User talk:Gilabrand/Archive 11

ArbCom block

To enforce an arbitration decision, you have been blocked from editing for a period of three months for reverting without discussion at Israeli settlement. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you believe this block is unjustified, please read the guide to appealing arbitration enforcement blocks and follow the instructions there to appeal your block. -- tariqabjotu 04:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

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Notice to administrators: In a March 2010 decision, the Committee held that "Administrators are prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except: (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page. Any administrator that overturns an enforcement action outside of these circumstances shall be subject to appropriate sanctions, up to and including desysopping, at the discretion of the Committee."

Further, your previously running sanction is reset to expire 1 May 2011 (UTC) or two months after being unblocked, whichever comes first. -- tariqabjotu 04:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Background of editor who requested this block is here: [[1]]. For the time being, his former identity will be withheld.--Geewhiz (talk) 07:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

A useful reminder: 49,000 and still counting

"Volunteers have been departing the project that bills itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" faster than new ones have been joining, and the net losses have accelerated over the past year. In the first three months of 2009, the English-language Wikipedia suffered a net loss of more than 49,000 editors, compared to a net loss of 4,900 during the same period a year earlier...." See: Criticism of Wikipedia.--Geewhiz (talk) 10:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Email received

{{adminhelp}}

Gilabrand has sent me some mail about an interaction ban. I am not planning to take action on it unless the complaint is made on-wiki. Since she is blocked she can't post at AE, so I believe she should leave any request here. EdJohnston (talk) 08:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll note this. T. Canens (talk) 08:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

REQUEST: Enforcement of an interaction ban that was inexplicably lifted the moment I pointed out a violation of it.[[2]]--Geewhiz (talk) 08:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You may want to be more specific in your link. -- tariqabjotu 15:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Tariqabjotu and other administrators received e-mails from me with the specifics. I will provide the same information to anyone else who wants it. I will not be dragged into using my talk page as an open forum for grievances about specific editors.--Geewhiz (talk) 06:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I have cleared the 'adminhelp' template since I don't see any actionable request from Gilabrand here on this page. Timotheus Canens has lifted the interaction ban, the one that she wants enforced. He has stated that he sees no point in continuing the interaction ban between Gilabrand and Nableezy if one of the parties is blocked. At User talk:Timotheus Canens#Your reasoning re Gilabrand he said:

"Also, interaction bans are meant to stop acrimonious interactions from messing up the topic area - with the culpable party gone it's pointless to continue it since it just encourages certain people to fish up violations."

It is not out of the question that Gilabrand's three-month block could be reviewed at AE if she would promise to observe the restriction (which required her to leave comments when making changes) that she refused to follow. Nothing that was sent to me in email expressed a willingness to follow policy or cure the violation. EdJohnston (talk) 17:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The block was premature. Gilabrand should have been given an opportunity to defend herself on AE. Remember, Ed, I asked you to put that AE on hold until Sunday? Nothing was threatened wikipedia to impose the block, when the editor did not have a chance to respond to accusations. In any case Gilabrand sent email to me and said she would comply with the restriction. I am asking to unblock her under my responsibility.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If Gilabrand wants to appeal the block, she can draw up an appeal form here and someone will copy it over to WP:AE. The form to use is {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}. Please observe WP:NOTTHEM in any request. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Your email

This is to confirm that I have received your email dated December 23. You are apparently confused about the nature of N's interaction bans. Originally there were three sets of such bans, one of which (with C.) was lifted on appeal, and one of which (with J.) remains in effect. Both of these were imposed due to unacceptably acrimonious interactions between the two in which both were culpable. N's interaction ban with you, however, was solely due to your offending comment at that AE thread, and the only reason N was also banned from interacting with you is due to concerns about one-sided interaction bans encouraging gaming behavior from the side not banned. Given your block, that interaction ban no longer serves any purpose and indeed appears to have encouraged people to game it by fishing for a violation in order to get the other side blocked, which is why it was lifted. Now, you are welcome to try to get another admin to agree with you, but since the ban has been lifted, blocking N for a technical violation prior to its lifting (and after your block) serves zero preventative purpose. Also, I might remind you that whether or not the ban was lifted, the terms of the ban prohibit you from reporting a violation of it except by an AE report - which means that you may not report a violation at all when you are blocked from editing. T. Canens (talk) 15:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't have a clue what you're talking about, but thanks anyway. --Geewhiz (talk) 15:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Samcrop1.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Samcrop1.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

• make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
• Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-enwikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-enwikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Kelly ^hi! 03:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Your e-mail

The only comment I will make is that you received seven blocks in ten months, whereas another editor received his first block in thirteen months. Clearly the situations are not comparable. Courcelles 19:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Aluf Benn

I made a new entry for Aluf Benn, basically by copying the Hebrew version. Can you look it over for me? Thanks Rabbi-m (talk) 14:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Some images that need fixing

