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It's Fair Use week!
An annual celebration of the important doctrines of fair use and fair dealing.
It is designed to highlight and promote the opportunities presented by fair use and fair dealing, celebrate successful stories, and explain these doctrines.
See the introduction, and then the daily round-ups on the site, for links to blogs and other info-pieces being posted this week, mostly from university libraries across the United States, as to what is and what is not fair use, and why it's important.
There's some good stuff there! Jheald (talk) 20:37, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- Nice find, Jheald. They even cite our logo policy as exemplar fair use! (on their brochure) – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Reusing non-free images in the same article
Hey all, I have a question I'd like y'all input on. I'm currently doing a major reworking and cleanup of an old FA of mine, Myst. In addition to archiving old refs and changing the date formatting I've been pulling in a lot of new references and such. The current non-free situation is that there are four images—one illustrating the gameplay, and then three showing the game in its various incarnations as its graphics have been reworked. I was thinking that at least one of these images could definitely go as it has a weaker rationale (File:Myst-library and ship.jpg), but I think I've got enough current and new references to support the three comparison images once I'm done. With that said, I'd really want one of these images up in the gameplay to serve as an illustration of what is being talked about there, but I'd also like to keep the comparison images clustered together. To my knowledge I've never seen non-free images utilized multiple times in a single article—is there any precedent on this? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:10, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- The only immediate one that comes to mind is the symbol Prince used and on the Love Symbol Album, but only used twice, establishing the title in the infobox and then once in the lede; however, this is a vastly different situation. If you are going to use the image twice (and I'm not saying this is necessarily allowed), I think we'd need separate rationale for both uses on the same page (noting the section it is used in). --MASEM (t) 16:52, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- I think using the same non-free image twice in the same article is possible but you need a lot of commentary to go along with the images.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:51, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- WP:NFCC#10c requires a FUR for each use, so if the file is used twice in the same article, then you need two FURs for that article. Also, if the same file is used twice in the same article, then one of the uses would almost always violate WP:NFCC#3a as you could easily refer to the other section where the image is used. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
{{Non-free historic image}}, WP:NFC#UUI #5 and WP:NFCC #8
Since, as WP:NFC#UUI #5 says, using "[a]n image whose subject happens to be a war, to illustrate an article on the war" is unacceptable, there must be something else that's making non-free, non-historic images that depict historical events suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia articles. What is that something else?
Let me turn the question around with a clarifying example: this non-free picture of the February 2009 Kabul raids depicts a historically significant event, but it is merely "[a]n image whose subject happens to be a war, to illustrate an article on the war." There appear to me to be large numbers of analogous images tagged {{Non-free historic image}} that are also images whose subject happens to be X and which are merely being used to illustrate an article on X (and where, additionally, the uploader appears not to have considered the difference between "historic" (the language of the template) and "historical", which are not simply synonyms. I also note that the failure to observe a distinction between these two words mars a good deal of the discussion of related issues in the archives). I don't see that this image is "unique" (also the language of the template) or "historic", so I don't believe the image even merits the tag let alone passes all the requirements of WP:NFCC. The image doesn't convey any information not readily available in the text (it's just a bunch of soldiers on a roof) or "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic". So what I really mean is I don't see any "something else" in this and a lot of other cases.
If this were a unique case the solution might be simply to dispute the FUR and nominate the image for deletion, but there are lots. And lots and lots. Candidly, I think that in a lot of cases the uploader's only rationale for using this tag is a) the image is from the past, and b) he or she would like to include it in an article. What can be done to better combat the abuse of the tag and the simple bypassing of WP:NFC#UUI #5 and WP:NFCC #8 in cases like this? -- Rrburke (talk) 16:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I think this is important to recognize the two prong tests of NFCC#8: that inclusion helps the reader (which nearly always is the case for inclusion of any image), while omission may harm the reader's understanding. It's generally why we really would like sourced commentary on historical images, though this is not the requirement, and particularly with war pictures, it might not be the picture itself but the events within the picture of interest. For an hypothetical example, if there were a photograph depicting the Allied storming of Normandy beach from WWII even if the picture itself is not of discussion, it's reasonable to recognize the importance of that military action and illustrating it with a non-free clearly meets NFCC#8. In the specific image above, it's armed men with guns on a rooftop. It might be an old photo, but I completely agree it is not historic and fails NFCC because it's depicting a random shot from the event but nothing that really helps the reader's understanding, and certainly doesn't harm it if it is removed with the article in its current state. The template should not be considered a free pass from NFCC#8 (and possibly NFCC#1) requirements. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Hi and thanks for your reply. Obviously I agree with you about this specific image.
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- But doesn't NFCC#8 actually set a higher bar than that, in requiring that the inclusion of the file "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic"? First, I'd point out that "significantly" is a substantial burden to meet in and of itself. Second, the inclusion of the NFC must "increase readers' understanding": so it a) can't merely complement the article text, because the policy specifies increasing the reader's understanding and b) it must increase their understanding: in other words, it can't merely improve the article in some other way that doesn't touch on their understanding, such as merely enhancing the reader's experience, for example. Finally, it must "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic" -- that is, the understanding of the main topic of the article, not of some ancillary passage or section. -- Rrburke (talk) 17:34, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- The thing I've found with the first part of NFCC#8 is that unless we're talking a totally unrelated picture, it is always possible to reasonably argue that inclusion significantly helps understanding, based on the concept "a picture speaks a thousand words"; it is very difficult to counter any arguments to this specific part of the test. Taking a common example, a random screenshot from a television episode in an article about that episode can nearly always irrefutably be described as helping the reader understand the article because it shows what the episode looks like. But that's where the balance of NFCC#8 as an episode just dealing with "talking head" scenes doesn't require the reader to see a shot of "talking heads" to understand the episode. I could see the issue in the image you use. An editor wanting to keep it could argue it shows the military presence in the event, which is a fair point for meeting the first part of NFCC#8. But unless there's further discussion about armed men on rooftops, it's not necessary to see that image to understand what is described in the text. --18:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- I have to agree with Rrburke. The question, per policy, is not "to understand what is described in the text", but to better understand the topic. And I have never been convinced by your great distinction between the two halves of NFCC #8 -- to my mind (and most others I think), they are simply two (valuable, complementary) perspectives for looking at the same thing: what do you understand with the image, that you did not understand without it; what would you not understand without the image, that you do understand with it.
