one of its six parameters. Although there did seem to be some users on VP who disagreed with the way I opted-out, no convincing arguments seem to have surfaced. I feel I acted on a valid consensus on the Taskforce page on opting-out and upon valid concerns as to the future of the GFDL. Also I'm not sure of what commons policy you're concerned you'd be violating if you performed the transclusion...? Clause 10 of the GFDL is pretty irrelevant to this - if the relicense is acceptable (which I maintain it is), then it has no operation. It's a shame that you are unwilling to help with transclusion (particularly since you were so keen on it in the first place!) but if that's the position you wish to maintain I guess I'll have to look for another bot-operator or do it myself manually. Bit silly but I suppose it's got to be done... --Fir0002 www 12:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why you say it was a non-starter, because at the risk of sounding big headed I fully took up the option. Further I can't see that it was rejected at any point in favour of the "simple" opt out. Before that diff gets twisted any more, I should make perfectly clear I was only agreeing to add in the opt out tag to my templates because User:grin seemed concerned that no one was opting out. I wasn't agreeing to GFDL "simple" opt out because I was, and still am, very concerned with a future revision of the GFDL pulling a similar stunt to this migration. I'm afraid I don't share your optimism and don't think a temporary fix is the best option. What would happen if I ever left the project and something like this happened again!? I don't think any harmful precedent would be set, because as I've already mentioned any future case would be easily distinguishable on the grounds that this relicence was a direct consequence of the migration. So it would only set a precedent for any future migration attempts (which would be a good thing IMO). Furthermore as I've also pointed out I think the community already does do the sensible thing and exercise discretion in terms of relicensing on a case by case basis --Fir0002 www 06:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
- Also take a quick look through this section which clearly accepts the idea of a license change as an acceptable way to opt out of this migration --Fir0002 www 04:42, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
(indents reset) Hi Peter, I am back again. Here is my reply. Your explanations does not make me change my mind. The reasons are:
- Since April 15, 2009 it has been stated in Commons:Licensing#Acceptable licenses that All copyrighted material on Commons ... must meet the following conditions:
- ...
- The license must be perpetual (non-expiring) and non-revocable
- ...
- which is after you made the license change. Thus, it is perhaps understandable that you did that license change back then, but since it is now explicitly stated in the policy that the licenses must be perpetual and not be revoked it is clear for me that your license change of images uploaded prior to January 30, 2009 is in violation of current Commons policy.
- It is my impression that it has been added explicitly partly as a spin-off of our initial discussions, to make it absolutely clear although it is already implied by the license texts alone. No one has questioned that policy change since its addition, so I (now) consider it as a stable and uncontroversial part of current Commons policy.
- One could question the application of that policy retrospectively but that is not the issue. AFAIK a license change is not in violation of this policy because it does not attempt to revoke the license of users prior to the change. They are free to use the image under the GFDL. It simply changes the license the image is offered to any future uses. A potential issue would be whether commons could be considered a user of the images - something we've been through and is clearly questionable. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- AFAIK it is in violation of this policy. It lies in the perpetual word and the caveat argument you have concerning that previous users can use it under the original license is not something I feel is in the spirit of the Commons policy - especially considering that your actual license change is hidden completely away with a blank edit edit summary in a transcluded user template in violation with another Commons policy. If it was indeed allowed to change the conditions for new users such that they had less rights than before, such an esoteric rule would have been mentioned explicitly as it is counter-intuitive. However, I will open a thread about this at COM:L to seek community input on that matter as well. --Slaunger (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, and surely retrospective policy adjustments and clarification are in order. This is needed all the time to make sure Commons meets its scope and works as a community. In this case it seems like a clarification was warranted, although the perpetual and non-revokable part is something most users considers as an integrated element of the licenses and their license texts themselves. No harm in making it explicit when doubts arise as in this case. However, when retrospective changes are made users violating current policy due to recent changes should of course be informed to a reasonable degree and have a fair chance to align their content to the adjusted policies, which is one my objectives with spending so much of my time writing here. --Slaunger (talk) 20:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- One could question the application of that policy retrospectively but that is not the issue. AFAIK a license change is not in violation of this policy because it does not attempt to revoke the license of users prior to the change. They are free to use the image under the GFDL. It simply changes the license the image is offered to any future uses. A potential issue would be whether commons could be considered a user of the images - something we've been through and is clearly questionable. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- GFDL 1.3 was released on November 3, 2008, and on that same date the equivalent license template on Commons {{GFDL-1.3}} was created. That implies that as of January 2009, when you changed the GFDL 1.2 or later into GFDL 1.2 only, you were effectively changing a GFDL 1.2, or 1.3 or later into GFDL 1.2 only. You were effectively retracting an existing GFDL 1.3 license and also eliminated the and later in violation with the clause 10 of the GFDL 1.2. So it is not true that your license change back then did not mean a real change.
