Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction

If you're here about an image, try asking your question at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.


Answers to common questions

Why did you delete my image?

The simple answer: I didn't. Someone else did.

The full answer: If you're coming here to ask about an image, it probably was deleted because you forgot to note where you got the image from, or you forgot to indicate the copyright status of the image. See Wikipedia:Image use policy for more information on what you need to do when uploading images.

It says that anyone can copy this image. Why is it being deleted?

The image is not under a free license. There are three things that the image creator needs to permit for an image to be under a free license:

  1. They need to permit distribution
  2. They need to permit modification and incorporation into other works (the creation of derivative works)
  3. They need to permit distribution of derivative works

A permission to copy covers #1, but does not permit #2 (which is what lets Wikipedia use it in an article), and does not permit #3 (which is what permits us to distribute Wikipedia, and what permits people to re-use Wikipedia content).

I got permission to use this image in Wikipedia. Why is it being deleted?

Simple permission is not good enough. The image owner could revoke permission at any time, and the image can't be reused anywhere else: not in Wiktionary, not in Wikibooks, and possibly not in the other languages Wikipedia is available in. It also prevents people from re-using Wikipedia content. Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia, so any image should be under a free license. Simple permission fails all three points of what constitutes a free license.

It says that anyone can use this image for noncommercial purposes. Wikipedia is non-commercial, so that means it's okay, right?

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, is registered as a non-profit organization. That doesn't mean it's noncommercial, though: the German Wikipedia, for example, sells copies of the encyclopedia on CD-ROM as a fundraising measure. Further, Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia, so any image should be under a free license. Any license with a "no commercial use" clause fails all three points of what constitutes a free license.

It says that anyone can use this image for educational purposes. Wikipedia is educational, so that means it's okay, right?

Wikipedia articles are intended to educate, yes. But "educational purposes" is a very vague term. The creator of the image could mean that they only want the image to be used by universities and the like, or they might object to Wikipedia's coverage of popular culture. It's best to stay away from images with such vague terms.

Further, Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia, so any image should be under a free license. Any license with an "educational use only" clause fails all three points of what constitutes a free license.

The web page I found this image on doesn't say anything about copyright. That means it's free to use, right?

Wrong. In the United States, under the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, every tangible work of creative effort created after March 1, 1989 is automatically copyrighted. Including a copyright statement gives you a stronger position if you file a copyright infringement lawsuit, and you need to register your copyright with the Library of Congress to file the lawsuit, but neither step is needed to get a copyright in the first place.

I found this image on the Internet. Anyone can see it, so that means it's in the public domain, right?

Wrong. Anyone can see a book in a public library, or a painting in an art gallery, but that doesn't mean those are in the public domain. The Internet is no different.

The image was created 50 years ago. It can't possibly still be copyrighted, can it?

Wrong. In the United States, copyright lasts a very long time. As a rule of thumb, everything published in 1923 or later is copyrighted.

Archives: The beginning through April 22, 2005 April 22, 2005 to August 3, 2005 August 3, 2005 to November 4, 2005 November 5, 2005 to January 24, 2006 January 24, 2006 to February 15, 2006 February 15, 2006 to April 13, 2006 April 13, 2006 to June 30, 2006 June 30 to December 1 December 1, 2006 to January 6, 2007 January 6, 2007 to July 19, 2007 July 20, 2007 to May 28, 2009 May 29, 2009 to January 11, 2012

Template test?

Hey Carnildo,

Steven Walling and I have been running some A/B tests on common user talk templates (check out our task force for more info), and I was wondering if you'd let us tinker with the warning templates that your bot sends (not in the technical sense, just with the actual content of the warning). Right now we're working with Beetstra and Versageek on some redesigned warnings for XLinkBot and with Kingpin13 on an SDPatrolBot warning test, and since ImageTaggingBot is another bot that hits a huge number of talk pages, it would be awesome if we could test out some different warnings with it.

Let me know what you think – you can catch me on IRC if you hang out there at all (nick:Maryana), or just play talk-page tag. Thanks! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Carnildo. You have new messages at Maryana (WMF)'s talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Rolling back correct edits by ImageRemovalBot to facilitate correct file linking.

