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Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

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millosh at gmail

Nov 21, 2009, 5:21 AM

Post #1 of 17 (1714 views)
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Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

A year or so ago I realized that it is better to make an auxiliary
site to Wikipedia [in Serbian] than to spend a lot of time in
explaining to students that everyone has to send to me the sentence "I
agree that all of my work is realized under ...". It may be funny for
the first couple of times, it may be assumed as the part of the job
during the next couple of times, but spending ~1 hour per week in
explaining what someone should write inside of an email for
contribution of three articles -- is too much.

But, it was a kind of problems which couldn't be avoided. Our present
system of getting permissions is not able to handle 100 persons at one
time. And we should think how to solve it.

But, during the couple of previous days I've got one more contribution
to our Monument. This kind of contributions make me to think that
Wikipedia in English (not just en.wp for sure) is becoming -- slowly
but surely -- the main problem in spreading free knowledge. So, here
is the development:

* In 2005 I've asked one professor for permissions for his material.
In those times OTRS didn't exist, so I've left it on Wikipedia [1].

* Four years later one pedantic administrator of en.wp noticed that
that professor gave permissions under GFDL, not under CC-BY-SA. Even a
moron would be able to understand that GFDL was just a word -- which
doesn't mean anything to that professor -- inside of the clear
explanation of the copyleft principle.

* So, I've asked the professor again. I've explained that I need his
approval for using material under CC-BY-SA and he agreed. Of course,
I've just repeated the same, copyleft conditions and gave the link to
the CC-BY-SA human readable code. And I forwarded it to
permissions-en.

* Then I've got one more pedantically bureaucratic answer: Professor
didn't repeat The Great Sentence of Our Holy Secrets (he just said
"Dear Milos, You have my permission for usage of materials from my
websites, also including...") and he said that he is giving
permissions "to the extent that he is authorized to give us such
permission for usage", which is not, from the bureaucratic point of
view (BPOV), clear enough. It is suggested: "Any material that he is
not authorized to give us permission to use must be clearly noted."
Even, again, a moron would be able to understand what has been created
by professor at his site and what is not. For example, if he used some
photo and he is describing that photo as an art and mentions the
author of the photo -- logically, this photo is not his. If he quoted
some author and describes that quote -- logically, this quote is not
his. And so on. The other problem which such bureaucracy is opening is
the fact that that suggestion means without any doubt that I would
need a week or more of work to mark everything on professor's five
sites.

* So, my only response to such moronic bureaucracy is: Fuck you! Of
course, it is not about particular Wikimedia volunteers, it is about
the whole system which transforms good persons into bureaucratic
morons.

And why it is so? Because we have hundreds or thousands of cases
before courts because not so pedantically defined sentences? Because
it is reasonable to suppose that a professor who already gave to us
permissions to get materials from his site four years ago will sue us
because not so well worded agreement for giving materials under
CC-BY-SA? Fuck you, again!

I mentioned just two examples, but there are at least a couple of more
similar from my experience.

As this kind of bureaucracy is so deeply inside of Wikimedia and
especially at Wikipedia and especially at Wikipedia in English -- the
only solution which I am able to see is to create a number of
auxiliary sites which would take care about permissions instead of
Wikimedia. However, this is a very clear path of making Wikipedia and
Wikimedia less relevant. After five years of such tendencies some
standards will be created. After another five Wikipedia won't be
necessary anymore.

I would like to say that the option is to work against such
bureaucracy. However, I am not so optimistic in relation to the large
projects which are already deeply bureaucratic. Even a number of
smaller projects suffer from bureaucracy because of strong influence
of the large projects.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Millosh/Permissions_from_Robert_Elsie

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polimerek at gmail

Nov 21, 2009, 5:47 AM

Post #2 of 17 (1681 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/21 Milos Rancic <millosh [at] gmail>:
> A year or so ago I realized that it is better to make an auxiliary
> site to Wikipedia [in Serbian] than to spend a lot of time in
> explaining to students that everyone has to send to me the sentence "I
> agree that all of my work is realized under ...". It may be funny for
> the first couple of times, it may be assumed as the part of the job
> during the next couple of times, but spending ~1 hour per week in
> explaining what someone should write inside of an email for
> contribution of three articles -- is too much.
>
> But, it was a kind of problems which couldn't be avoided. Our present
> system of getting permissions is not able to handle 100 persons at one
> time. And we should think how to solve it.