- This is basically the same point you raised above - irrelevant unless commons could be considered a user. BUT I think it's ludicrous to deny there was no real change because the terms of the the license for the typical user (I'm excluding MMCs obvously) have not changed. In GFDL 1.3 the user must follow exactly the same requirements as with GFDL 1.2. There is no change. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- It is not correct that the ver. 1.2 and ver. 1.3 GFDL licenses are exactly identical besides the new MMC clause 11. There are other adjustments besides the addition of the new clause 11 of the license text and additions such as clarifications of what a "publisher" is, reformulation of how a reuser can provisionally reinstate the license following a violation of the license, and the definition of a proxy stakeholder. These license changes will be minor for most users but not always so. To see the detailed difference, I have made this dif for you by pasting ver. 1.2 and ver. 1.3 plain text versions of the GFDL license into a subpage on my user page and used the mediawiki software for making the dif (ignopre the differences caused by different line breaks). --Slaunger (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- This is basically the same point you raised above - irrelevant unless commons could be considered a user. BUT I think it's ludicrous to deny there was no real change because the terms of the the license for the typical user (I'm excluding MMCs obvously) have not changed. In GFDL 1.3 the user must follow exactly the same requirements as with GFDL 1.2. There is no change. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- You claim that you have not been retracting any perpetual rights for reusers, but in my opinion you have because it is not visible from the file page histories, that each image has ever been released under GFDL 1.2 or later. Thus, even if a, say 2005 reuser, would like to get back and check which license the image had at a given point of time, he would be at a loss. In fact, he would be mislead due to the template transclusion. For instance this 2005 revision of a photo as yours renders as if the image page at that time had a GFDL 1.2 only license whereas in fact the user template transcluded at that time had a {{GFDL}} template included. Even if the user manages to figure out that the license history is really embedded in the revision history of User:Fir0002/20D he would not be guided by its history page as the edit summary for the edit, where you change from {{GFDL}} to {{GFDL-1.2}} is blank. Thus, the reuser would have to traverse through the difs of your user template to figure out that the license did change on january 30, 2009. That is truly a mess and I see it as misleading and unreasonably confusing for reusers. The only way to restore order in this is to keep the GFDL license as it was on your images uploaded prior to Jan 30, 2009 (including the opt-out migration option). --Slaunger (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Just because it is not visible in the file history does not mean it has been retracted. If you try make that claim, then you are shooting yourself in the foot - if making the license change not visible in the file history equates to "revoking" the licenses then if I suddenly changed to All Rights Reserved no one could do anything about it (apart from perhaps block me!) because the license would be "revoked" and no longer accessible to anyone! The issue of transclusion and neatness is seperate to the relicense. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I do not think so, because in the way you have done it you have (knowingly) made it unreasonable difficult for users to identify which versions of the GFDL have been in effect when. --Slaunger (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Just because it is not visible in the file history does not mean it has been retracted. If you try make that claim, then you are shooting yourself in the foot - if making the license change not visible in the file history equates to "revoking" the licenses then if I suddenly changed to All Rights Reserved no one could do anything about it (apart from perhaps block me!) because the license would be "revoked" and no longer accessible to anyone! The issue of transclusion and neatness is seperate to the relicense. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with you that the discussion in Late May, 2009 in Commons:License Migration Task Force#How do we handle people who want to opt out? was never nullified. But what did we have there in the first place? Well, two users, ChrisiPK and Geni clearly state that they are against having the option to opt out at all in any form. Dragons flight recommends changing from GFDL to GFDL-1.2 as a legally binding way to indicate an opt-out, and Carl Lindberg says that tagging images differently is a good idea, and that one way of doing that is by using GFDL-1.2. I do not see this 2 vs 2 as clear consensus that it is OK to change from GFDL to GFDL-1.2. And I do not agree that it was the responsibility of any of those users to return to this preliminary thread to say actively that it was nullified. Rather it was your responsibility to follow the discussions and decisions after this.