Aloha Carnildo, this is just an FYI. I am just letting you know that I am rolling back edits correctly made by ImageRemovalBot to articles with File:Bernabò e Beatrice Visconti.jpg.jpg. The correct link is File:Bernabò e Beatrice Visconti.jpg and it is easier to reinstate the positioning & labels just by rolling it back & then correcting the link. No reply necessary, & thank you for your bot! Mahalo, Peaceray (talk) 03:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your offer at File:CNGS layout.jpg

At File:CNGS layout.jpg, you (sort of) offered to re-create the image if you were provided overhead maps. If that offer was serious, the best images I've been able to find are the ones at CNGS's website, here. There unfortunately isn't a direct overhead map showing the details of CNGS like the one used to create File:Cern-accelerator-complex.svg (the deleted image was a detail rendering of the black pathway in the upper right section of this image, labelled TI8/CNGS/Towards Gran Sasso), but there are at least more 3-d renderings.

That said, while such an image would be appropriate at CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso, it's much less essential to OPERA neutrino anomaly (which is by far the more actively worked-on article), and certainly doesn't need to be in the lede. Maybe the editors there would accept a fifteen-minute peace offering of a map showing the relative locations of CNGS (per the inset on File:Location Large Hadron Collider.PNG) and Gran Sasso (as shown e.g. at File:Parco-Gran Sasso-Posizione.png); it's not at all obvious reading the article that the beam crosses half of Italy. Our articles for both the source (CNGS) and terminus (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso) of the neutrino beam are geolocated, if you're into that.

Meanwhile, User:Ajoykt is trying to put together a doomed RFC on you. He's been very productive on the OPERA neutrino anomaly article, and it's sad to see him sucked into projectspace in such a negative manner. I've tried to gently steer him towards DRV instead on Talk:OPERA neutrino anomaly; while he'll get thoroughly shot down there, too, at least it's more likely to be on the image's (lack of) merits rather than RFC's usual wikilawyering about proper endorsements and so on. Discouraging either way. It might be productive to explain to him that by "overhead map" you meant an orthographic view, not a satellite map like he interpreted it; but, again, such a map doesn't seem to exist. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Predictably enough, immediately after writing that out, I found a more detailed map on page 20 of this pdf. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 02:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That looks like it'll be enough information for me to make a 3D model from. I'll see what I can do, but as I noted elsewhere, my skills are rather rusty. --Carnildo (talk) 03:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've produced an amateurish and diagrammatic version for use in the meantime, see my talk page. All the best—S Marshall T/C 00:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Drafts for ImageTaggingBot

Steven and I have been working on test templates and came up with these alternate versions. We're not completely finished, so please take a look and let us know what you think about the test strategy and the templates themselves – what needs changing, what looks weird, what could be improved? Thanks for your help and for letting us test with your bot! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there's a section of notes and questions at the bottom, some of which you would be best placed to answer for us I think. Thanks very much, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, stupid us, without checking Special:PrefixIndex/User:OrphanBot we went and created subpages for all the new templates for the test. See the list on the drafts page. We just assumed you didn't want any extra work, so we went ahead. :) Anyway, we made both randomizers (to randomly deliver the tests or the current versions with a switch function) and empty z tracking templates that are inside our versions. Let me know if you want to use ours, or if I should delete them. Happy holidays, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at User talk:Steven (WMF)'s talk page. 21:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for starting the test Carnildo! I'll update the documentation accordingly. Talk to you later, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carnildo. You participated in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive228#Richard Arthur Norton copyright violations, in which a one-month topic ban on creating new articles and making page moves was imposed on Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs). The closing admin has asked for community input about whether to remove the topic ban or make it indefinite at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Richard Arthur Norton: Revisiting topic ban; Should it be removed or made indefinite?. Cunard (talk) 08:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ClueBot NG Report

Hey,
Thank you for your false postive report found here, you might not be aware but ClueBot uses the rollback tool just like a human would, therefore rolls back a collection of edits by the same user, just like rollback would do if it was pressed by a human rollbacker.
Thanks
Rich(MTCD)T|C|E-Mail 13:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unhelpful bot message