- The point of NFCC #8 is to get people to ask: what does this image actually contribute to reader understanding? And is that contribution significant in the context of the article as a whole? Ultimately those are questions for the community to consider, but as Rrburke indicates, the bar is not a low one. Jheald (talk) 16:37, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
- I agree that the first clause implies the second. However, in the interests of parallelism, shouldn't the second clause read "and its omission would be significantly detrimental to that understanding"? The issue is moot, I suppose, because the first clause already specifies "significantly" and the second merely restates the requirement in different terms, so the stronger clause governs, but wouldn't it clarify the point if they both took the same adverb? -- Rrburke (talk) 15:43, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
- But surely there must be some difference between just "increase" and "significantly increase", otherwise why include "significantly"? How, in practice, are uploaders expected to meet the burden of that distinction, and how is the distinction enforced? And to return to the example, to know that there were soldiers on roofs, which we probably could have guessed, doesn't aid the reader's understanding at all, let alone "significantly". -- Rrburke (talk) 15:57, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
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- The thing I've found with the first part of NFCC#8 is that unless we're talking a totally unrelated picture, it is always possible to reasonably argue that inclusion significantly helps understanding, based on the concept "a picture speaks a thousand words"; it is very difficult to counter any arguments to this specific part of the test. Taking a common example, a random screenshot from a television episode in an article about that episode can nearly always irrefutably be described as helping the reader understand the article because it shows what the episode looks like. But that's where the balance of NFCC#8 as an episode just dealing with "talking head" scenes doesn't require the reader to see a shot of "talking heads" to understand the episode. I could see the issue in the image you use. An editor wanting to keep it could argue it shows the military presence in the event, which is a fair point for meeting the first part of NFCC#8. But unless there's further discussion about armed men on rooftops, it's not necessary to see that image to understand what is described in the text. --18:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- But doesn't NFCC#8 actually set a higher bar than that, in requiring that the inclusion of the file "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic"? First, I'd point out that "significantly" is a substantial burden to meet in and of itself. Second, the inclusion of the NFC must "increase readers' understanding": so it a) can't merely complement the article text, because the policy specifies increasing the reader's understanding and b) it must increase their understanding: in other words, it can't merely improve the article in some other way that doesn't touch on their understanding, such as merely enhancing the reader's experience, for example. Finally, it must "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic" -- that is, the understanding of the main topic of the article, not of some ancillary passage or section. -- Rrburke (talk) 17:34, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Hovercards
Hovercards is a feature currently in betatesting. You can test Hovercards by enabling it at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. When a user hovers over an article link a popup displays the lead text, and when available, the lead image of that article. The WMF has already developed the functionality required to exclude non-free images.
There is currently a proposal at Village Pump: Enable Hovercards on whether we want the feature enabled by default. If you have an opinion on that question, please comment there. The discussion here should focus strictly on interpretation of non-free image policy.
Independent of whether a decision is made to enable Hovercards at this time, is it acceptable to include non-free images in Hovercards? The image would only appear when a user specifically requested a preview of the article containing the image. The image is displayed in a pop up mini-view of the article itself, along with some of the text from the article. It is clearly not being used for a "navigational" purpose. The image is arguably being viewed "in" a stubified version of the article itself, and it is arguably still serving the educational purpose of informing the reader about the topic and the related text that they are viewing in the mini-preview. See the image at right, the Hovercard (bottom center of image) is showing a preview of the intermediate value theorem. The image in this case is a free image, but it well illustrates how the presence of image in the preview is important to understanding the text.
Would Hovercard article-previews qualify as an acceptable place for non-free images to appear? Alsee (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Support I believe this is within the spirit and intent of the policy, and that it is logical and useful for the article's lead image to appear in a mini-view of the article itself. Alsee (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment @Alsee: While I would support Hovercards displaying non-free images if they come from the lead section or infobox, I think this point is moot now. As far as I know Hovercards also uses PageImages, which will no longer be displaying any non-free images soon. —Ruud 17:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Per phab:T124225. --Izno (talk) 17:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Ruud/Izno I spoke with the project manager.[1] He was very interested in exploring this possibility. PageImages could return a flag indicating whether the image was non-free, then the images could be selectively included or excluded where appropriate. Alsee (talk) 17:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's probably good to have this discussion in any case, but it should probably also be wider than just about this one extension. I'm in general not opposed to using a non-free image as the "hero image" of a particular page, but it should be done within reason. Picking the non-free image from the lead or infobox is probably going to be more acceptable than picking it from somewhere lower down on the page. Displaying it in search results or on hovercards is probably going to be less of a probem than using them in the Related Pages feature (the first two are only visible if the user "asks" for them, in the latter case we are slapping non-free images on pages that otherwise would have none.) Etc. —Ruud 17:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Ruud/Izno I spoke with the project manager.[1] He was very interested in exploring this possibility. PageImages could return a flag indicating whether the image was non-free, then the images could be selectively included or excluded where appropriate. Alsee (talk) 17:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Per phab:T124225. --Izno (talk) 17:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment While this is in the spirit and should be okay for NFC, this is related to the issue of the Gather extension in that it is pulling the first image (free or not from a page). A lot of this could be solved if we had a magic word or similar ability to specify which image should be used alongside the hovercard, Gather entry, or whatever other potential extension could come into play, including the possibility of no image. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- MASEM see above. If non-free is acceptable here they may include non-free here and exclude non-free in anything like Gather. And yes, they're working on a keyword for image selection. The current plan is using the keyword with no image will force no image (if none of the images are appropriate), and a non-free image with no keyword will default to no image. (To avoid blindly defaulting to a random-bad next image in the article.) And of course keyword with image will use that image. Alsee (talk) 19:04, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Then that's fine. Here, as it is only a temporary thing on the screen, it's difficult to call it as a fixed medium that we arguably would have any problem with fair use aspects so from the nature of what NFC should serve, its not an issue (we've had the Popup gadget for so long that that would have raised concerns before), but it's the Gather side that poses a larger problem since that can end up in a fixed medium. But having the image keyword option would solve all concerns. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- MASEM see above. If non-free is acceptable here they may include non-free here and exclude non-free in anything like Gather. And yes, they're working on a keyword for image selection. The current plan is using the keyword with no image will force no image (if none of the images are appropriate), and a non-free image with no keyword will default to no image. (To avoid blindly defaulting to a random-bad next image in the article.) And of course keyword with image will use that image. Alsee (talk) 19:04, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Of course it's acceptable to display tiny thumbnails in mini-articles. WP:NAVPOPS has done exactly that for years, and AFAICT nobody has ever complained about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- This might not make a difference, but the images displayed by Hovercards are substantially larger than those on Navigation popups. Having non-free images displayed so prominently outside the target article makes me uneasy. --Yair rand (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- They also show different images. Hovering over The Hershey Company gives me a thumbnail-wide (actual thumb-size) non-free logo in NAVPOPS, but Hovercards gives me a 2.5-inch-wide free image. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- The difference in image-size between Hovercards and Navigation popups seems like nitpicking to me. A bigger difference is that Navigation popups are a power-user script, that is enabled by individual users and where we as a community have less control over. Hovercards, on the other hand, may well soon be visible to all readers. So that is a good opportunity to reflect on where we stand on the "free" vs. "encyclopedia" issues in this "free encyclopedia" thing. That said, I think displaying a non-free image from the lead or infobox of the article together with an extract of the lead in a hovercard is completely in the spirit of this policy. —Ruud 01:25, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- This might not make a difference, but the images displayed by Hovercards are substantially larger than those on Navigation popups. Having non-free images displayed so prominently outside the target article makes me uneasy. --Yair rand (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Allow non-free images in Hovercards and search results - The English Wikipedia serves up 3 billion mobile views per month, I'm not aware of any complaint until phab:T124225. Mobile search and hovercards had been serving readers with non-free content for over a year, and now instead of updating policy to match reality, we've convinced the WMF to spend time and resources degrading user experience with T124255. What a pitch, "Donate to Wikipedia, we'll spend your money making it worse!". Lead images are identifying images. They are the best image, providing clarity at a glance as to what the subject is, our non-free rationales defend the use of these non-free images because they're the only reasonable identifying visual. A reader sees the image and knows what the article subject is without having to open the link or read through the lead. If you search for Parallel Lines on Google, you'll see a non-free image thumbnail of Parallel Lines, because its the best identifying artwork. That thumbnail comes from Wikipedia. Hovercards now show no image, mobile search shows no image, the WMF have made an engineering change which has degraded our search capabaility against off-site search, when instead we could have just edited Wikipedia:Non-free content. Let's edit it now. - hahnchen 23:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- That's a good point, hahnchen. Also, if the image is "identifying", then it's partly "navigational". One of the best things about images in NAVPOPS is that the image can help you decide, with half a glance, whether that's the page you want to read next. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
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- This. I'm actually annoyed that NFC paranoia is removing a great feature. We already go above and beyond US law regarding fair use, here's another cool thing gone. Why are y'all doing these negative things because you don't like something? Keegan (talk) 23:47, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
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- While I note I'm not opposed to this (see my comments above), talking about images as navigational aids is a slippery slope argument. In fair use on an encyclopedic work, you readily can defend it in a court of law so it's not a legal issue, but it is an issue related to the free content mission. I can see this argument "navigational non-frees should be allowed" meaning that "Oh, this discography would be enhanced by adding the cover art to help the reader navigating", which would likely clear fair use defense but utter fail free content mission as well as going against established consensus on the use of such images in lists. What I think is important is to have the ability to set an alternative image for pages that are exclusively using non-free images. For example, an album page may be indicated with a generic free record icon so that it still can be differentiated from other topics of the same name. --MASEM (t) 01:14, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
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- @Masem: do forgive me and note that my comment was out of annoyance, as prefaced :) I think Tigress223 puts it well. Keegan (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
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- @Keegan and Masem: Furthermore, we have had some difficult time in Community–WMF relations lately concerning the two aspects at the heart of this issue: our freedom to chose what tools developed by WMF we adopt (cf. Media Viewer, Gather, Related pages), and in our responsibility in making sure the WMF follows its own stated mission (cf. Knowledge Engine). Having conservative local policies – particularly in the area of non-free content – has proven to be a successful strategy in helping the Community maintain its independence from the Foundation. Gather was disabled and Related pages modified by the WMF because the Community cited their noncompliance with the local non-free policy of the English Wikipedia. From the point of view of the Community, it makes a great deal of sense to maintain conservative and strict policies, for perhaps what can be seen as the "wrong" reasons. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:53, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
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- @Stemoc: just for the record, if I didn't happen to work for the WMF, you'd be blocked right now for using the word rape in relation to WMF tech staff. If you're looking for the line, it's far behind you. This website still has policies on civility and no personal attacks, and I would appreciate administration no matter whom the person is targeting. Keegan (talk) 23:40, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Support - I agree with what Hahnchen said about the importance of lead images. I mean if I looked at a hovercard for a movie, and saw the picture of a few rivers and streams (where the film was filmed perhaps) instead of the poster, I would slightly doubt myself whether I am at the right page or not. And even if I realize that it is the page I'm looking for, I'd rather associate a movie with its poster instead of a picture of the Niagara Falls.Tigress223t@lk 00:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment in my opinion, if we don't show it in popups and search results, then we should seriously consider if it still belongs in articles to begin with. I'm not in favor of throwing out all out non-free content, but if it is causing discussions like this, wasting time like this, then I'd rather just toss the whole lot out. We should seriously ask ourselves how many people still read articles where we are writing them (and thus showing NfC images). This is changing, and as such limiting ourselves to this very narrow definition of an article where we are allowed to use NfC material is more and more stupid. (As are resolution limitations btw, recently I thought an image was broken, but it just wasn't high resolution enough to show properly on a retina screen). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment 2 this won't affect navpopups btw. As in, no one is gonna change how navpopups behaves. There are 2 modes available all images on, or all images off, but there is no one who is gonna rewrite that thing to take into account NFCC. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Oppose Incompatible with WP:NFCC#10c, which requires a fair use rationale for each article in which the file is used. If the file appears in all articles which link to the file's article, then lots of new FURs need to be written. Additionally, it's a violation of WP:NFC#UUI §6: we are supposed to link to articles instead of including non-free images in other articles. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I don't understand your reasons. Hovercards, and navpopups, are not new articles and thus NFCC#10c does not apply. Same goes for your second reason: this is not including non-free images in other articles, it is showing non-free images from the articles which they already exist, to illustrate the article. Keegan (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- The point of this discussion seems convoluted. Is this RfC saying that we have to modify NFCC to allow non-free images into Hovercards, even though they've existed in Navpops for over a decade and have nothing to do with NFCC since neither Hovercards nor Navpops are new uses of NFC but are summation of existing content? For what? So we can go to the WMF engineers and say, "Okay, now you have our permission?" By removing functionality as a negotiating tactic, the project is actively being hurt. Do you hear that? You are hurting other editors. That is the definition of WP:POINT. Please explain yourselves, and how you have the right to do this on behalf of the community. Keegan (talk) 23:26, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe this discussion is too convoluted and we should start again, if so we should be clear that we are seeking a definite exemption (WP:NFEXMP) for PageImages and the features that use PageImages (Hovercards, mobile search). - hahnchen 00:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes. The question at the start assumes that this violates any policy to begin with that needs exception; even worse, it runs with this assumption as truth. It's not neutral, it's not how RfCs are supposed to be formatted, and frankly it's a waste of time coatrack for power/control/ownership of the English Wikipedia against WMF engineering. Make it go away, and we shouldn't tolerate this Byzantine coatracking any further. Keegan (talk) 02:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Keegan you just made a batch of bad assumptions on why I opened this discussion. I opened this discussion because the PROJECT MANAGER had the impression that Hovercards violated policy. I told the project manager why I thought it didn't violate policy, and the project manager said they'd love to see that idea explored. So I offered to help. This discussion was opened because I wanted to clearly establish whether my reasoning was generally accepted. The only "policy change" I see would be maybe adding Hovercards to the list of examples of accepted uses. Based on my comments, the project manager is considering a software change to ADD non-free images to Hovercards. The PageImage function could flag whether an image was free, then other features like Hovercards can easily decide whether to include or exclude non-free images as appropriate. Alsee (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Alsee: yup, I did, because assume good faith is not a suicide pact. To quote Jimbo, "We need to take due process seriously, but we also need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy." For