User talk:Infrogmation

en:User_talk:Infrogmation

Older disussion has been moved to User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 1, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 2, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 3, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 4, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 5, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 6, User talk:Infrogmation/Archive 7.

Please add new discussion to bottom of page.

Thank you

Thanks for the category fixing. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 22:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of File:Atlantis silhouette.jpg

You recently deleted the image of the Space Shuttle Atlantis transiting the sun. While I see that on his personal site he claims full copyright, this seems to contradict NASA's website,which while giving him credit, also claims credit. This can be seen in NASA's image of the day gallery (not astronomy image of the day where many of the files are under copyright.) NASA's copyright policy clearly states that any image on the site is in the public domain unless otherwise noted. On this images page (currently number 49 in the image of the day gallery [1]) their is no mention of copyright, leading me to believe that the image is in the public domain as a work of NASA and the photographer is unlawfully asserting copyright per NASA's copyright policy [2]. In any case I would like the image to be restored so that a full discussion may take place before deletion. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have made a request that this file be undeleted at Commons:Undeletion requests/Current requests if you wish to comment. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

New user overkill?

Hi, I wonder if the last part of this edit [3] is a bit of overkill for a new user. They didn't actually upload any copyvios since the first warning (all were uploaded before), so they did not continue to upload despite the warnings. Is there not a simple "stop" message template to use, before we get around to threatening to block them? Also you didn't sign the message so they can't leave you a message if they have further questions :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 13:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

File:TeouletsCocaCola.jpg

File:TeouletsCocaCola.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. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

--Liftarn (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Kindness

I want to leave a note here, since I read your user page "After a month in exile due to Hurricane Katrina, I came back to my beloved devastated home town." Sorry to hear this and I know you are a kind person. What is kindness? It is sheer attention not to be unkind to editors, members or little people here who desire to share their wisdom amid the tight rules of Commons. If a little editor uploads cherished and notable images of his or her notability, then, a push button to delete the same is akin to Katrina, and you know what I mean. Thanks.--124.106.81.33 08:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. My intention is never to be unkind (though I regret that I sometimes I let it show if I get particularly annoyed or exasperated). When I delete images, it has nothing to do with kindness nor other emotions I might feel. My deletions follow the rules of Commons to my best judgement. As Commons exists for specifically verifiably free licensed useful images, there are many images which might be appropriate elsewhere but are not appropriate for Commons. If there is some specific image you have in mind that prompted this comment, let me know and I might have a better idea about the issues involved. Thanks. Infrogmation (talk) 21:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Martí

Hi there infrogmation, I think I have followed your instructions, but I still your advice, below:

"Show the source photo is public domain and correct the image description and I'll vote to keep;... "

• Can you tell me if I have done it correctly, or if I have to do something more? here after this I would like your guidance for uploading some other material but please I need all the support that you can provide [me] to resolve the issue that you have call my attention to. Infrogmation, beforehand, thank you for your prompt response over this matter. John Manuel15:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• Looks okay now; I think the problems were resolved and I have closed the deletion request. Thanks. Cheers, Infrogmation (talk) 21:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks Infrogmation for your support.

• I need your help with some materials from an international non-profit that has provided me with some photos and other stuff to upload, basically it is its logo, and other photos of renown academicians and administrators who are cooperating with this organization. My question is about how I can upload that logo if it is only supposed to be used for that organization? I mean, under what license so it can be used [these logos] for documenting this non-profit in the wikipedia and other projects but not by other people and of course without violating any rule or Wikimedia policy?
• Ok Infrogmation, thanks once more and please take your time, I know you are busy with other issues, in the mean time I will do my best and I know I shall be eventually received your guidance about this. Greetings, Sincerely, John Manuel21:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

To migrate or not to migrate...