It is really nice of ImageTaggingBot to post friendly messages to user talk pages saying “It was really helpful of you to you to upload…”, but it is really unhelpful of it to say “add one of these templates” without giving a clue that the templates are those at WP:ICT and its subpages. Several days ago I left a message about this on the bot’s talk page, but it is still leaving such messages. —teb728 t c 07:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi teb728, sorry about the confusion. I just fixed the issue. This friendlier version of the template is actually part of a short-term test that Steven Walling and I are running. That particular test template is actually meant to have as few "directives" as possible, in order to put all the focus on going to MCQ and receiving human help... which looked to be successful in this instance :) It's very possible, after all, that just giving newbies a link to a long and cumbersome page full of weird tags will scare them off, but having a human editor walk them through the process and answer their questions won't. By the end of this test, we'll hopefully have some quantitative data to show whether that's true or not. But you're right that it doesn't make much sense to say "these templates" without including the link. Please let me know if you spot any other issues. Thanks, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Interview Regarding Wikipedia Bots

Greetings Carnildo-

My name is Randall Livingstone, and I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, currently collecting data for my dissertation on Wikipedia editors who create and use bots and assisted editing tools, as well as editors involved in the initial and/or ongoing creation of bot policies on Wikipedia. As a member of BAG and the bot community, I would very much like to interview you for the project at a time and in a method that is most convenient for you (Gchat, another IM client, Skype, email, telephone, etc.). I am completely flexible and can work with your schedule. The interview will take approximately 30-45 minutes.

My dissertation project has been approved both by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Oregon, and by the Research Committee at the Wikimedia Foundation. You can find more information on the project on my meta page.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you to set up a time to chat. Thank you very much.

Randall Livingstone, School of Journalism & Communication, University of Oregon

UOJComm (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ImageRemovalBot

Is the bot down ? Mtking (edits) 08:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, until either MediaWiki bug 33292 is fixed, or I write a workaround. --Carnildo (talk) 22:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've written a workaround and the bot is making its way through the backlog. --Carnildo (talk) 04:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SparrowHawk.jpg

I added a copyright tag to the above photo but wanted to make sure that was all you needed? Thanks for your assistance!

Writer 33 (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Contested deletion

This file should not be speedy deleted as bearing an improper license, because I've the permission of the copyright owner Dr. Agop Manoukian (permission cc-by-nc-nd-3.0). I've the ticket OTRS (2011102010012061) from the Wikipedia IT. If you want, I might send you the permission emails by Agop Manoukian and permissions-it@wikimedia.org Many thanks --Da.francesca (talk) 12:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Chavezcoup photo

??? Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2012_January_2? Huh? Must be nice to do whatever you want and ignore two other DRVs and closing admins. So I guess that's what having the mop means.PumpkinSky talk 02:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read my deletion explanation? If it's really a historically significant photo as the "keep" voters claim, you should have no trouble writing a few sourced paragraphs about the creation, context, and impact of the photo, in the style of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima or The Blue Marble. I saw no such information anywhere, or even the barest attempt at such. --Carnildo (talk) 03:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FfD, like all deletion discussions, are based on consensus. You believe there was a clear consensus to delete this file in that discussion? Hobit (talk) 05:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've added four paragraphs of explanation to Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2012 January 2#File:Chavezcoup.jpg. --Carnildo (talk) 05:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the previous two FfDs and DRVs? I think most of us viewed this FfD as something of a troll and assumed the larger context would be taken into account. Hobit (talk) 13:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did. Neither of the previous FfDs made the case that the image itself is historic (in the November 29 listing, jbmurray actually seems to be arguing the opposite -- that the image was chosen because it was convenient, rather than because it was iconic). The core arguments in the DRVs are about procedural matters rather than the merits of the image, and thus have no bearing on the third FfD.
You can continue arguing over procedural grounds, but the easiest way to get the image restored is to write a couple of sourced paragraphs about the image's historic significance (something comparable to the lede of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) -- if you can do that, I'll happily undelete the image. --Carnildo (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your called is simply WRONG. You FED THE TROLL, and yes the nominator is a well known image troll. Not to mention you ignored consensus and other admins. Must be nice to be smug adminPumpkinSky talk 23:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you want me to undelete the image, you should be commenting on the merits of the image, not making personal attacks against me and other editors. --Carnildo (talk) 00:14, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:Jattends! in Le Canard 1883-09-22.jpg license info