- You forget User:Sj was happy with the relicense. In addition, with all respect, I don't think you can count ChrisiPK and Geni as their comments are not constructive to the discussion which was based on the result of the previous discussion "Is opting-out of the migration an option?". This gives a clear consensus. There is nothing in the subsequent category scheme which suggests that relicense was not a valid way to opt-out - in fact if you read the language used, the category scheme was also described as 'relicense'. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Sj did not comment on whether it was OK to opt-out by changing from GFDL to GFDL-1.2. This user wrote "...I think anyone who feels strongly that their work should not be made available under a different license should have their views respected, so long as this does not significantly disrupt the project...". So he supports an opt-out option, but does not comment on how this should be done, so this really relates to the previous section such as you claim is the case for the two opposing users. Just a few sections above on this very page, in #Opt-out discussion Dragons flight, which was one of the supporters for your license change explicitly notifies you that this user has re-opened the discussion because "...I am trying to develop a larger consensus around the opt-out issue...". That is a pretty clear indication that his own and another users support cannot be perceived as consensus. I see that the same user is now repeating that he is not aware on a consensus to opt out by going from GFDL to GFDL-1.2. In that very same thread you even indicated very explicitly that you expected this methology for opting out - you even replicated the exact template code to use {{GFDL|migration=opt-out}}. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- You forget User:Sj was happy with the relicense. In addition, with all respect, I don't think you can count ChrisiPK and Geni as their comments are not constructive to the discussion which was based on the result of the previous discussion "Is opting-out of the migration an option?". This gives a clear consensus. There is nothing in the subsequent category scheme which suggests that relicense was not a valid way to opt-out - in fact if you read the language used, the category scheme was also described as 'relicense'. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- On June 13, 2009 in Commons:License Migration Task Force#Template and category scheme, one of the users seeing GFDL-1.2 only as a way to opt-out late May, presented the final license migration solution, which stated that opt-out should be done with a dedicated migration parameter. Clearly, the preliminary opt-out ideas had matured into a technical solution. Nobody has questioned this technical solution. It is the way it should be done.
- See above - this did not occur. There was no "statement" that opt-out should be done with the migration parameter --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- No official statement, but no objections either it is how it has been carried out. It is the de facto technical solution to opting out. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- See above - this did not occur. There was no "statement" that opt-out should be done with the migration parameter --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- However, for the benefit of your doubt on this, I re-opened the discussion on a page with more traffic (COM:VP) also cross-posting to the the talk pages of relevant commons policy pages that a discussion had re-opened. My objective was to get a clearer indication of the Communitys opinion on this, as I do not want my bot to do edits, which are against the community's will. And what has come out of that discusssion? Infrogmation and you believes that you license change is OK, whereas Rocket000, Tony Wills, Prosfilaes, ChrisiPK, MGA73 and I think it is not OK, because we now have the migration opt-out parameter solution instead. For me that is a pretty clear Community consensus stating that it is not OK.
- I really don't think the result on VP is particularly convincing - at least one of those users were against opting-out in any form and no other users from the Migration Taskforce participated. And attempting to reverse the previous decision on the Migration Taskforce is poor form. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Another member has now commented here. My interpretation of his comment is that there was no clear decision on this from the Migration. The COM:VP debate has been significantly more detailed and thorough than the few comments in the original perceived consensus, and some very experienced users widely respected in the Community for their balanced views and insight (Tony Wills and Roocket000) have provided detailed responses and reached the same conclusion that it is not OK to opt-out by going from GFGDL to GFDL-1.2.
- I really don't think the result on VP is particularly convincing - at least one of those users were against opting-out in any form and no other users from the Migration Taskforce participated. And attempting to reverse the previous decision on the Migration Taskforce is poor form. --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- You have this concern that future changes of the GFDL will also not follow your perception of the spirit of the GFDL. That is IMO not a valid reason for cuting off the and later. You had a concern this time, and your concern has resulted in an opt-out program at the discretion of the Community. I am sure that if later version of the GFDL leads to other dramatic license changes which you feel are against the spirit of the GFDL the community will be ready to listen to that and do what is necessary to address your concerns if they are valid concerns.