I could not help noticing that you want to opt-out. If you need help from a bot I might be able to help you. If you are interessted. --MGA73 (talk) 20:26, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please. I asked on your talk page. Thanks much, Infrogmation (talk) 21:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The license migration

I saw recently that you have chosen to opt out of the license migration. Although I can understand your frustration at feeling like a significant change was made to the licensing of your images without your consent or input, I would like to ask you to reconsider nonetheless. The license migration was an imperfect solution to very real and significant problems with the GFDL (many relating specifically to its use with images). Although it may seem like the change came out of nowhere, it actually was the result of 3 years of work and negotiations to address these problems, work which the public and the Wikipedia community specifically was invited to participate in. The goal of this work was not to go behind people's back to change licensing out from under them. It was actually to make our licensing match more closely the goals and intentions of the Wikipedia community. Let me see if I can provide you with an explanation for how we got to this point...

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 (if you aren't already). That information, however, would take a book to cover. Perhaps I can give you a super-condensed version:

Chapter 1: 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.

Chapter 2: 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 hired Larry Sanger to help him create Nupedia, and soon thereafter, Wikipedia. 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.

Chapter 3: 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.

Chapter 4: 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.

Behind the scenes, 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, 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 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.

Sorry if you already knew most of that, but I wanted to make sure you had a good understanding of the process that led to the migration. If you still want to opt-out, your decision will of course be respected. Kaldari (talk) 16:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time and leaving this detailed message. Yes, I was aware of the outlines of this story. I am aware of the utility of Creative Commons licenses, and the awkward aspects of GFDL. I understand the sentiment that, in retrospect, it might have been better if somehow Wikimedia could have been Creative Commons licensed from the start. However trying to change that retroactively does indeed seem, as you say "legally tricky" at the least.

While I'm not without questions about the migration and Wikipedia, my opt out notice does not apply to my contributions to such collaborative works. My opt out applies only to the files (aka images or photographs) which I am the sole author and copyright holder of. I simply state that as author and copyright holder, I have the right to determine the licensing under which I will share this work. Other parties may either accept or reject my work under the conditions I offer, but have no rights to change my license without my consent.

I certainly have nothing against Creative Commons. The overwhelming majority of my images on Wikimedia were and are licensed under various Creative Commons licenses, and over the years I have voluntarily added Cretive Commons as a licening option to hundreds of my my images originally uploaded under GFDL only. As I've stated repeatedly pretty much everywhere the matter has been brought up, I am also frequently willing to allow reuse of most of my images under even broader options IF asked. My refusal to go along with applying the "license migration" to works which I am the sole author of is based on the point that the author/copyright holder needs to be the one to make the decision of conditions of authorized reuse of their work. Much the same reason as why I might willingly give someone money if asked, but would vigorously resist if someone tried to grab my money without my permission.

While there are probably many users little aware of the differences between licenses, I think there certainly have been some who selected their licenses with due consideration. I recall some years ago that the very awkwardness of the GFDL license requirement to include a text license with reuse was considered a possible advantage in some situations. A GFDL license, the understanding went, made an image suitible for projects like Wikipedia and similar on-line reference works, or print or DVD copies of the same, but made it very unlikely that the image would legally be reused on, say, a postcard or souvenir mug. Some users chose GFDL with just such thoughts in mind.

I am aware of the migration being done by special arrangement with the FSF under the "or later" clause of GFDL. If applying this to single author works which have been shared with Wikimedia under GFDL is legal, it seems to me a technical legality of questionable propriety -- like an unethical salesman using the fine print of a doccument to get a result other than what the customer thought they were agreeing to.

That is why I voted against the "migration" as it was proposed. The applying the "migration" to single author works shared with Wikimedia is a trampling of the rights of the authors to chose how to license their works. I wish now that I had brought my serious objections up in a wider variety of forums, and feel guilty that I did put a major effort into seriously campaigning against it.