We talked about it during Multimedia Usability Meeting in Paris. The
idea is to create a "Staging Area" - a wiki (or non-wiki) project
which is not public and can be used for media and meta-data mass
storage before sending the stuff to public projects. The idea is that
all permissions and other legal stuff would be carefully solved before
sending anything to Commons, so the mass contributors coming from
outside organisation would not need to cope with OTRS system.

There were also discussion about how to change OTRS system or replace
it with something more friendy - but I guess it is going to be hard to
combine friendlyness and legal requirements.

Bear in mind - that keeping legal stuff clean is not only the matter
of our projects - but also all those who re-use our content believing
that our meta-data concerning licening is valid.

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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saintonge at telus

Nov 21, 2009, 6:04 PM

Post #3 of 17 (1656 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
> The
> idea is to create a "Staging Area" - a wiki (or non-wiki) project
> which is not public and can be used for media and meta-data mass
> storage before sending the stuff to public projects. The idea is that
> all permissions and other legal stuff would be carefully solved before
> sending anything to Commons, so the mass contributors coming from
> outside organisation would not need to cope with OTRS system.
>

It's hard to see how the problems of bureaucracy could be solved by
establishing a meta-bureaucracy.

Ec

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polimerek at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 3:05 AM

Post #4 of 17 (1661 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/22 Ray Saintonge <saintonge [at] telus>:
> Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
>> The
>> idea is to create a "Staging Area" - a wiki (or non-wiki) project
>> which is not public and can be used for media and meta-data mass
>> storage before sending the stuff to public projects. The idea is that
>> all permissions and other legal stuff would be carefully solved before
>> sending anything to Commons, so the mass contributors coming from
>> outside organisation would not need to cope with OTRS system.
>>
>
> It's hard to see how the problems of bureaucracy could be solved by
> establishing a meta-bureaucracy.
>

Very simply. If an organisation is going to make a project it will get
their own space on "Staging Area" and will upload their stuff there
without any legal problems. Then, one or more editors must examine
this stuff adding to it meta-data and resolve all legal problems
before sending it to Commons or any other WIkimedia project. The
formal agreements can be stored on "Staging Area" and be made visible
for OTRS volunteers. So instead of sending houndres of E-mails from
all contributors of the project there will be only one pointing to the
meta-data stored on Staging Area. Anyway, if you organize a mass
contributors project you must be sure that all contributors were
informed how free licences work, that their contribiutions can be used
for commercial purposes, that anyone can copy and modify it.

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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cohesion at sleepyhead

Nov 22, 2009, 8:44 AM

Post #5 of 17 (1656 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek [at] gmail> wrote:
> Very simply. If an organisation is going to make a project it will get
> their own space on "Staging Area" and will upload their stuff there
> without any legal problems. Then, one or more editors must examine
> this stuff adding to it meta-data and resolve all legal problems
> before sending it to Commons or any other WIkimedia project. The
> formal agreements can be stored on "Staging Area" and be made visible
> for OTRS volunteers. So instead of sending houndres of E-mails from
> all contributors of the project there will be only one pointing to the
> meta-data stored on Staging Area. Anyway, if you organize a mass
> contributors project you must be sure that all contributors were
> informed how free licences work, that their contribiutions can be used
> for commercial purposes, that anyone can copy and modify it.

That might make the process more visible, and get it off an email only
system. Many people, I think, will still want to use email though,
since it's the only thing they are familiar with. Many of the people
that write to permissions are not very tech savvy.

And in defense of the bureaucratic morons, you might be surprised the
number of super positive generous people that want their work on
Wikipedia that are completely unwilling to allow 3rd parties to use
their work. I don't personally make people say "The Great Sentence of
Our Holy Secrets" but I would like some indication that they are ok
with other people using their work commercially. Many people simply
aren't, and it hasn't crossed their minds that when they give
something to Wikipedia that is what they're signing up for. I think we
owe it to those people to make sure they understand.

But yes, I'm not arguing that the system is good, but there is
legitimately a lot of education that needs to happen before someone
completely unfamiliar with free content licenses their work cc-by-sa.
It's a tough problem. And, honestly, does copying and pasting the
"Great Sentence" actually make people feel comfortable that the person
understands what's happening? It probably shouldn't.