- Well that's possible, but not certain. And if were to retire from commons/wikipedia what then? Who would be acting in the interest of my photos then? A relicense if far preferable - particularly since for all intents and purposes it offers the exact same conditions as 1.3! --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well it is the license you originally selected. If and when you decide to leave (which I hope will not be in the foreseable future), you could ask the Community for the courtesy to freeze your GFDL license at that time to include only the latest released at the time you decide to leave. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well that's possible, but not certain. And if were to retire from commons/wikipedia what then? Who would be acting in the interest of my photos then? A relicense if far preferable - particularly since for all intents and purposes it offers the exact same conditions as 1.3! --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I was teasing you a little bit with what you wrote two years ago;-) Being a physicist, I put a special meaning in words like "never", because never is a mighty long time for a physicist. That results in a lot of eye-rolling from my wife at times ;-) Thus it is a word I personally use with great care ;-) So, I will not hold that against you, that at the the age you had in 2007, two years may have seemed like semi-eternity to you;-) The underlying learning lesson in this is, though, that it is better to just follow the policy that make some promises you have forgotten two years later. As I read the text back then it is certainly not clear for me that you were only alluding to changing a license to a non-commercial, an all rights reserved or something similar. That may be what you had in mind, but it is not clear from the text. Better to avoid such potential misunderstandings altogether.
- My turn to tease you back - I never used the word "never" in that comment! --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- That is correct, I was lazy when I wrote that, and did not check explicitly and i did not recall the exact formulation. You wrote "I'm not going to suddenly mass relicence my images", which with my (probably poor) understanding of English has some underlying meaning equivalent to "never". So my apologies for not quoting you correct. Notwithstanding you did in fact suddenly mass relicense all your images, but as stated previously it does not bring us much forward to dig more into the past regarding this two year old statement. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- My turn to tease you back - I never used the word "never" in that comment! --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
If this makes sense to you (I hope it does, because as a non-native writer, it takes me a veeery long time to write such a detailed response), I am still very open for and would be delighted to help you in doing the needed template work on your file pages, provided that we keep the GFDL license on files uploaded prior to January 30 including the opt-out parameter.
--Slaunger (talk) 07:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- To aid clarity and efficiency of reply I've responded, where I felt compelled, within your original post. If you dislike that, feel free to rearrange. But basically I still affirm that licensing my images under 1.2 only is valid... which means I'll probably have to move to Plan B with transclusion soon (uni is picking up so will probably only have time to discuss this issue for another week or so) --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, I have read your response and I will reply when I have a little more time. One thing I have done now though is to ask Dragons flight to voice his/her opinion here, as this user was involved in both your perceived acceptance and the license migration roll-out. --Slaunger (talk) 07:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I've replied in a similar manner as I found that to be the the most efficient and logical way as well. I do not particularly enjoy using my time here as well. I am still hoping that you will accept what I and many other users perceive as Community consensus and Commons policies, and I would still be delighted to help you out, when we reach an agreement, which is is compliant with current Commons policies. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Peter, you agrue yourself in circles. eg you argue that you are not trying to revoke licenses for users who downloaded files under a previous license, but have previously argued that you will accept virtually no proof that someone has previously downloaded a file because timestamps etc can be fiddled. If you really want to argue the general case for reversing licenses, it needs to be done in a much wider forum, perhaps even at the WMF level. The community has compromised by giving people an opt-out to address your primary concern, the mechanics of implimenting this involve adding an opt-out parameter, which gives transparency to the decision as it can be seen in each files edit history. Slaunger has offered to facilitate this opt-out, the default is that the files have been migrated (by the WMF board resolution all GFDL material is already migrated). If you don't want to opt-out, then by all means keep stalling. --Tony Wills (talk) 07:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- To aid clarity and efficiency of reply I've responded, where I felt compelled, within your original post. If you dislike that, feel free to rearrange. But basically I still affirm that licensing my images under 1.2 only is valid... which means I'll probably have to move to Plan B with transclusion soon (uni is picking up so will probably only have time to discuss this issue for another week or so) --Fir0002 www 01:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I was asked to comment [8] on this discussion. I have to confess that I don't have the time to read everything that's been said here, but I believe I have the gist of it. From my point of view, the opt-out provision of the license migration deals specifically with not including CC-BY-SA tags. People wishing to do so may avoid the addition of CC-BY-SA for their GFDL works, in which case the work would remain GFDL only. While replacing GFDL with GFDL-1.2 would have a similar effect, I am unaware of any consensus on the issue of downgrading GFDL to GFDL-1.2. The concept of replacing {{GFDL}} with {{GFDL-1.2}} has been raised both in principle and in practice several times now, and led to several spirited discussions, but no consensus that I am aware of. Aside from the migration clause, there is little practical difference between these two licenses, except that 1.2-only precludes any future license updates. So, personally, I don't have a strong position on whether GFDL -> GFDL-1.2 should be allowed. However, it is clear that it is not allowed by the standard conventions under which Commons operates. So, any agreement to make that transition should be explicitly endorsed by the community. Dragons flight (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Dragons flight, thank you for taking your time to comment here. I am sorry to have interrupted your wiki vacation on this occasion. I have no further questions regarding your opinion on this. --Slaunger (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi Peter, to get a clarification of how to interprete the new line in the Commons policy, I have opened this thread