Hi, Gila - I ran across some images you uploaded that need a few issues addressed:

• Non-free use rationale needed

1. File:CzechdollS.jpg
2. File:RamahshirtS.jpg
3. File:NaotboxS.jpg
4. File:HapoelscarfS.jpg
5. File:YoplaitS.jpg

• Possibly non-free

1. File:KiddushS.jpg
2. File:CardoS.jpg
3. File:TurkbathS.jpg

• Missing WP:OTRS evidence of permission

1. File:Doctorbrand.jpg
2. File:Mordechai RotenbergS.jpg

I did move many of your fine free images to Wikimedia Commons so they could be more easily found and more widely used - thanks for your many quality picture contributions. Kelly ^hi! 20:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

{{helpme}} The above user, Kelly, is systematically tagging and deleting images that I uploaded - all of them my own work, apart from two which specifically state they were provided by the families of the subjects. Despite repeated emails to Kelly, the deletion has continued, including deletion of photos from my own user space. Now Kelly has reported someone to ANI for removing her tags. I am blocked from editing, as I informed Kelly, and cannot handle the issue myself. I understand that Kelly is worried about "copyright" but why is she applying this to a random photo of a doll, a still-life I set up of a bottle and silver cup, a composition of 3 shirts laid out on a table, a picture of room in Turkey, and the images in question, used for illustrative purposes, certainly fall under the category of fair use?? This is certainly going overboard in interpreting Wiki rules, and the fact that she has not replied to my queries is plain rude. With this kind of treatment, I am sorry I ever downloaded photos in the first place, and will certainly not download any more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gilabrand (talk • contribs) 08:20, 6 February 2011

Hi. Regarding your help request;

• You didn't actually ask a question.
• Users are under absolutely no obligation to respond to emails.
• Repeated emails are inappropriate, if there has been no response. I note that, previously, your email access was blocked due to "Misuse of e-mail to request the block of others in a harrassing manner". Please don't force that to happen again.
• The tagging of the images is being discussed, on ANI. Kelly is not "Tagging and deleting" the images, but merely tagging them - Kelly is not an administrator. Others will review the tags, and only delete them if appropriate (in accordance with policies).
• Regarding the two images that are not your own work - we would require permission from the copyright holders. You cannnot give permission on their behalf. They could email permission. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. If they are deleted in the meantime, and later permission is sent, they can be undeleted.
• Regarding the other images - their copyright will be discussed amongst active editors, but I am sorry - as a blocked editor you cannot participate in those discussions. You can always, of course, appeal your block, if you can express specific reasons for us to believe that the block is no longer appropriate.
• Non-free images can never be used in user-space.
• Non-free images must have a specific, valid fair-use rationale for each article they are used on, and in particular, only where "no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose". I think it would be difficult to justify use of those specific pictures under non-free terms.

I hope that helps clarify.  Chzz  ►  09:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I still don't understand why pictures that I have personally taken are non-free, and if they need some rationale, that rationale could easily be applied by an editor who uses his/herbrain, as opposed to robotically tagging images (and then reporting anyone who disagrees to ANI). My block for totally unrelated reasons is not relevant, and your presumption of bad faith regarding the use of e-mail is sad (but totally in line with the hostility that pervades this site).

If you take a photo of e.g. clothing, then although you created the photo, you didn't create the clothes. In some cases, such a photo can be considered a derivitive work, and if the clothing has some copyrighted element (such as a logo), then the resultant photo could be considered non-free. In such cases, the status depends whether the copyright portion is deemed de minimis.

In the case of a landscape picture, which contains a crowd of people, one of whom is wearing a T-shirt and you can just about make out that it has a Nike checkmark...then it would.

In the case of someone deliberately taking a high-res photo of a tin of beans, with the logo very prominent, and using it on an article about the company - no; that'd be non-free, and thus would have to meet all the conditions.

In-between, of course, is a whole huge area up for discussion.

And when an image is declared non-free, then adding the needed 'fair-use rationale' is not always simple. Fair use is very limiting; you need a very good reason to use such images; you really have to justify its use in the specific article. For example, it would never be possible to claim fair use on a picture of a T-shirt that was deemed non-free in an article about T-shirts, because it'd be possible to find a free alternative that would do the job.

And I'm sorry you think I assumed bad faith; I didn't; I just wanted to remind you that repeated emailing is not a good idea - because of that specific history, and because you did state you'd repeatedly emailed in your original posting. Chzz  ►  10:52, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Another example which might help clarify;

Quite often, people take a photograph of a newspaper article containing a copyrighted photograph, and then upload it saying "It is entirely my own work" - I'm sure you can see why that does not work, and why we couldn't snip the newspaper photo out of their photo and make full free use of it.