Judson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

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dgerard at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 8:57 AM

Post #6 of 17 (1648 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/22 Judson Dunn <cohesion [at] sleepyhead>:

> And in defense of the bureaucratic morons, you might be surprised the
> number of super positive generous people that want their work on
> Wikipedia that are completely unwilling to allow 3rd parties to use
> their work. I don't personally make people say "The Great Sentence of
> Our Holy Secrets" but I would like some indication that they are ok
> with other people using their work commercially. Many people simply
> aren't, and it hasn't crossed their minds that when they give
> something to Wikipedia that is what they're signing up for. I think we
> owe it to those people to make sure they understand.

+1

This "free content" idea regularly EXPLODES PEOPLE'S HEADS. They
really, seriously, don't get it. Even when they say they do, they
frequently don't.

The bureaucracy around submitting photos for Wikipedia is a goddamn
pain in the arse ... *but* there are extremely good reasons it came
about.

What's the "shoot on sight" percentage on Commons like now? I
understand it was 10-12% a coupla years ago. (GMaxwell, I vaguely
recall you giving this figure, please correct if I'm wrong.)

- d.

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geo.plrd at yahoo

Nov 22, 2009, 11:38 AM

Post #7 of 17 (1657 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

I see a lot of well meaning people responding here, but maybe its time to go back to the basics. No non free pictures, period. No more bureaucracy plus cost savings on not having to run the permissions systems.

________________________________
From: Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek [at] gmail>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l [at] lists>
Sent: Sun, November 22, 2009 3:05:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

2009/11/22 Ray Saintonge <saintonge [at] telus>:
> Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
>> The
>> idea is to create a "Staging Area" - a wiki (or non-wiki) project
>> which is not public and can be used for media and meta-data mass
>> storage before sending the stuff to public projects. The idea is that
>> all permissions and other legal stuff would be carefully solved before
>> sending anything to Commons, so the mass contributors coming from
>> outside organisation would not need to cope with OTRS system.
>>
>
> It's hard to see how the problems of bureaucracy could be solved by
> establishing a meta-bureaucracy.
>

Very simply. If an organisation is going to make a project it will get
their own space on "Staging Area" and will upload their stuff there
without any legal problems. Then, one or more editors must examine
this stuff adding to it meta-data and resolve all legal problems
before sending it to Commons or any other WIkimedia project. The
formal agreements can be stored on "Staging Area" and be made visible
for OTRS volunteers. So instead of sending houndres of E-mails from
all contributors of the project there will be only one pointing to the
meta-data stored on Staging Area. Anyway, if you organize a mass
contributors project you must be sure that all contributors were
informed how free licences work, that their contribiutions can be used
for commercial purposes, that anyone can copy and modify it.

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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dgerard at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 12:09 PM

Post #8 of 17 (1657 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/22 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd [at] yahoo>:

> I see a lot of well meaning people responding here, but maybe its time to go back to the basics. No non free pictures, period. No more bureaucracy plus cost savings on not having to run the permissions systems.

I submit that you aren't reading the messages sufficiently closely.
The problems described are those in making sure the pictures are
indeed free content.

- d.

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millosh at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 12:13 PM

Post #9 of 17 (1656 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

On 11/22/2009 05:57 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/11/22 Judson Dunn <cohesion [at] sleepyhead>:
>
>> And in defense of the bureaucratic morons, you might be surprised the
>> number of super positive generous people that want their work on
>> Wikipedia that are completely unwilling to allow 3rd parties to use
>> their work. I don't personally make people say "The Great Sentence of
>> Our Holy Secrets" but I would like some indication that they are ok
>> with other people using their work commercially. Many people simply
>> aren't, and it hasn't crossed their minds that when they give
>> something to Wikipedia that is what they're signing up for. I think we
>> owe it to those people to make sure they understand.
>
>
> +1
>
> This "free content" idea regularly EXPLODES PEOPLE'S HEADS. They
> really, seriously, don't get it. Even when they say they do, they
> frequently don't.
>
> The bureaucracy around submitting photos for Wikipedia is a goddamn
> pain in the arse ... *but* there are extremely good reasons it came
> about.
>
> What's the "shoot on sight" percentage on Commons like now? I
> understand it was 10-12% a coupla years ago. (GMaxwell, I vaguely
> recall you giving this figure, please correct if I'm wrong.)
>
>
> - d.
>
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> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I am contributing to various Wikimedia projects since 2003 and I
contributed my first piece of free software in 1999. Since late 1990s
I am actively ideologically supporting free software in my country and
in my part of the world. It is hard to imagine to me a kind of
surprisingly new behavior from the side of people who makes their
first touches with free software and free content. Actually, I am able
to present many anecdotes related to such behavior. Actually, I am
fully supporting position of both of you.