- Commons talk:Licensing#How to interprete "The license must be perpetual (non-expiring) and non-revocable"? I have tried to present your POV there as well. However, it is likely that I am missing some details and nuances so feel free to adjust my wording of your side of the story as you will. --Slaunger (talk) 21:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
As reluctant as I am to address this issue again, the general consensus (last I checked) is that the change/clarification to the policy isn't retro-active. Regardless, the issue is moot now. Even if Fir0002 were to switch all of his images back to {{GFDL}} they would no longer be eligible for migration to Creative Commons licensing. Basically there is no difference between GFDL 1.2 and GFDL 1.3 now that the deadline has passed. Also, I'm a bit disappointed to see Fir0002 still claiming that free licenses are a type of contract. They are not. Free licenses are a form of copyright declaration and they take effect through the act of publishing, not through the act of reusing. This has been well established over 20 years of free license legal history. Kaldari (talk) 23:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I think the whole point is that commons does not accept that the files have been 'relicensed', your edit to Commons:Licensing was just a clarification for those who for some reason did not understand this. Yes, I think we can all agree that Peter has clearly chosen to opt-out, that is something that needs documenting on each opted-out image. --Tony Wills (talk) 02:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
There are several points I'd like to address above but due to time constraints I'll attempt to reply to the discussion on the the License talkpage instead... --Fir0002 www 23:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- One point I would like to comment is one Slaunger raised above re: license freeze in the event of retirement. If I could have such an assurance I'd be much more comfortable with {{GFDL)) --Fir0002 www 23:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- One thing I did not think of when I wrote that was possible derivative works published at the time of retirement. For derivative works on Wikimedia projects they will adopt the same license, e.g., the and later with a link back to the original as documentation. If the original then has its and later replaced by published license versions at the time of retirement, the derivative work has a problem when a later version of the license is published. However, for your photographs, I guess there are not many derivative works published(?), so I guess that would only be a potential problem for a minor fraction of your images(?). However, for images, where there are no known derivative works published at the time of retirement I would personally not mind a license freeze as a courtesy for the creator. --Slaunger (talk) 06:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- This discussion is absurd. Fir0002's use of the GFDL is not and never was in line with the spirit of the license. No one is going to make assurances to you, Fir, that the GFDL will retain language, that when applied to images, defeats the entire purpose of it being a free license. You can put whatever tag you want to on your images, but it is entirely clear that you do not want them to be free, so don't expect Wikipedia to make further concessions to that effect. Your argument that the people maintaining these licenses cannot be trusted to adhere to their original spirit and intentions is balderdash. If I didn't already know that it was a red herring (as you don't seem to actually be interested in the spirit of the license) I would think it was insulting. Kaldari (talk) 18:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- If you ask me the correct would be to opt-out and not revoke license like here [9]. --MGA73 (talk) 14:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- This discussion is absurd. Fir0002's use of the GFDL is not and never was in line with the spirit of the license. No one is going to make assurances to you, Fir, that the GFDL will retain language, that when applied to images, defeats the entire purpose of it being a free license. You can put whatever tag you want to on your images, but it is entirely clear that you do not want them to be free, so don't expect Wikipedia to make further concessions to that effect. Your argument that the people maintaining these licenses cannot be trusted to adhere to their original spirit and intentions is balderdash. If I didn't already know that it was a red herring (as you don't seem to actually be interested in the spirit of the license) I would think it was insulting. Kaldari (talk) 18:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- One thing I did not think of when I wrote that was possible derivative works published at the time of retirement. For derivative works on Wikimedia projects they will adopt the same license, e.g., the and later with a link back to the original as documentation. If the original then has its and later replaced by published license versions at the time of retirement, the derivative work has a problem when a later version of the license is published. However, for your photographs, I guess there are not many derivative works published(?), so I guess that would only be a potential problem for a minor fraction of your images(?). However, for images, where there are no known derivative works published at the time of retirement I would personally not mind a license freeze as a courtesy for the creator. --Slaunger (talk) 06:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- One point I would like to comment is one Slaunger raised above re: license freeze in the event of retirement. If I could have such an assurance I'd be much more comfortable with {{GFDL)) --Fir0002 www 23:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)