the past eighteen months, in the self-proclaimed interest of protecting the project, you have process and policy wonked hundreds and hundreds of wasted staff and volunteer hours. For every little victory you claim in your Quixotic crusade, you are causing immeasurable harm with your misunderstandings of said policy and process to staff and community alike. Eventually the community is going to tire of you opening a new RfC every week to pursue some meaningless thing, and it will let you know so very vocally. Keegan (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- Keegan I'm glad we cleared up my intentions on this RFC. I believe the project manager sees my efforts as and positive and helpful. I hope you'll consider the possibility that this isn't some one-off anomaly. Regarding my "weekly RFCs" that you think may get me sanctioned, could you helpfully clarify with some recent examples? Thanx. Alsee (talk) 07:44, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Alsee: yup, I did, because assume good faith is not a suicide pact. To quote Jimbo, "We need to take due process seriously, but we also need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy." For the past eighteen months, in the self-proclaimed interest of protecting the project, you have process and policy wonked hundreds and hundreds of wasted staff and volunteer hours. For every little victory you claim in your Quixotic crusade, you are causing immeasurable harm with your misunderstandings of said policy and process to staff and community alike. Eventually the community is going to tire of you opening a new RfC every week to pursue some meaningless thing, and it will let you know so very vocally. Keegan (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- Keegan you just made a batch of bad assumptions on why I opened this discussion. I opened this discussion because the PROJECT MANAGER had the impression that Hovercards violated policy. I told the project manager why I thought it didn't violate policy, and the project manager said they'd love to see that idea explored. So I offered to help. This discussion was opened because I wanted to clearly establish whether my reasoning was generally accepted. The only "policy change" I see would be maybe adding Hovercards to the list of examples of accepted uses. Based on my comments, the project manager is considering a software change to ADD non-free images to Hovercards. The PageImage function could flag whether an image was free, then other features like Hovercards can easily decide whether to include or exclude non-free images as appropriate. Alsee (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes. The question at the start assumes that this violates any policy to begin with that needs exception; even worse, it runs with this assumption as truth. It's not neutral, it's not how RfCs are supposed to be formatted, and frankly it's a waste of time coatrack for power/control/ownership of the English Wikipedia against WMF engineering. Make it go away, and we shouldn't tolerate this Byzantine coatracking any further. Keegan (talk) 02:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe this discussion is too convoluted and we should start again, if so we should be clear that we are seeking a definite exemption (WP:NFEXMP) for PageImages and the features that use PageImages (Hovercards, mobile search). - hahnchen 00:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment Seems to me that Hovercard/Popups panes are just another way to display the article that actually contains the NFC. As such, I don't think that runs afoul of NFCC or FURs, since the content remains part of the article for which it is justified, and is just being presented in a different way. Otherwise, it would be like needing a separate FUR for the web-based article and the mobile article. I think I generally err on the skeptical side of NFC but I don't see this implementation being a problem. CrowCaw 23:35, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
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- To Keegan's point just above me, and why I'm waffling my bolded comment between Comment and Support: As I basically said in my post above, Hovercard/Popups are just alternate methods to display a page that has had its FURs all sorted. As such, I don't think any change to NFCC is required or warranted, as we're not changing where the NFC is located but just providing another method of viewing that location. So setting my comment back to Comment, as I think the premise of the RFC is making assumptions that are not necessarily valid. CrowCaw 23:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment: I don't object to the general idea as such, if and when the non-free image in question serves to "visually identify" the content of the article, in the way much of our non-free items do (e.g. cover art at the top of an infobox etc.) I don't really hold with the NFC-fundamentalist argument that each dynamic popup would constitute a new use that would require rationales for that new context. The way I see it, the NFCC are worded for use on wiki pages, and use in dynamic popup elements is somehow outside their scope. Or, under a different angle, I would still see the popup more as a temporary ad-hoc instantiation of its source article (for which the image has its justification) than as an element of the host page over which it pops up (where it doesn't). However, what I do have a problem with is the popup use of non-free items that don't have this "visual identification" function. Say, a non-free image appears somewhere down in an article, where its non-free justification is based on its specific function of illustrating some text next to which it stands, in conjunction with a specific explanatory caption. Nevertheless, it might still be the "first" image of the article, and thus would be selected for the popup. The popup would then make it appear in a context which is not covered by its NFC rationale, and where indeed it might not make any sense to the reader at all. This needs to be avoided. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:10, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- Acceptable: It's simply re-presentation of the article (or part of it). Opposition to this borders wikilawyering. The intent of the copyright policy is not to prevent reuse of WP content (especially internally), it is to prevent violation of actual copyright laws, which this does not. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 06:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- Support – hovercards show an actual partial preview of an article, and the number of non-free images shown at a single time would be limited. sst✈ 07:19, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- I have been a long-time advocate for fewer usages of non-free images, and I support this proposal. The long-standing policy has been that non-free images are limited to the article namespace, and hovercards and popups are still showing content from the article namespace, just in a different format. —howcheng {chat} 17:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- Support the retention of image in popups, no matter the status of the image. The popup is the top part of the article, and if someone is hovering over the link there is an expectation of the article as someone has a specific interest, therefore we are showing it to them. We are not building a separate summary page of unrelated articles, or auto-popping an article. It is direct relevance, and it is mini, and it is still fair use. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Main page and rationale of "some of the article is displayed"
Why is the rationale of "some of the article is displayed, and so we should allow non-free images" not also applied to the main page? --Izno (talk) 11:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- Or portals, for that matter. If Izno is arguing that the fact that some of the article is displayed is not relevant, I agree. If there is a distinction, it's that images on the main page and in portals are chosen by editors as content, but hovercards are requested by the user so that "content" is created on the go and at the user end only. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- Just employing a little Socratic method to make sure I-and-anyone-else understands the distinction. Also, yes, the main page is a special case of a portal. --Izno (talk) 12:37, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- It's why, below, I think the distinction is between a result that is generated by a search engine and thus lacks human interaction to put the image there, and the actual point of featuring an article on a portal/main page which is a choice made by a human, including how the article's trimmed down to show that section. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
When it can't be helped
A few hours before starting the RFC on whether tiny images violate NFCC, Alsee blanked the part of the guideline that more obviously related to his question.
So until yesterday, the guideline said: "Non-free content may also appear in search results, certain categories (such as Category:Publicity photographs with missing fair-use rationale), or special pages (such as Special:ListFiles). Fair use rationales are not required for such pages."
Alsee's edit summary says that the "second half is redundant to the exemptions above, and the first half is a significant expansion that should not be made with no visible discussion here". I conclude from this, that although it was posted in full compliance with the process stated in the relevant section of the policy on writing and updating policies, and although he has no objection to the substance, that he is making a bureaucratic objection.
Does anyone object to the actual substance? For example, is there anyone who believes that FURs should be written for every file that might appear in a special page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- NOGALLERY is routinely applied to categories that can contain non-free files, except in maintenance categories which are much easier to work on when in gallery form (c.f WP:NFEXMP). As for the search results and special pages I don't think it has been discussed extensively, although for Special:NewFiles the point about NFEXMP would likely apply.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, the NOGALLERY approach is why User:Finnusertop specified "certain categories", rather than all of them.