Could you please clarify why you changed the license on File:Jattends! in Le Canard 1883-09-22.jpg from {{PD-anon-1923}} to

? The text of the template reads "This file is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of no more than the life of the author plus 100 years." The author was anonymous, so it would be impossible to know if s/he had been dead for 100 years. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 07:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{PD-Old}} used to be a generic "this image is so old that copyright has expired everywhere" template, and I keep forgetting that it was changed to be a synonym for {{PD-old-100}}. {{PD-US-1923}} will work for the image, but the image is in the public domain in more places than that template covers. {{PD-Canada}} would seem to be the obvious choice, but the wording doesn't cover any situations other than "known dead authors" and "photographs".
{{PD-anon-1923}} is clearly wrong, because it doesn't exist. --Carnildo (talk) 07:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, you're right. I picked up {{PD-anon-1923}} here at WikiMedia Commons, wrongly assuming that what could be used there could also be used here. It's too bad, because it seems to fit perfectly. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 00:32, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That looks like a useful enough template that I've created a version for the English Wikipedia and placed it on the image. --Carnildo (talk) 01:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's great, but I think the year parameter fed to it makes it display something you didn't intend. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 02:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh? --Carnildo (talk) 02:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I guess it's not incorrect (and it looks like the original does the same thing), but it confusing says (for example, if the parameter is "1883") "It is in the public domain in the United States as well as countries and areas where the copyright terms of anonymous or pseudonymous works are 129 years or less since publication." Which makes it sound like 129 years is the cutoff date, rather than the amount of time that's passed since publication.
I'm thinking it would be better if it said something like "It is in the public domain in the United States as well as countries and areas where the copyright terms of anonymous or pseudonymous works are years since 1923 or less since publication, as it has been years since publication since it was published." CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 04:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've tweaked the wording a bit. How do you think it looks now? --Carnildo (talk) 07:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 07:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brazilian Navy

I dont understand why this file is not allowed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UH-15_Super_Cougar.jpg

It came from the same source of those: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AF1_da_Marinha_do_Brasil_2.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SH-3_Sea_King_For%C3%A7a_Aeronaval,_Esquadr%C3%A3o_HS-1.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bell_206_JetRanger_For%C3%A7a_Aeronaval,_Esquadr%C3%A3o_HI-1.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dafranca (talk • contribs) 15:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC discussing the above issue may be of interest to you. Dpmuk (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Messages used by ImageTaggingBot

Hi Carnildo, I've got a question about the user talk notifications used by ImageTaggingBot. Are these standard templates, or are they somehow coded separately? I'm talking about the ones like this [1]. I was wondering about the wording of some of these. I appreciate that they are trying to be friendly and non-bitey and all, but I'm afraid the friendliness may go at the expense of clarity in some instances. Saying "thank you for uploading" may actually be understood as an encouragement to continue rather than a warning to change one's behaviour. I just got an uploader who, after a couple of warnings, literally told me: "When I uploaded this picture, I received a "THANK YOU" message so that's why I continued uploading another"! [2]