"Opting out" seems rather curious. Wouldn't it be more ethical to ask people to opt in, and only change the licenses of those who permit it? Still, "opting out" was supposedly allowed. As one of the few ways I could express my lack of consent to what I considered an improper violation of authors' rights, I therefore decided to opt out. The process, I found, was very difficult. I think I'm a good deal more Commons savvy than the average user. Still it took me many hours over many days, going through many pages on both Commons and Meta, then hundreds of edits, followed by thousands of edits by bots. And at writing I'm still unsure if my "opting out" has been completed and successfully stated in a way that will be acknowledged. I am certain that if the procedure were easier (for example, I suggested that there be a page somewhere for uses to add their name if they wish to opt out-- and bots could then take care of anything else) more contributors would have opted out. I think that even greater numbers of contributors would opt out if they were informed that their works are being relicensed without their express permission and there was something they could do to object.

I therefore decline your suggestion that I "reconsider" my opt out. I hereby opt out of this and any other attempt to change licensing without the express consent of the author. I hope this clarifies my position. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Cheers, Infrogmation (talk) 14:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The opt-in option would have had similar problems down the road. Since it is virtually impossible to properly educate every uploader to Commons on the technical differences between the licenses and why CC is preferred, it is likely that a very small percentage of uploaders would have "opted in". Indeed, my own extensive efforts to try to convince uploaders to reconsider opting out have had 0% success. At some point in the future, either the community or the Foundation will likely phase out GFDL licensing completely, as was done with Non-commercial (NC) licensing many years ago. The only reason we aren't doing that as part of the migration now is due to the terms of the agreement with the FSF (and to smooth the transition with reusers). When the GFDL is finally phased out, all of the GFDL-only images will have to be deleted. Obviously, it's a lot easier to deal with a few dozen opt-outers complaining about licensing changes than it would be to deal with hundreds of non-opt-iners complaining about their images being deleted. Of course, ideally the issue would be discussed thoroughly with each and every commons user, but that just isn't practically possible. Your analogy of someone demanding to take your money doesn't seem that accurate to me. You donated your images to Wikipedia under a copyleft license. Apart from some important technical details, that agreement is still being honored (in spirit at least). If you don't like how it is being honored, you are free to opt-out or delete your images. Yes, opting out could be much easier. Unfortunately, the entire migration for Commons is being handled by 4 community volunteers working under a very tight deadline. Obviously our top priority isn't making sure that opting out is effortless. Not because we want it to be hard, but because we have a lot of other work we have to complete before August 1. I apologize that this seems inconsiderate and heavy-handed. Please try to keep in mind, however, that this is all being done by volunteers with good intentions (and with the approval of most of the community). Kaldari (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Two points:

1)NO, I had NOT "donated [my] images to Wikipedia". I retain copyright (with the exception of a very small number of my images which I released to the public domain or otherwise forfeited). I have generously allowed Wikipedia, Wikmedia, and anyone else to reuse my copyrighted images under the licenses which I have specified. Is that distinction really not clear to you? Did you misspeak? I hope so; this seems an important point. Is there really an impression that copyrights of uploaded images have been ceded to Wikipeia or Wikimedia, and if so, what if anything is it based on?

No one said anything about ceeding or donating copyrights to images. I was talking about donating the images themselves. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

2)If Wikimedia wishes to phase out use of GFDL only images, that is Wikimedia's prerogative, like any other decision made on the reuser's side of a licensing agreement. What I object to is the attempted usurpation of the decision on the author and copyright holder's side as to what license they agree to share their work with potential reusuers.

I actually agree with this partially. I was one of the people who originally supported getting changes made to the GFDL rather than migrating. But since so few members of the community were interested in being involved in the original discussions (which have since been deleted from the FSF site, but some of which can be seen here and here), it never went anywhere. Without more public pressure on the FSF to make concessions, the Foundation wasn't in a strong position to negotiate. The solution that emerged reflects that, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

My impression is that the "migration" is being done more with the apathy than the approval of the majority of the community, but I'll let that one pass for now. Thanks for taking the time to discuss. Cheers, Infrogmation (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, that may be so, although the turnout for the vote was more than I expected. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)