- Searching the File: namespace would be unreasonably difficult if you couldn't see any of the images that were returned in the results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
- I was objecting to the substance. Decorative images on navigational links is one of the main things prohibited by the policy, deliberately minimizing use of non-free images. I was rather surprised to see such a direct reversal of policy made with no discussion. I don't think it's necessary or desirable to expand the use of non-free images like this. Alsee (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2016 (UTC) (Meaning, images in search results. Alsee (talk) 19:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC))
- P.S. Special:NewFiles clearly falls under the intent of non-article administrative/management exemptions, I certainly support adding it to that list if it isn't explicitly covered. Alsee (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- The 'special' namespace is something we can't control. If you want to change something in that namespace, then it has to go through mw:. It would seem to me that Special:Search, Special:ListFiles and Special:NewFiles would be useless in the file namespace if they do not show images, so those pages would probably have been added to the category of exemptions if it were possible to categorise special pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Alsee, just how – exactly how, as in, by what practical method – is an editor supposed to find an image to use, if you're going to take away all the images in Special:Search? Just click on dozens or hundreds of pages until you find the right one? Imagine doing this exact search to find a specific non-free Wikipedia logo (e.g., to put on a page in the Wikipedia: namespace to welcome new editors), and being given only a list of file names, instead of thumbnails that make it possible to figure out which one you want to use. Does that sound even remotely functional to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- The 'special' namespace is something we can't control. If you want to change something in that namespace, then it has to go through mw:. It would seem to me that Special:Search, Special:ListFiles and Special:NewFiles would be useless in the file namespace if they do not show images, so those pages would probably have been added to the category of exemptions if it were possible to categorise special pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Related discussion
Alsee appears to be involved in a related discussion about unexpected sexual images appearing in search results at mw:Talk:Wikimedia Discovery#Images in search results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Brief summary, I question whether search results should be including decorative images at all. I firmly support noncensored policy and I firmly reject singling out objectionable images for special treatment. The indiscriminate use of images in search results is going to create unneeded headaches when people searching for other topics unexpectedly get "porn" or images of Muhammad or whatever else, in a non-relevant non-educational context. A main point upholding noncensored against opponents of the policy is that anyone seeing the objectionable content was explicitly looking for that topic and they should dang-well expect to find relevant content there. Alsee (talk) 19:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- You are using your own editorial judgement in all of your language, plus slippery slope rhetoric to boot. You do not get to decide what search results are "non-relevant non-educational context." You simply don't. I do not either, neither does the community, neither does the Discovery team. That's for the reader to decide. That's the point of why we're not censored. Your explanation and language show a fundamental lack of understanding of one of our root policies. Keegan (talk) 23:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
- Images in Special:Search aren't "decorative". If you still truly believe that displaying images in search results is just about making things pretty, then I invite you to go to c:Commons:Village pump and ask whether they would like to have all those bandwidth-eating "decorative" image thumbnails removed from the search tool there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing your argument is that it would be dumb to remove images from image-search run on file pages? Ok. I agree. It would be dumb to remove images from image-search run on file pages. Alsee (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- You are using your own editorial judgement in all of your language, plus slippery slope rhetoric to boot. You do not get to decide what search results are "non-relevant non-educational context." You simply don't. I do not either, neither does the community, neither does the Discovery team. That's for the reader to decide. That's the point of why we're not censored. Your explanation and language show a fundamental lack of understanding of one of our root policies. Keegan (talk) 23:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
CLARIFICATION: Ok, now I see why there's confusion. We're talking about two different things. This started with the Discovery's teams work, where the basic article search is slapping images on all possible results. It even starts spitting out images while you type, and the first two letters you type can throw up a closeup of naked genitals. Alsee (talk) 06:43, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Exemptions from non-free content policy are made for the use of non-free content on media file search results, special: pages for encyclopedia management, and certain administrative non-article space pages as necessary to creating or managing the encyclopedia, specifically for those that are used to manage questionable non-free content. Those pages that are exempt are listed in Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions.[1]
References
How's that? Alsee (talk) 07:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Most pictures of genitals are free content, as are most images of the prophet Mohammed and just about every other "offensive" topic that you bring up. This means that your argument has nothing to do with protecting free content, instead it's simply "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" This attitude of censorship has been roundly rejected, repeatedly, by the English Wikipedia and Wikimedia in general. AFAIK, there is a single wiki which censors images of Mohammed, and that is all. Your position is contrary to that of the community no matter how you spin it, leave any engineering team out of it. Keegan (talk) 16:24, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wikimedia Foundation guidelines are to follow the Principle of least astonishment in relation to potentially offensive imagery. It is not a non-free content issue. From Alsee's arguments at mw:Talk:Wikimedia_Discovery#Images_in_search_results, they believe that to exclude potentially offensive material by omitting MediaWiki:Bad image list images from mobile search would constitute censorship. And that to avoid censorship, we should remove all images from mobile search. Which reads to me as cutting off the nose to spite the face. Again. - hahnchen 17:00, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Got it, thanks for breaking the two issues apart, as they should be. Keegan (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yep. I didn't realize how confused things became when it got posted here as a "related issue". Anywho, crazy idea, this discussion could focus on the proposed edit to the free-image policy. :) I believe the edit I proposed matches actual practice by both the Community AND the Dev team. My proposed edit contains basically two differences from WhatamIdoing's edit. (1) "Search results" became media file search results - note that non-free images are already excluded from Discovery Team's new article search images. (2) "Special pages" was changed to special pages for encyclopedia maintenance. This means something like Gather doesn't get an automatic pass on non-free images. The Reading team had already moved to exclude non-free images from Gather, when Gather wound up being removed. Alsee (talk) 18:36, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I don't see any value in excluding non-free images from any search results. People actually do use those images to figure out which article they want to read. The difference between Cars (painting) and Cars (film) would be much more obvious in mobile search if mobile search included a tiny thumbnail from the first.