If you read the content of the link which I posted inside of the first
email, you could see that I had passed a variation of the same
process. "Please, make the content free." "Yes, I will do it if it
doesn't assume commercial interest." ... However, I've got permission
as it is needed after one more ask.

The point is that I came into the dead end with the demand to mark
what may and what may not be included into Wikipedia. (Besides the
fact that situation "Please repeat the next: ..." is solidly stupid if
you have ~60 years old professor at the other side.)

If I think constructively, I will need to do the next:

* Analyze all the sites and find some generic way to cover given
permissions as simple as it is possible. Probably, I will need some
help (and I'll get it).
* Write as shorter email as it is possible with as less as it is
possible points.
* Explain to the professor that this way of getting permissions is
necessary even I think that it is stupid.
* Send it to OTRS again and hope that I wouldn't have to do the process again.

This task will consume a lot of time. Instead of spending that time on
more constructive Wikimedian tasks, I will do it just to raise legal
safety from 99% to 99.5%.

Keep in mind that this is not about non-free content, this is not
about a possibility that professor didn't understand all consequences
of his approval; this is just about The Form. The Bureaucracy. Note,
also, that this cooperation exists for four years. I don't think that
it is reasonable.

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dgerard at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 12:19 PM

Post #10 of 17 (1654 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/22 Milos Rancic <millosh [at] gmail>:

> Keep in mind that this is not about non-free content, this is not
> about a possibility that professor didn't understand all consequences
> of his approval; this is just about The Form. The Bureaucracy. Note,
> also, that this cooperation exists for four years. I don't think that
> it is reasonable.

Oh, certainly. The sort of case you describe is just silly.

A lot of the problem is that Wikipedia attracts geeks, who tend to
trying to render things black-and-white wherever possible. So they get
heavily bureaucratic with very little impetus.

The problem here with clearing away the bureaucracy is that the
impetus for it makes repeated checking sometimes necessary.

(e.g. I'm appalled that the Flickr copyright checker is just a bot to
go to Flickr and look at what the CC licence there is, rather than a
human sanity-checking whether it's plausible the Flickr poster really
does have the right to release the image. I don't mean a complicated
process, I mean even checking that it's plausible.)

I don't know of an easy solution that doesn't involve spreading the
notion of free content further. Using ourselves as the existence proof
helps in my experience - i.e., "of course you can give everything away
and do well. We do, and you're talking to me because we do."

- d.

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saintonge at telus

Nov 22, 2009, 1:34 PM

Post #11 of 17 (1646 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> I see a lot of well meaning people responding here, but maybe its time to go back to the basics. No non free pictures, period. No more bureaucracy plus cost savings on not having to run the permissions systems.
>
This is simplistic. No-one seriously here is opposed to the philosophy
of free content. Free content is a concept; GFDL and CC are licences.
In the same way an apple tree can have different varieties of the fruit
grafted upon it. The licences are fruit which imply the presence of a
common trunk, but the presence of the trunk says nothing about the fruit
that are grown there.

Ec

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saintonge at telus

Nov 22, 2009, 2:24 PM

Post #12 of 17 (1644 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> But, during the couple of previous days I've got one more contribution
> to our Monument. This kind of contributions make me to think that
> Wikipedia in English (not just en.wp for sure) is becoming -- slowly
> but surely -- the main problem in spreading free knowledge.
>
...
> It is suggested: "Any material that he is
> not authorized to give us permission to use must be clearly noted."
> Even, again, a moron would be able to understand what has been created
> by professor at his site and what is not. For example, if he used some
> photo and he is describing that photo as an art and mentions the
> author of the photo -- logically, this photo is not his. If he quoted
> some author and describes that quote -- logically, this quote is not
> his. And so on. The other problem which such bureaucracy is opening is
> the fact that that suggestion means without any doubt that I would
> need a week or more of work to mark everything on professor's five
> sites.
>
> * So, my only response to such moronic bureaucracy is: Fuck you! Of
> course, it is not about particular Wikimedia volunteers, it is about
> the whole system which transforms good persons into bureaucratic
> morons.
>
> And why it is so? Because we have hundreds or thousands of cases
> before courts because not so pedantically defined sentences? Because
> it is reasonable to suppose that a professor who already gave to us
> permissions to get materials from his site four years ago will sue us
> because not so well worded agreement for giving materials under
> CC-BY-SA? Fuck you, again!
>
> I mentioned just two examples, but there are at least a couple of more
> similar from my experience.
>
> As this kind of bureaucracy is so deeply inside of Wikimedia and
> especially at Wikipedia and especially at Wikipedia in English -- the
> only solution which I am able to see is to create a number of
> auxiliary sites which would take care about permissions instead of
> Wikimedia. However, this is a very clear path of making Wikipedia and
> Wikimedia less relevant. After five years of such tendencies some
> standards will be created. After another five Wikipedia won't be
> necessary anymore.
>
> I would like to say that the option is to work against such
> bureaucracy. However, I am not so optimistic in relation to the large
> projects which are already deeply bureaucratic. Even a number of
> smaller projects suffer from bureaucracy because of strong influence
> of the large projects.
You paint an excellent picture of a gravedigger who has been so
enthusiastic about his work that he has dug so deep that he is unable to
climb out of his own work.

