Commons-l May 2008

34 participants
17 discussions

On upload forms
by Brion Vibber 10 Jun '08

10 Jun '08

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 For a long time we've had to suffer with an image upload form which was pretty bare-bones, while attempting to shoehorn more smarts into it through templates and JavaScript hacks. Well, I think it's about time we prioritize really doing this thing right. Commons, and MediaWiki generally, needs an upload form which: a) Works sensibly b) Looks good c) Allows you to upload the file, extract metadata, compare duplicates, make sure it's sensibly named, and *then* commit it into the system. d) Handles batch uploads with a minimum of fuss (or at least, as minimally fussy as one can get with HTML file upload forms :) Note that this isn't going to be done by tacking JavaScript and templates onto the existing form; this is going to be a real effort to redesign it from scratch into something that handles today's actual needs. I'd appreciate hearing from people interested in helping out in the following capacities: * Designing user interface mockups * Helping code it up in MediaWiki * Testing the new form under development * Providing constructive criticism as we work This effort will probably take from a few weeks to a few months to get to the point where it's really live; we may even try experiments like having the old and new forms available side-by-side on the live site so people really have a chance to bang at it in real usage without forcing an in-flux test system on everyone. - -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkg/CJcACgkQwRnhpk1wk47cmwCeLwjpDR6thinMa39erKqkITlN QYEAniraOmYsVBFSeqq7M1MKbXMkn2g/ =moPb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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How to punish contributors
by Artur Fijałkowski 30 May '08

30 May '08

New look of special:upload is disaster! (where is field for image of ID scan?) http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload How to turn it off? AJF/WarX

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Re: [Commons-l] On upload forms
by mike.lifeguard 29 May '08

29 May '08

Brion Vibber wrote: >I'd appreciate hearing from people interested in helping out in the >following capacities: > >* Designing user interface mockups >* Helping code it up in MediaWiki >* Testing the new form under development >* Providing constructive criticism as we work Definitely willing and able to help with testing and criticism, and I can perhaps do interface mockups. Mike.lifeguard

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Re: [Commons-l] How to punish contributors
by mike.lifeguard 29 May '08

29 May '08

Also note that at the point you're talking about we don't have the image, so we can't extract data from it. Once could upload the image /then/ process it for metadata, but that defeats the purpose of pre-upload input verification. That is on top of the other concerns mentioned. Mike.lifeguard

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Re: [Commons-l] PD in Canada, but not the US (Padraic)
by J JIH 27 May '08

27 May '08

> Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 14:25:44 -0400 > From: Padraic <user.padraic(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [Commons-l] PD in Canada, but not the US > To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" > <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Message-ID: > <b4fde62a0805251125k39f58086id21947145c98b0f1(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Based on our amateur legal analysis at [[Commons:Deletion requests/Library > and Archives Canada non-PD images]], there is a potentially large class of > images which are PD in Canada, but not the US: those works whose copyright > was initially held by corporations (or the Crown), which expire 50 years > after publication, but only after 95 years in the US due to the URAA. > > In the past, there had been an idea that the Canadian chapter, once it was > formed, could host a collection of such materials for the intervening 45 > years, to provide these PD materials to Canadian re-users, and to allow for > efficient transferring to Wikimedia Commons once the PD date comes. When I > floated this idea on the WMC list, someone suggested that the Foundation > would be actually be interested in doing this itself. > > Thus, I have a few questions: > > 1. Will the Foundation ever be interested in hosting works which are non-PD > in the US, but are PD elsewhere? > 2. Have any national chapters thought of doing this for their own country's > PD works? > 3. If Wikimedia Canada can't make this a priority right now (we are pretty > busy with incorporation, etc), would anyone out there (presumably Commons > users) be interested in contributing to a non-WMF, completely unofficial > wiki of Canadian PD works? Or should I just stick to working by myself and > hosting any of these I find on my Flickr account? > 4. Alternately, would anyone object to my starting of such a private wiki on > the grounds that it would be better to wait for this to become an official > WMC or WMF project? > > Thanks for any input. > Padraic > -- > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Padraic > http://wikitravel.org/en/User:Padraic >

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PD in Canada, but not the US
by Padraic 25 May '08