- It sounds like Gather isn't installed here and doesn't display non-free images. In that case, banning it would be pure pointless WP:CREEP, with the additional downside of risking disputes over whether this or that Special: page is "really" for encyclopedia maintenance and the technical problem that Special: pages do not technically exist (which means that all the maintenance scripts would be incapable of coping with it). If we ever found a use that this community truly thought was inappropriate, no matter what namespace it was in, then we can and should deal with it then. But I see little point (and not just a little room for concern about WP:POINTiness) in pre-emptively banning something that might happen and, if it happened, might also be something we didn't want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Yep. I didn't realize how confused things became when it got posted here as a "related issue". Anywho, crazy idea, this discussion could focus on the proposed edit to the free-image policy. :) I believe the edit I proposed matches actual practice by both the Community AND the Dev team. My proposed edit contains basically two differences from WhatamIdoing's edit. (1) "Search results" became media file search results - note that non-free images are already excluded from Discovery Team's new article search images. (2) "Special pages" was changed to special pages for encyclopedia maintenance. This means something like Gather doesn't get an automatic pass on non-free images. The Reading team had already moved to exclude non-free images from Gather, when Gather wound up being removed. Alsee (talk) 18:36, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Got it, thanks for breaking the two issues apart, as they should be. Keegan (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wikimedia Foundation guidelines are to follow the Principle of least astonishment in relation to potentially offensive imagery. It is not a non-free content issue. From Alsee's arguments at mw:Talk:Wikimedia_Discovery#Images_in_search_results, they believe that to exclude potentially offensive material by omitting MediaWiki:Bad image list images from mobile search would constitute censorship. And that to avoid censorship, we should remove all images from mobile search. Which reads to me as cutting off the nose to spite the face. Again. - hahnchen 17:00, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- Most pictures of genitals are free content, as are most images of the prophet Mohammed and just about every other "offensive" topic that you bring up. This means that your argument has nothing to do with protecting free content, instead it's simply "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" This attitude of censorship has been roundly rejected, repeatedly, by the English Wikipedia and Wikimedia in general. AFAIK, there is a single wiki which censors images of Mohammed, and that is all. Your position is contrary to that of the community no matter how you spin it, leave any engineering team out of it. Keegan (talk) 16:24, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
- An alternate way to look at this: we should not prevent non-free where there is automatic gathering of the non-free image alongside non-free without any discrimination (such as search results); no user is putting the image there directly and would be akin to the "necessary" function of the encyclopedia. But this use would be clearly separate from where there is human-directed navigational elements (eg images on a discography page or a category without a NOGALLERY tag, since this is purposely being created as such. I don't know best to word that at the moment, but that would distinguish uses here. --MASEM (t) 03:33, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- I think Alsee's wording is fine. It accurately captures the current situation, without either allowing or disallowing any hypothetical future use of non-free media. Let's just deal with that when the situation arises. —Ruud 10:03, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- The first change that Alsee proposes is meant to ban non-free images in the search results unless you are specifically searching for a file, which is neither a completely accurate description of the current situation or what editors above express as a desirable, principle-compliant situation. (It also won't solve the problem that prompted all of this, because the lead image for Pearl necklace (sexuality) is GFDL and CC-BY-2.5 – aka "free content".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: No, Alsee's phrasing would explicitly allow search to show images when searching the File namespace. It doesn't say anything about searching other namespaces. As the search engine doesn't display any images, other then when searching the File namespace, I'm not really seeing why it should? I really cannot read the comments by anyone on this talk page (other than Stefan2) as a willingness to make the text of this policy broad and unambiguous enough to cover currently existing uses of non-free media. I think I'm seeing a lot less disagreement than you are? (The selection of "inappropriate images", whether free or not, is a separate issue. I think it's best to discuss that issue on the MediaWiki talk page, so as to not further conflate these. Both are complicated issues, but for very different reasons.) —Ruud 01:12, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, Alsee is is narrowing this to explicitly allow users to see images when searching the File: namespace. It implicitly disallows showing images in any and all other searching, i.e., the images that are shown in Special:Search on the Mobile desktop site. To understand Alsee's purpose for this change, you need to go to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ (click that exact link), type "pearl" into the search bar, wait two seconds, and see all the images that appear on the screen. Those images – the ones right there in the search results – are what Alsee is trying to ban with this "[only] when searching the File: namespace" language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing somehow you latched onto an incorrect assumption, and I'm not sure how I can make it any clearer than I already did. Please stop making wildly faulty statements about what you think my intent is. I am utterly baffled how you could possibly have made the bizarre statement you just did. You just suggested that some proposed edit here implicitly disallows showing images in any and all other searching. We all know that is not remotely true. This is page is policy on non-free images, and it only applies to non-free images. It has exactly zero connection to our typical free images, regardless of whether they are images of puppies or porn. I am baffled that you've apparently pegged me as such a supervillian that you so totally lost sight of the scope of non-free image policy. 05:35, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, Alsee is is narrowing this to explicitly allow users to see images when searching the File: namespace. It implicitly disallows showing images in any and all other searching, i.e., the images that are shown in Special:Search on the Mobile desktop site. To understand Alsee's purpose for this change, you need to go to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ (click that exact link), type "pearl" into the search bar, wait two seconds, and see all the images that appear on the screen. Those images – the ones right there in the search results – are what Alsee is trying to ban with this "[only] when searching the File: namespace" language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, what's with banning banning?? Instead of your narrative for what you think I'm doing, how about I give my narrative of what I've been doing?
- I've been working with the Reading Team, for which they have thanked me almost a dozen times. I noticed the Project manager say non-free images were being excluded from Hovercards and that he thought it would require a policy change to include them. I said "I think I can help", and I explained why I thought non-free images in Hovercards were perfectly fine under existing policy. That's the opposite of "banning", and isn't even proposing a policy change. The project manager said they would love to see that idea explored, so I opened the RFC above. I presented the case that non-free images were fine in Hovercards, seeking clear community backing for my reasoning. So far one person didn't address the question, one person believes Hovercards are not acceptable under existing policy, and there is otherwise unanimous agreement that non-free images are fine in hovercards. I am eager to tell the project manager that this is confirmed to be a non-issue, and I'll likely get another thanks. They are considering changing the PageImage function so that features like as Hovercards can choose whether non-free images should be included or not.
- I had posted a completely unrelated comment to the Discovery team questioning whether it was a good idea to add images to generic article results. I think quite a few people would consider it a a surprising violation of the WMF's "principal of least astonishment" that naked genitals are thrown at them while they are tying the first two letters of Vulcan. Trying to type Anaesthetic throws up an image of anal sex, typing Zoo instantly shows a dog's penis in a woman's vagina. I don't think it is "banning" to want a little thought and discussion put into it before boldly adding bestiality-porn onto every search starting with Zoo.
- While working on #1, I stumbled across the rather sweeping exemption you added to the policy here. WhatamIdoing you probably consider me a pain in the butt from some previous encounters, but I do respect you as a valued long standing member of the community. (I wish more WMF staff had your experience.) I also understand it must sometimes be awkward trying to navigate the gray area between WhatamIdoing and WhatamIdoing_(WMF). But this doesn't look good. I don't want to make assumptions, but it looks like you learned of the WMF's plans before they became generally known, it looks like you made an overbroad sweeping rewrite of policy to facilitate those plans before they were generally known, and it looks like you disagree with the consensus behind the policy. I agree that pages like Special:NewFiles obviously fall under the existing encyclopedia-maintenance exemption, but I oppose a pre-emptive blanket policy exemption for anything that might ever get dumped into Special. If something needs to go into Special and it's not currently covered, then if appropriate we can add a new exemption for it. I personally have unresolved mixed thoughts about non-free images in general article-search results, but my overriding position is to back consensus. It looks like a core intent of policy is that non-free images should not be used to decorate navigational links. At this time the WMF isn't including non-free images in article-search results, so I think the simplest Policy language is to accurately reflect accepted current practice. If the WMF wants to add non-free images to article-search results then I welcome that discussion. I might even decide to support it, after more carefully weighing the competing concerns. Alsee (talk) 07:23, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- I agree that Hovercards' use of images is fine. I also agree that your Hovercards discussion and your reversion are not the same discussion, although there are overlapping issues.