I suppose that every project is in a different stage of littering with
fly-paper.

In the example at least the professor was still alive for you to be able
to ask permission, but remembering that as the law now stands in many
jurisdictions this scene is likely to be repeated for 70 years after he
dies, during which time you will be seeking permissions from heirs who
have no clue about what you are asking, all for the sake of protecting
economic rights that they never knew they had and money that they never
knew they were getting.

It should be enough for the person granting the free licence to
subscribe to a statement of principle about free content that transcends
GFDL or CC or whatever the flavour of the day may be next year, next
decade or next century.

There always will be cases where a reasonable and fair analysis will
lead us to the conclusion that those contents are probably free, but
where that final step in establishing a clear licence is nearly
impossible for a wide variety of reasons. Due diligence does not
require absolute certainty about a work's copyright status. It accepts
that there is some level where one's efforts are good enough. It accepts
that at some point the individual must accept responsibility to protect
his own rights without the nanny state doing it for him. With so many
significant rights in serious need of protection it makes no sense that
so much effort to protect the speculative rights of the long dead. And
the wiki projects should not be surrogates for the nanny state.

At some point we need to be able to say to our users: "We have a high
degree of confidence that this [specific] material is free, but these
difficulties exist: ... Use it at your own risk."

Ec

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rarohde at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 2:54 PM

Post #13 of 17 (1645 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

For some applications (though not necessarily all), it might help if
the OTRS process was replaced by a standard online permission form
rather than having Wikimedians negotiate with outsiders in the hope of
getting them to say magic words.

I might imagine a process somewhat like the following:

1) User identifies some materials they would like to use on Wikipedia.
2) They upload copies to some "staging area".
3) They use a utility to prepare a standardized permission form for
the item(s) in question.
4) Through Wikimedia they send an email to the copyright holder
explaining the situation, and asking them to visit the online form to
give their permission
5) Once approved, the materials could be automatically moved to Commons, etc.

Presumably such a form would provide a standard explanation of what's
going on and selection of acceptable Wikimedia licenses. Hopefully
such a thing would remove the problem with statements being unclear or
legally insufficient.

Obviously such a process could be embellished with additional contacts
between the Wikimedians and copyright holders, etc., but the above
could serve as a baseline.

Anyway, that's my idea. I realize that in some ways it runs counter
to Milos's complaint, since it requires a new process rather than
cutting out bureaucracy per se. However, I think having a fixed and
standardized approach for free content releases would ultimately cut
down on arguments.

-Robert Rohde

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polimerek at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 4:27 PM

Post #14 of 17 (1645 views)
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Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

2009/11/22 Robert Rohde <rarohde [at] gmail>:
> For some applications (though not necessarily all), it might help if
> the OTRS process was replaced by a standard online permission form
> rather than having Wikimedians negotiate with outsiders in the hope of
> getting them to say magic words.
>
> I might imagine a process somewhat like the following:
>
> 1) User identifies some materials they would like to use on Wikipedia.
> 2) They upload copies to some "staging area".
> 3) They use a utility to prepare a standardized permission form for
> the item(s) in question.
> 4) Through Wikimedia they send an email to the copyright holder
> explaining the situation, and asking them to visit the online form to
> give their permission
> 5) Once approved, the materials could be automatically moved to Commons, etc.
>

It sounds interesting however there is assumption that the user knows
that he/she has to go for
permission if the content is not his/her and does not need to do it if
it is his/her own work. However it is not so simple...