25 May '08

Based on our amateur legal analysis at [[Commons:Deletion requests/Library and Archives Canada non-PD images]], there is a potentially large class of images which are PD in Canada, but not the US: those works whose copyright was initially held by corporations (or the Crown), which expire 50 years after publication, but only after 95 years in the US due to the URAA. In the past, there had been an idea that the Canadian chapter, once it was formed, could host a collection of such materials for the intervening 45 years, to provide these PD materials to Canadian re-users, and to allow for efficient transferring to Wikimedia Commons once the PD date comes. When I floated this idea on the WMC list, someone suggested that the Foundation would be actually be interested in doing this itself. Thus, I have a few questions: 1. Will the Foundation ever be interested in hosting works which are non-PD in the US, but are PD elsewhere? 2. Have any national chapters thought of doing this for their own country's PD works? 3. If Wikimedia Canada can't make this a priority right now (we are pretty busy with incorporation, etc), would anyone out there (presumably Commons users) be interested in contributing to a non-WMF, completely unofficial wiki of Canadian PD works? Or should I just stick to working by myself and hosting any of these I find on my Flickr account? 4. Alternately, would anyone object to my starting of such a private wiki on the grounds that it would be better to wait for this to become an official WMC or WMF project? Thanks for any input. Padraic -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Padraic http://wikitravel.org/en/User:Padraic

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Fwd: [Wikitech-l] So... status of category intersections?
by David Gerard 23 May '08

23 May '08

Category intersection work is in progress! - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Roan Kattouw <roan.kattouw(a)home.nl> Date: 2008/5/23 Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] So... status of category intersections? To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Aerik Sylvan schreef: > Wow, awesome! - you (and your employer) beat the heck out of all my good > intentions to acquaint myself with the current version of Mediawiki and > write code good enough for production! I can't wait to see it. > I guess money helps. As does having more free time to develop it. > Lucene doesn't allow edits, it only allows add and delete. Presumably too > many deletes make the index inefficient or something. But I think all that > is moot - once you've got the categories into their own table, it *should* > be simple to set up another index on the same type schedule/etc. as the base > search index, and point it to that table. Then, change the interface to > point to Lucene instead of MySQL. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia's Lucene > backend, but... It seems reasonable to assume that this is not a major > endeaver. > That's kind of what I was saying: if we have some kind of searchindex <--> Lucene interface, a categorysearch <--> Lucene interface should be easy. > What's your UI for the intersections look like? That was the killer for me; > I'm a weak UI guy. I'd imagine (and implemented a rough prototype years > ago) that let you "browse" intersections - ie, given intersection a it would > show you the set of all categories B that have documents that have category > a. Ideally the most frequently used categories appear at the top :-) But I > never did any performance testing for this set up, and additionally, I'm not > sure how to do it in Lucene... Anyway, what's your interface like? I'm also not much of a UI guy, but the UI for this extension was mostly imposed on me by my 'employer', and after some discussion we settled on a format where the category intersection part (it does more) is basically a text box where you can enter "Living people AND American people OR Presidents of the United States". AND takes precedence over OR, so the example would get all living Americans plus all deceased ex-Presidents. Expressions with parentheses like "Living people AND (American people OR Canadian people)" aren't supported yet, but can be emulated with "Living people AND American people OR Living people AND Canadian people" (more complex expressions will probably be impossible to emulate that way, and of course the extension should really support parentheses, I'm working on that). Anyway, you'll be able to play around with it around the beginning of next week, probably. Roan Kattouw (Catrope) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Re: [Commons-l] Commons-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 4
by Sylvain Dufour 21 May '08

