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User:Blathnaid/Sandbox

< User:Blathnaid

I've been fixing non-free images tagged with {{di-no fair use rationale}} and {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} occasionally for the past few months, so I'm gonna note down some observations and thoughts about fixing non-free images that don't comply with WP:NONFREE, before I drink too much on Halloween and forget everything! Bláthnaid 01:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Notifying the image uploader doesn't always work edit

Especially when the editor is inactive, on a wikibreak, or edits sporadically. How can the uploader have been notified if he isn't around to see the notification?

  • User_talk:Steve_Eifert: The worst case I've come across, particularly this.
  • The notifications on User:Dominicbillings' talk page are similar to Steve Eifert's (though not as large an amount) and are also mostly related to films. However these images were not fixed by the uploader Dominicbillings. User:SkierRMH, who fixes a lot of fair use images, added the fair use rationales and the images were kept. Comparing the two sets of images, it is fair to assume that DominicBillings' uploads would have been deleted without SkierRMH's input. So, it is largely luck whether images uploaded by an inactive editor are kept or deleted, needing the intervention an editor disinterested in the image itself (by this I mean that the editor who fixed the image did not upload it, or have a notification of a proposed deletion pop up on a talk page or article page on his watchlist).


Some more examples. In each case, some of the tagged images that an editor was warned about were kept, but the majority were deleted. I haven't checked who fixed all the kept images, but I assume it was a disinterested editor or an editor who saw the warning on their watchlist, not the image uploader.

  • User talk:Ted Wilkes More than 200 images tagged. Many (most?) deleted. He has not edited since 2006; he was blocked for a year, but has been unblocked since March 2007. A notice on his talk page stating that he had been blocked did not stop the image warnings from being added to his talk page :p
  • User_talk:Dubya_Scott A lot of images tagged in one day.
  • User talk:Cvene64
  • User_talk:Wackymacs A lot of images tagged while he was on a wikibreak.
  • User_talk:Hayfordoleary A lot of images tagged in October, but he stopped editing in August.
  • User_talk:Bleck A lot of images nominated this October, but he stopped editing in August 2005.
  • User_talk:Pn0yvstyle Has not edited since July.
  • User_talk:Viajero Has made only 4 edits in 2007. About 22 fair use rationale messages (also orphan and replaceable fair use messages).
  • User_talk:Spigot Has not edited since May (also orphan messages).


Some editors have their images tagged and deleted in drips and drabs.


An administrator can undelete a deleted image and quickly fix it, eg Image:Sgsaints.png, which was deleted, then restored 5 hours later. How many images that have been deleted could have been fixed just as quickly and easily?


Some examples from 29th October:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Brady_bunch_movie_poster.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=167769111 Image tagged] that is perfectly fine for use in The Brady Bunch Movie (maybe not for Shelley Long). The uploader hasn't edited since February. No notification was added to the article talk pages.
Compare this with Image:PrefSymbol-Nagano.png (uploaded in 2003) which was quickly fixed by an editor who wasn't the uploader. The uploader, User:Synthetik, has not edited since March 2004. It appears to me that the administrator User:Nihonjoe who fixed the image was alerted to tagging of these types of images by User:ImageRemovalBot taking deleted images out of articles eg [1]. He also restored images that had been previously deleted and taken out of articles eg 1, 2, 3. It is great that Nihonjoe restored the images and fixed others that were tagged so that the images can remain in the articles that they have been in for years. However, if Nihonjoe had not restored and fixed those images, would they ever have been restored? How many viable images that have been in articles for years have been lost in this way?