What are current copyvio-checking scenarios, which are different for
files and text:

in case of text:
* first of all we just make an automatic assumption that it is orignal
text of contributors and do not bother the user for legal questions at
all - he/she just click on edit button and can add his/her stuff -
this is what Wikipedia made sucessful
*It works fine as long as someone will find that the user
contribiution is potential copyvio and add ugly warning template to
the article and user's discussion page
* then we just wait for user reaction
** if none, the text is deleted after several hours or days -
depending on the local project policy;
** if yes we start teribble and time consuming OTRS procedure

in case of files upload it works in a little diferent way
*after clicking upload button - there is a lenghty starting screen
pointing to various upload forms different for diffrent types of media
and/or legal status - that screen was developed in order to decrease
the number of copyvio uploads;
*the user must first choose the proper form and than read plenty of
complicated explanation,
*than fill those not-so-friendly or even quite unfriendly forms
askinkg him/her many strange questions, some of them hard to
understand by newbie;
* if he/she is lucky and do everything properly file upload seems to
be sucessful - user is not bothered;
*if he/she made a mistake - for example she/he writes that the picture
is not taken by he/she bu by his/her classmate and uses {{self|GFDL}}
template...
*we put ugly copyvio template and wait for reaction;
** if none the file is deleted;
**if yes we start OTRS procedure;
*some of those forms suggest to send agreement to OTRS if the file is
not yours but you can upload the file ignoring this suggestion

Bear in mind that ugly copyvio template is used no matter if the
user's contribiution is his/her original, but it was found on other
websites not working under free licences or the user has the
permission but not send it to OTRS or the user has no permission at
all. It is just because we don't know the legal status of user's
contributon - in case of files upload we just try to ask him/her by
filling all those terible forms used on Commons or other projects, but
it is easy to give a wrong answer or do silly mistake; in case of text
we don't ask, we only warn a little and then we perform "seek and
destroy" style approach

So, the replacing current ugly-copyvio-template -> OTRS scheme for
something else must take into consideration various scenarios which
are currently handled by that scheme in quite often teribbly
unfriendly style but anyway it is at least handled.

So, the point is that we must "seek and destroy" copyvio and on the
other hand we want to stay friendly, try to assume goodwill, and try
to remain to be "just click and edit" wiki project...

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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rarohde at gmail

Nov 22, 2009, 4:41 PM

Post #15 of 17 (1648 views)
Permalink

Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek [at] gmail> wrote:

<snip>

> So, the replacing current ugly-copyvio-template -> OTRS scheme for
> something else must take into consideration various scenarios which
> are currently handled by that scheme in quite often teribbly
> unfriendly style but anyway it is at least handled.
>
> So, the point is that we must "seek and destroy" copyvio and on the
> other hand we want to stay friendly, try to assume goodwill, and try
> to remain to be "just click and edit" wiki project...

Tomek, I think you fundamentally misunderstood. I didn't suggest
replacing OTRS for all scenarios. I only suggested creating a more
standardized approach for those scenarios where an experienced
Wikipedian is trying to obtain permission to add materials that he
knows are owned by someone else. I believe this is the case that
Milos was discussing in the start of the thread (unless I
misunderstood something myself).

Yes, there are other scenarios we have to deal with, and perhaps some
of them could in fact be helped by the development of standardized
permission forms, but I was never suggesting that all of OTRS should
be replaced.

-Robert Rohde

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smolensk at eunet

Nov 22, 2009, 10:48 PM

Post #16 of 17 (1631 views)
Permalink

Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> At some point we need to be able to say to our users: "We have a high
> degree of confidence that this [specific] material is free, but these
> difficulties exist: ... Use it at your own risk."

There is this idea of having copyright insurance. There are useful works
published long ago and never republished, whose authors' whereabouts are
completely unknown. Digitize them and publish them on the Internet, but
insure them, so that if heirs ever appear a reasonable royalty may be
paid to them.

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WJhonson at aol

Nov 22, 2009, 11:10 PM

Post #17 of 17 (1632 views)
Permalink

Re: Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy [In reply to]

In a message dated 11/22/2009 10:48:52 PM Pacific Standard Time,
smolensk [at] eunet writes:

> Digitize them and publish them on the Internet, but
> insure them, so that if heirs ever appear a reasonable royalty may be
> paid to them.>>

Heirs do not necessarily get any benefit from copyrighted works of their
ancestors. You *may* but only if the work has been re-registered. I think
what you mean is, if the work was still properly copyrighted then they would
get royalties, but not all works of authors of unknown death date are still
under copyright protection. Just some.

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