21 May '08

Dear Yann, I understand your incomprehension but perhaps the photograph is dead less than 75 years ago (french limit for copyright holder) so by precaution the file must be deleted. But for that he will have aproximatively the same age as M Fournier (28 years in 1904) M Fournier on the picture is dead in 1914 more than 75 years. I presume that in 6 years will could import this picture without problem because both photograph and M Fournier will be dead more than the 75 years ago... Gdgourou 2008/5/14 <commons-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>: > Send Commons-l mailing list submissions to > commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > commons-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > commons-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Commons-l digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. 100 years old images (Yann Forget) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 14:01:39 +0200 > From: Yann Forget <yann(a)forget-me.net> > Subject: [Commons-l] 100 years old images > To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: <482AD4A3.6010304(a)forget-me.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > Hello, > > Recently a photo of Alain-Fournier from 1904 was deleted because "no > proof of PD" [1]. I don't understand the rationale being this decision. > AFAIK, we have accepted such images upto now, why do we refuse them now? > > I think we need to get this clear once and for all. > Seeing what was the life expectancy 100 years ago (about 50-55 years in > USA / Europe [2] [3]), a limit of 100 years seems reasonable to me. The > figures I found are actually lower than I expected (60 years). > While we accept a lot of content which is much less safe than this, it > seems unreasonable to me to refuse this kind of images. It is in the > public domain in USA anyway. > > Rocket000 said [4] "I think it's very safe to assume it's PD or can be > treated like it is, but that's different than allowing it on Commons." > That's exactly the point: if it is very safe to assume it's PD, why > should we refuse them? Why setting different standards? This goes > against our mission. > > Regards, > > Yann > > [1] > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Alain_fou… > [2] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html > [3] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/55/6/1196S.pdf > [4] > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#100_years_old_images > > -- > http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence > http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net > http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre > http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Commons-l mailing list > Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l > > > End of Commons-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 4 > **************************************** >

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legal status of government works?
by david.monniaux＠free.fr 19 May '08

19 May '08

Hi, I'm invited to a hearing by a governmental commission who works on possible alterations to the laws and regulations governing the copyright on public works in France. They want to know my opinions (and those of Wikimedia France) on the issue. I know about the copyright-free status of the works of the US federal government. I'm interested in the copyright status of the works of other governments worlwide, especially in the European Union. Please answer by private e-mail. Regards DM

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19 May '08

Hello, Recently a photo of Alain-Fournier from 1904 was deleted on Commons because "no proof of PD" [1]. The photographer is unknown, and therefore his date of death is obviously unknown. I advocate that we should keep this kind of images. Seeing what was the life expectancy 100 years ago (about 50-55 years in USA / Europe [2] [3]), a limit of 100 years seems reasonable to me. The figures I found are actually lower than I expected (60 years). While we accept a lot of content which is much less safe than this, it seems unreasonable to me to refuse this kind of images. It is in the public domain in USA anyway. Rocket000 said [4] "I think it's very safe to assume it's PD or can be treated like it is, but that's different than allowing it on Commons." That's exactly the point: if it is very safe to assume it's PD, why should we refuse them? Why setting different standards? This goes against our mission. Now, Cecil made an interesting research on life expectancy [5]. Actually that's the only meaningful arguments I have seen so far in this discussion. I understand this argument, but I am not really convinced that we have to be so strict about this issue. For me, it is all a matter of interpretation anyway. If we adopt the POV advocating deletion, we should have a clear rule, so that this gets clear once and for all, and most important, this rule should be applied equally on all projects, not only on Commons. Some people have suggested a 120-years old rule, because of such a duration mentioned in US copyright law. But why bringing this issue to foundation-l? Because most other projects accept a 100-years old rule. The German Wikipedia has a specific template for that [6]. I don't understand how one can advocate different copyright rules for Wikipedia and for Commons. This is beyond any legal and objective argument: this content is hosted on the same computers, managed by the same organisation. What this content is used for does not change in anyway its copyright status (except for fair use, but fair use is not the point here). Therefore if this content is allowed on the German Wikipedia, there is no reason it should not be allowed on Commons. Lupo said: “The "100 years rule" at the German Wikipedia is a kind of EDP. They clearly acknowledge that they are not sure these images are free, but they consider the risk of getting into trouble over hosting such files low.” Actually that's exactly what I am suggesting. The legal risk for the Foundation is quite nil as the images are in the public domain in USA anyway. But why should different rules on different projects? The fact that the image is used to illustrate a biography on Wikipedia or the author's page on Wikisource, or standing in its own right on Commons does not change at all its copyright status. I am therefore requesting input from copyright knowledgeable people, including Mike Godwin as counsel for the Foundation, on copyright rules we should apply to our projects. I also think that this attitude of excessively strict copyright interpretation is the main reason why Commons is not more widely used by the different projects: they have no guarantee that the content they allow and they need will be kept on Commons. Regards, Yann [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Alain_fou… [2] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html [3] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/55/6/1196S.pdf [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#100_years_old_images [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#1907_analysis [6] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlage:Bild-PD-alt-100 -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres

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