- I realize that you were surprised by the search results that you found. I realize that you are surprised that WP:NOTCENSORED means what it says, even to the extent of applying to search results (i.e., a context in which we can be reasonably certain that we are providing information that the reader doesn't want and isn't specifically asking for). As a way of addressing these concerns, you may be interested in reading the advice at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Offensive images and especially the WP:LEADIMAGE section (which I also helped write ;-). It might be good to update that page directly to mention the effects on mobile users; if you agree, then you should WP:PGBOLDly add that, so that more editors will become aware of the effects of their choices.
- In the end, it's impossible for a feature to require a change in a local guideline (not policy!). The official written description is in WP:CONEXCEPT for years (since before my time, although the current language is largely my creation), but fundamentally, this is a mere common-sense application of the facts of life: The English Wikipedia is not the whole wiki-world, and is it impossible for any software to "obey" every community's guidelines and policies on every (sometimes self-contradictory) point. The devs should create a good product (whatever that means), and the local community should decide whether they're willing to accept it.
I don't follow what Reading or Discovery are doing (or even care about it, except that I hope that desktop search will continue to improve). I do, however, follow half a dozen discussions pages and noticeboards, and I frequently fix confusion about matters that involve different policies and guidelines. I have done this for many years. You can see me making such changes here, for example, where the only "discussion" is after the fact in edit summaries; here's another and another and another – and actually, glancing through my contributions, I don't see any evidence of me discussing in advance even a single change to a policy or guideline this calendar year. When you know what the practical consensus is (=what editors actually do), and when you know how that particular page gets used, and when you are making that page more accurately reflect reality (and if you're any good at writing policies and guidelines, which requires a significantly different mindset from writing an article), then discussions aren't usually necessary for moderate changes.
- When I compare what happened to you (unwanted NSFW search results) and your proposed solution (keep getting all the NSFW search results, but ban useful results like album art cover), I cannot support this change. It's bad policy writing, it doesn't solve your real problem, and it makes things worse for people who are trying to figure out which Pearl Jam-related page they want to read. If you want to get rid of the NSFW search results, then get rid of NSFW search results. There are ways to do this that won't make search results less functional for other users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing please strike your comment. That "proposed solution" is all yours, please stop inserting your imagination into my mouth. I don't see how this discussion can proceed productively unless you consider the possibility that there has been a miscommunication here, and consider that maybe I'm not saying what you thought I was saying. Alsee (talk) 06:12, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- Well, let's talk about that. You write above – and, as I have said before, WP:Policy writing is hard, and maybe you didn't write what you meant – that you wish to change this guideline so that it prohibits the display of non-free images in search results, except when the user has specially chosen to search the File: namespace by ticking the box. This change (if the devs implemented it, of course; see WP:CONEXCEPT) would prohibit the inclusion of non-free images such as album art covers, famous modern paintings, and corporate logos in search results. It would have no effect at all most of the NSFW images that currently appear in those same search results. That is the actual meaning of your proposed sentence, "Exemptions from non-free content policy are made for the use of non-free content on media file search results". That sentence means "I ban the inclusion of album artwork (which is non-free), and I accept the inclusion of NSFW images (almost all of which are free)." Is that what you wish to accomplish? If it's not, then maybe we should talk about what you want to accomplish, and see if we can find some wording that will do this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing please strike your comment. That "proposed solution" is all yours, please stop inserting your imagination into my mouth. I don't see how this discussion can proceed productively unless you consider the possibility that there has been a miscommunication here, and consider that maybe I'm not saying what you thought I was saying. Alsee (talk) 06:12, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: No, Alsee's phrasing would explicitly allow search to show images when searching the File namespace. It doesn't say anything about searching other namespaces. As the search engine doesn't display any images, other then when searching the File namespace, I'm not really seeing why it should? I really cannot read the comments by anyone on this talk page (other than Stefan2) as a willingness to make the text of this policy broad and unambiguous enough to cover currently existing uses of non-free media. I think I'm seeing a lot less disagreement than you are? (The selection of "inappropriate images", whether free or not, is a separate issue. I think it's best to discuss that issue on the MediaWiki talk page, so as to not further conflate these. Both are complicated issues, but for very different reasons.) —Ruud 01:12, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
- The first change that Alsee proposes is meant to ban non-free images in the search results unless you are specifically searching for a file, which is neither a completely accurate description of the current situation or what editors above express as a desirable, principle-compliant situation. (It also won't solve the problem that prompted all of this, because the lead image for Pearl necklace (sexuality) is GFDL and CC-BY-2.5 – aka "free content".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Thank you. Let's see if we can mend some fences here. I apologize if my consecutive mention of this policy elsewhere created confusion. I believe you and I agree that this policy has zero interaction with NSFW. You were upset when you thought I was making a crazy argument, then I was upset that you were putting a crazy argument in my mouth even after my efforts to deny it. I think it would be helpful if we agree that NSFW is irrelevant here, and it disappears from this discussion.
- Regarding search results. My intent was to acknowledge media files are obviously covered, without addressing the hypothetical & less clear case of article search results. (i.e. neither an explicit ban nor an explicit exemption on article search results.) Could you / would you be willing to suggest language like that? Either that, or get consensus for a blanket search exemption? I'll even commit to staying out of it.
- Conexcept: Firstly, we all need to try to work together as partners. The WMF mandated that each community establish an Exemption Doctrine Policy, with an explicit directive that EDPs minimize non-free content use. It also states It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by Wikimedia Foundation officers or staff nor local policies of any Wikimedia project. For the WMF to disregard those EDPs would be, in the most generous possible terms, "morally dubious". If you are trying to claim Conexcept as some sort of "trump card" claiming dominance in a conflict-model.... I hesitate to feed into the conflict-model.... but the Community is in fact holding the "trump card". A simple consensus on a very reasonable RFC has the power to remove all EnWiki non-free images from search results. All it would take is consensus to adopt the policy from any of the various wikis that don't include non-free images. Alsee (talk) 00:57, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- Looking at the comments above, do you really think that the case of article search results is "hypothetical & less clear"? It's pretty obvious to me that most community members are satisfied with seeing tiny thumbnail images of album artwork in search results, as a means of identifying which article is about the album versus the band versus something unrelated (e.g., see what User:Hahnchen has written here and elsewhere).