Analysis of images deleted on 30th October edit

On 29th October, I added fair use rationales to a number of images I found in Category:Images with no fair use rationale as of 22 October 2007. I was curious to see what would happen to images remaining in the category that could be fixed to avoid deletion, so I took a note of them. At 00.30 UTC on 30th October, there were 50 images in the category that were now due for deletion. 31 images uploaded before 2007 were deleted. Those images were:

An anonymous editor tagged a lot of images uploaded by Humus sapiens (talk · contribs) that were deleted. Other images this anonymous editor tagged included 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (used in a featured article), 6, 7, 8. The IP editor did not leave a warning template on either the uploader's talk page or the article talk page, so the only person who could have known that the image was due to be deleted is the uploader who would see the edit to the image on their watchlist. However, since the editor who had uploaded most of the images was on a wikibreak, and other images were uploaded as far back as 2004, it is likely that nobody knew that the image was due to be deleted. Since the IP editor focused their tagging on Jewish-related topics and images uploaded by Humus sapiens, is this some sort of WP:POINT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT tagging? These are historical images that would be hard to replace, and I think it's reasonable to assume that the images I fixed would also have been deleted. 5 images were deleted and removed from a featured article [2]. Does this type of surreptitious tagging and subsequent deletion happen often?

Another problem is that while the most prolific image taggers (User:STBotI and User:BetacommandBot, I think) are sticking to more recently uploaded 2007 images and are giving warning messages to user and article pages, there are cases of other editors like the IP above who are tagging images uploaded years ago and issuing warnings to editors who don't edit anymore, or even no warnings at all. Does it happen often? Are the images caught in time?

Analysis of images deleted on 31st October edit

These images had been tagged on 23 October Category:Images with no fair use rationale as of 23 October 2007 87 images in the category when I looked at it at 22.00 UTC, 30th October. Skipping over the orphaned images that were deleted:

Inconsistency in warnings edit

A talk page warning isn't always given when an image is tagged for deletion (yes, I realise I've just been complaining about the ineffectiveness of talk page warnings!). Talk page warnings are useful in that they leave a record of who tagged uploads and the reasons why for non-admin editors who don't have access to deleted uploads. And of course it lets editors know what happened to their images if they decide to edit Wikipedia again.

Templated messages warning of a proposed deletion are annoying edit

I think that part of the problem is that the messages on editors' talk pages warn about possible deletion, which probably puts editors on the defensive and annoys them since it's usually just vandals and idiots who get templated warnings and have their work end up in CAT:SPEEDY. Some examples:

{{Dfu}} may not be the reason the image is deleted edit

{{Dfu}} may not be the reason the image is deleted, even if that is what the edit summary says. A lot of images that end up in CAT:SPEEDY with a {{Dfu}} tag often have other problems (the one I see most commonly is that the image is orphaned). If the only problem the tagged images had was lacking a FUR, then theoretically every single image should be fixed and not deleted. Of course this isn't the case, and editors working through a list of disputed images in order to fix them skip over the images that have other problems. Then the images are deleted, often an edit summary along the lines of "no FUR", but "no FUR" is not actually the reason for deletion. (See 31st October above.)

Solutions? edit

Always the hard part! Complaining is so much easier.

Fixing images that don't comply with WP:NFCC is tedious and can be stressful. The message from on high however, is that it must be done. Lots of editors are helping out, some tag, some add rationales and sources, some resize, some delete, and some do a little of everything. The amount of images tagged during 2007 must be huge, and it must be tough for the admins who have to decide what to and what not to delete. (I've never seen a day in Category:Images with no fair use rationale with less than 50 tagged, and it can run into the hundreds. And that's just one category on CAT:SPEEDY)

Rationale templates edit

From the good people here. Would hugely speed the fixing of images.

Task force edit

Good explanation here.

The lists of disputed images that some editors have created eg eg are good things for a task force to use.

Perhaps some people could look at a category on CAT:SPEEDY (especially if it's large) and catch disputed images that can be fixed? They could then give an admin the OK to go through and the admin could clear the category faster. I think an extra set of eyes is all that is needed sometimes to catch and fix a lot of disputed images.

Uploader help edit

Perhaps a direct link to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions in the {{di-no fair use rationale}} and {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} templates? Or if there was a template similar to {{Helpme}} that an editor could add to their talk page or the image page? Maybe a way for new image uploaders to ask if someone could double-check their uploads before they get tagged by a bot? Or if editors get spammed with lots of warnings (eg) they could put a {{Helpme}} on their userpage, and another editor would come along and help them work through the images. Part of the problem I think is that editors might not know that they have done anything wrong until their image ends up in CAT:SPEEDY, and proposed deletion can put people on the defensive even if the problem is easily fixed.

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