The same problem extends to taking photographs of pictures in a museum, or photos of images in books, or photos of statues, or even buildings. Chzz  ►  10:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Chzz, I very much appreciate your taking the time to explain the issues. But I see that Israeli copyright law does not seem to have a problem with images used for educational purposes, which I believe would apply to an encyclopedia. It states: "Fair use of a work is permitted for purposes such as: private study, research, criticism, review, journalistic report, quotation, or training and examination by an educational institution." The images in question (apart from one taken in Turkey and one of a US educator, provided by his estate) were taken in Israel and would not be a problem in that respect. And I still don't understand why photographs of a generic doll, or a bottle and wine cup (illustrating a religious ritual) would be subject to any restrictions. Whose copyright are they violating? Some people believe the world was created by God. By that logic, there is no such thing as a free image and every image on Wikipedia should be speedily deleted.

I'll prefix this message by stating that I'm not offering any opinion on the specific case; ie, please "do not shoot the messenger";

• Regarding fair use, it is not a question of the law (in Israel, or the US), but instead, regarding the Wikipedia:Non-free content policy - and two specific aspects of that policy are;

• only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic - and that means, we cannot use non-free images in userspace, because such pages are not encyclopaedic articles
• No free equivalent - this is the most challenging clause to overcome. If we are trying to illustrate an article about bottles or dolls, then there will be a free alternative, somewhere. Note, we don't have to actually have a free alternative; merely the likelihood that one could exist is enough to discount a claim of fair use.

In an article about a specific doll, such as Bild Lilli doll, we have a better possibility of claiming fair-use, as there is no possibility of there being a free alternative picture of that doll.

The above should clarify when we actually can use non-free images; for example, a company logo in an article about the company, or a record cover in an article about the record.

• A photo of a doll could be considered a derivative work, in some cases. It does get complex; see Commons:Derivative works#Toys....
• The same applies to the bottle/cup; that might come down to the question "is it art?" - and I'm not going to begin offering my opinion; but it is listed in the possibly unfree files, so there is time to see what consensus says.

Please remember my preamble to this message; I'm merely conveying policy and guidelines. Personally, I hate the whole concept of "fair use of non-free images", I find the law concerning them to be absurd, and wouldn't mind if all of them were removed. My views are similar to those given in the Wikipedia:Veganism parable.  Chzz  ►  12:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I didn't understand the parable at all...Even with all these explanations, I don't understand what makes my photo of a doll and a blue glass bottle that belong to me "non-free." Why would another picture be "freer" than one that I have taken with my own camera and uploaded to Wikipedia myself?? I would also point out that all the photos are low resolution and would be useless commercially.

Doll - Legally, most toys are art. It is the same thing whether you take a picture of a sculpture or a picture of Darth Vader. - same could be applied to your photo of a doll...copyrighted; in both cases, the copyright of the photograph does not void the original copyright, and in both cases you will need the permission of the original creator. - that is, the person who owns the copyright of the doll. You cannot upload pictures of a sculpture by Picasso, and you can't upload photographs of Mickey Mouse or Pokémon figures. - or a doll.

Parable - I linked that, to try and explain my own view on the principle of non-free images. Policy allows use of non-free images, subject to certain complicated conditions. My view is, that the concept is flawed, because it says it is OK to use ("steal") copyright images, as long as we "have a really good reason" and "only use a little bit" (ie low resolution, etc). To me, that doesn't make sense; however, that is just my opinion, and in all my advice and suggestions, I follow the current consensus-based policies and guidelines, and not my opinion.  Chzz  ►  18:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:CzechdollS.jpg

File:CzechdollS.jpg

This is a perfectly valid photo that an assortment of bored individuals are trying to delete

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:CzechdollS.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:21, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:YoplaitS.jpg

thumb|100px|Another fair-use image that people are fighting over, now described for some bizarre reason as "orphaned"...

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:YoplaitS.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

AfD of article you worked on

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Justus Weiner (2nd nomination). Jaque Hammer (talk) 04:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Service award level

There has been a major revision of the the Service Awards: the edit requirements for the higher levels have been greatly reduced, to make them reasonably attainable.

Because of this, your Service Award level has been changed, and you are now eligible for a higher level. I have taken the liberty of updating your award on your user page.

Herostratus (talk) 17:14, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Davidka Square

Hi Gila, I finally filled in the red link on the Jaffa Road template for Davidka Square. I took some pictures at night to show the white and blue lighting. I'm not so happy with the second picture, though. I was wondering if you have any good daylight pictures showing the whole square? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 21:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Anti-semitism

hi gila - i just edited four pages relating to Anti-semitism, and all four were reverted - take a look and let me know what you think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Palestinian_territories and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_antisemitism - certainly it belongs in 'new' and has relevance to the others, no? thanks. Soosim (talk) 08:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)