- One of the hidden problems in writing policies and guidelines is that when you say "X is okay", many editors interpret this as meaning "not-X is not-okay". Your intentions don't matter, and neither do talk-page comments that say things like "We will figure out Y and Z some other time" – "X is okay" is routinely misunderstood as "not-X is not-okay". Consequently, my recommendation is to settle it now, if at all possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- Looking above I don't see many people in this section, but I'll tell ya what. I'll drop it if Ruud thinks there's zero chance that a narrow-use consensus might prevail regarding non-free images in article search. To clarify: The Discovery team *has* built article search that returns images. You can see it at https://www.wikipedia.org/ Just type letters in the box and you start getting images. It currently does not return non-free images, but I believe there is strong interest in changing that. I know of no plans to implement it on en.wikipedia.org search box, but if it is deemed an "upgrade" I don't see why it wouldn't eventually come here too. What do you think? Is it worthwhile, or a waste of time, to get broader input on non-free images in article search results? Alsee (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
- This page does not apply to www.wikipedia.org, which is not part of the English Wikipedia. The community here gets to have a say in what happens here, in the search boxes on the desktop and mobile sites for the English Wikipedia only, not in the search boxes for any other site.
- My recommendation is that you restore as much of the original text as you feel is reasonable for this stage. After all, nobody disagrees with the facts as originally stated, e.g., that non-free files actually do appear in certain categories and that we actually don't require FURs for those uses. (As a point of good policy-writing, I discourage you from trying to declare that use to be "necessary", as that language risks a needless debate over whether it's truly necessary or merely convenient. I deliberately chose the purely factual "Non-free content may also appear" language to avoid that pitfall.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
- How about edit?[2] Things like Category:Publicity photographs with missing fair-use rationale are already explicitly exempted in Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions. Things like Special:ListFiles are utterly non-controversial because of the management-purpose, and something like Special:Gather got strong objections because of the content-purpose. Alsee (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
- The grammar's a bit off. Let me think for a while about how to fix it (anyone else who sees an easy solution should feel free to jump in). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:02, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
- How about edit?[2] Things like Category:Publicity photographs with missing fair-use rationale are already explicitly exempted in Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions. Things like Special:ListFiles are utterly non-controversial because of the management-purpose, and something like Special:Gather got strong objections because of the content-purpose. Alsee (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
- Looking above I don't see many people in this section, but I'll tell ya what. I'll drop it if Ruud thinks there's zero chance that a narrow-use consensus might prevail regarding non-free images in article search. To clarify: The Discovery team *has* built article search that returns images. You can see it at https://www.wikipedia.org/ Just type letters in the box and you start getting images. It currently does not return non-free images, but I believe there is strong interest in changing that. I know of no plans to implement it on en.wikipedia.org search box, but if it is deemed an "upgrade" I don't see why it wouldn't eventually come here too. What do you think? Is it worthwhile, or a waste of time, to get broader input on non-free images in article search results? Alsee (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
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Exceptions for living individuals
From time to time in discussions about the use of non-free images of living individuals, it is noted that we permit the use of non-free images of living people in certain circumstances. These are limited to individuals who are either (a) a known recluse (as substantiated by reliable sources), (b) on the run from the law or (c) incarcerated for life. I've noted these exceptions myself. Yet, we've never codified them either in policy or guideline. I can't even find the sustaining consensus decisions that support those exceptions. We just note them, as if they exist...yet, they don't.
I've taken a look at possible articles where these exceptions would exist.
- Recluse; We do not have an image for Bill Watterson, Darby Conley, Naoko Takeuchi, and Tsugumi Ohba. In fact, I can't find a noted recluse BLP where we use a non-free image.
- On the run from the law; I examined every article in Category:Fugitives wanted by the United States (66 total), and found just 4 articles with non-free images on them (1, 2, 3 and 4 (though he is probably dead). The vast, vast majority do not have non-free images. Quite a few (~five times as many) actually had free images. The exception is, at best, infrequently used and seems undermined by the presence of free images for a number of these fugitives.
- Incarcerated for life; I took at look at Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Pennsylvania and found five of 17 (though not all 17 are alive) using non-free images (and 1 using a free image), and Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by New York, where I found 9 of 28 (again not all 28 are alive). This usage of non-free content seems to be more common.
Thoughts? --Hammersoft (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
- Overall, I think we should have some statement of how "if a free alternative can be obtained" NFCC#1 to be clear in broad cases, which includes BLP photos too, we should be more explicit: for example ,while we all recognize that images (should) have their copyright expire in time, we aren't going to ask editors to wait out 75 years to include an otherwise-acceptable copyright image, but we can ask editors to wait 3-6 months for some building to be constructed or the like instead of using design plans. There's a number of other such cases.
- But to BLP: I think we should definitely codify these. All cases should start that if a free image is known to exist in the first place, the non-free in inappropriate (taking care of the "on the run" cases Hammersoft lists). But as long as one can document reclusiveness or the like, non-free should be acceptable: the lack of it on those articles may simply be due to the case that people don't recognize this as an allowed exception. --MASEM (t) 16:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
"low resolution" guidance on non-free images with standing granted permission
BlueRasberry and I have been discussing the O'Reilly Perl Camel trademark image, as I have a new, highly detailed SVG that I'd be willing to contribute, if appropriate. The discussion can be found here. In a nutshell, the question boils down to: Does the low resolution guidance for non-free images apply to this image, given the extensive standing permission O'Reilly already granted in its Perl Camel FAQ. If I understand correctly that the purpose of this guidance is to reduce image fidelity, to make the image less commercially valuable from a piracy perspective. Given that O'Reilly widely distributes this image, and grants extensive reuse of this image for non-commercial purposes, is this purpose (and the guidance based upon it) valid in this context?
Thanks --Linux_dr (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
- Unfortunately no. Non-commercial licenses are still treated as non-free on Wikipedia (as they limit what reusers of our content can do with them, which may include commercial applications). And as SVGs are infinite fidelity, we would not allow its use. The only exception we'd make for non-free SVGs is when it is the logo of an entity as provided by that entity directly. As we appear to be talking about Perl the language and not any entity, in addition to the fact that the image is still belonging to O'Reilly (co-opted under the non-commercial license by the Perl community to represent them), that would not enable us to use that image here as an SVG. A low resolution PNG would be acceptable, however. --MASEM (t) 00:06, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
- Masem, thanks for the quick response. While I feel compelled to clarify a few minor points, it sounds like a definitive decision has been made. To clarify, this is Wikipedias's, and not O'Reilly's policies preventing this image from being used; Correct?
- This does almost feel like a common enough case where an automated mechanism to store high quality images tagged with a non-commercial reuse licenses such, they would be automatically down-converted in a "commercial reuse" mode. (Just a suggestion to think about.)
- As you said the SVG is from (me) an independent member of the Perl community at large, and not from O'Reilly. The SVG was reconstructed from a 300dpi scan, it is at best approximately original fidelity, rather than "infinite fidelity" (though I will choose to take that as a compliment, none-the-less). Thank you for listening to my ramblings. Can you think of a non-commercial image repository where an image like this would be welcome.
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- Thanks again --Linux_dr (talk) 5:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
- m:NonFreeWiki/interested_people is a possibility. How about a gist? –Be..anyone (talk) 06:12, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks again --Linux_dr (talk) 5:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)