Also, the text "If you follow these steps, your image can help enhance Wikipedia" and "it needs some more information before it is okay to use" may suggest that if you only follow some formal rules you can always have your image included. This, too, is misleading. Unfortunately, we need to take into account that a very considerable number of files with poor license declarations are in fact unsalvagable. Fut.Perf. 18:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The current wording is part of a template wording test. See here and here for more details. --Carnildo (talk) 21:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's interesting. Could you make sure the above observation is somehow fed into the most appropriate channel for evaluation of the test? Fut.Perf. 21:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Future Perfect at Sunrise :) – thanks for the feedback. It's definitely something Steven and I talked about when trying to come up with alternate versions of the warning, and we'll be sure to analyze the results with your observations in mind. And if you're interested in tracking the testing work we're doing, sign up on the project page and we'll keep you updated on all our tests! We always need more sharp eyes helping us with template-writing, too. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! By the way, since you guys are interested in these kinds of user experience issues, maybe you would be interested in having a look at something I've been toying with: User:Future Perfect at Sunrise/Upload forms draft. It's an idea for something like a new wizard-style image upload mechanism. As I've been patrolling image uploads for quite a while now, I've become convinced we badly need a replacement of our present upload system. I'll be trying to get a proof-of-concept implementation of this thing going with some Javascript; unfortunately I'm crap at coding that. Fut.Perf. 23:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that's fantastic! An upload wizard on Wikipedia is sorely needed, I totally agree. Actually, I know of at least one other Wikipedian who's interested in working on this – do you know User:Ronhjones? You should definitely discuss the idea with him and kick around some design concepts. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

I really appreciate your edit on the Villiage Pump here. I haven't been getting a lot of traction with this question. I just want to clarify whether I understand this correctly. Suppose an editor licenses X as BY-SA and BY-NC from the onset. Alice wants to use X in a commercial work. This commercial work will necessarily be licensed as BY-SA (and some other compatible licenses if applicable), but not BY-NC. Is this correct? How is this dual license different than licensing X with just BY-SA from the onset?

I had been assuming for a while that all derivative works inherit all the licenses from the original. Is this not correct? What is furthering my confusion is this table which suggests to me that from the onset these licenses are not meant to be mixed as no derivative work is supposed to have both of these licenses simultaneously. Is this interpretation not quite right? --HappyCamper 06:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Consider Bob, who wants to use the image on his personal blog. The BY-NC license doesn't have the sharealike clause, so by selecting that license when using the image, the only requirements are that he give the image's creator credit and he not use it for commercial purposes; he doesn't need to license his blog entries under a Creative Commons license.
The table you link is for what happens when you modify a Creative Commons work: if the original has the license on the left, the green squares indicate which licenses you can pick for the resulting work. It can be used to figure out if two Creative Commons-licensed works can be combined, but it's not a simple lookup. The actual procedure is:
  1. Look up the license of the first work to see what licenses a derivative can be licensed under (eg. a derivative of BY-NC work can be licensed BY-NC, BY-NC-ND, or BY-NC-SA).
  2. Look up the license of the second work to see what licenses a derivative of it can be licensed under (eg. a derivative of BY-NC-SA must be licensed BY-NC-SA).
  3. See if they have any licenses in common. If they don't, you can't combine them. (With the examples above, the only license in common is BY-NC-SA, so your combination must be licensed BY-NC-SA).
A derivative work inherits the license terms of the original, plus any terms the creator of the derivative chooses to add. The terms in the template you found are "pick one or more of these licenses". When creating a derivative of such a multi-licensed work, it is customary to license the resulting work with the same options as the original unless there is a reason why you can't (such as if you were combining a "pick one of BY-SA or BY-NC-SA" work with a "BY-NC" work). --Carnildo (talk) 07:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks again for the example above. Clarifies things a lot. I'd like to learn more...do you have recommended sources for understanding this type of stuff better? --HappyCamper 05:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any recommended sources. I picked up what I know about copyright and licensing by working on image licensing issues on Wikipedia for a few years. --Carnildo (talk) 06:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DRV

A notification that the Templates for Discussion discussion (oy, repetition) has been taken to a deletion review discussion. The Article Rescue Squadron was notified, and as notifications to previous involved parties isn't normal practise, I and a few ARS members agreed that, in the interests of transparency and fairness, we should let everyone know...hence this talkpage message ;).

If anyone has an issue with me sending these out, do drop me a note on my talkpage. Regards, Ironholds (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MSU Interview

Dear Carnildo,


My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.


So a few things about the interviews:

  • Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
  • Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
  • All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
  • All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
  • The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.


Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]



I have a question for you: How do I upload an image without violating wikipedia's copyright infringement rules? How do I get this information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArchangelV2 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ending the ImageTaggingBot test

Hey there! Just a heads up that our schedule says we should end the ImageTaggingBot test right about now so we can start on the analysis. It looks like you're the one with the source/config access to do so? Let me know if you need anything in the meantime. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've switched the bot back to using the old messages. --Carnildo (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your help, Carnildo! I just tossed the data into a Google doc. Even at this preliminary stage, the results look very interesting. A little under 1,000 people got the "no source, no license" and around 1,200 got "untagged" – compare that to about 150 and 250 for the other two warnings. Am I correct in assuming that this means people just aren't filling out both the description and license field (but especially license)? I've been talking to User:Future Perfect at Sunrise about this, because he's built a prototype upload wizard for Wikipedia, and I think it's good to keep these kinds of stats in mind for a project like that. You should go play around with his wizard, kick the tires, and let him know if there are gaps/weaknesses :) In the meantime, we'll throw the ImageTaggingBot results to our data analyst Faulkner and let you know how it turned out. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
More or less, yes. "Untagged" can mean many things, but most often, it means "a human would have tagged this as no source, no license".
This doesn't mean that getting people to provide that information is necessarily the best solution: my experience is that "no source, no license" correlates strongly with "this is non-free content", and reasonably well with "violation of the non-free content policy", but I don't have the statistics to back it up. --Carnildo (talk) 03:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ImageTaggingBot doesn't recognise source info created by File Upload Wizard

Hi Carnildo; sorry I seem to have run into a problem about the new WP:FUW not being understood by ImageTaggingBot. The bot has apparently started tagging files produced with the new wizard as lacking author information [3] – I suppose that's because I forgot to notify you of a new template that the wizard uses. Can you please add {{Non-free use rationale 2}} to the templates the bot recognizes? Thank you, – Fut.Perf. 09:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, seeing as you weren't online, I've turned off the bot for a few hours to avoid the false positives. Of course, feel free to unblock it any time you see fit. It doesn't seem to have had much work today anyway. Fut.Perf. 17:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've added it. --Carnildo (talk) 00:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carnildo, sorry to block it again, but it seems to be behaving inconsistently again.[4] Could you please take a look? Feel free to unblock once it's sorted. Risker (talk) 00:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Future Perfect used an expiring block rather than an indefinite one, so the bot started running again before I had a chance to add {{Non-free use rationale 2}} to the list of information templates the bot knows about. That image was one of the last ones the bot tagged before I fixed it. --Carnildo (talk) 00:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked the bot

Hi Carnildo, I blocked the bot because of an issue with File:Project Trains no image.png. It's not the bot's fault but I didn't see another way to stop the madness. I've opened a discussion at AN. Best, Mackensen (talk) 00:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've unblocked. Blocking reset the bot's "memory", so as long as the image remains undeleted, the bot will skip over it now. --Carnildo (talk) 00:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, thanks. Sorry for the inconvenience. Mackensen (talk) 00:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

badfiles list

Ciao - I've gone through the list & hopefully have corrected them. Thanks for monitoring this issue! Skier Dude (talk) 05:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arkeia Software article

Dear Carnildo,

I was wondering if you might be able to help me. About 1-2 months ago, this article had an "appears to be written like an advertisement" template placed on it that I believe may no longer be necessary. I have since revised the article, removing (I hope) any unnecessary mentions of the company name, excessive product details, etc. When you have a chance, could you possibly look at the article and let me know if my changes have been sufficient to warrant removal of the template? Thank you!Michael Leeman (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the image?

Your robot deleted a reference to a deleted image here: [5] My question is: Can I see this image? I want to understand why it was deleted. Thanks. -GroveGuy (talk) 06:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you click on the red link in the edit summary, it shows the deletion log for the image. In this case, it says that the image was deleted by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise because he had determined that it was unambiguously a copyright violation.
Only an administrator can view the image and its upload page. From looking at it, I'd say that the evidence FPaS used to decide that it was a copyright violation is that the image was a professional-looking photograph in a small size typically found on a web page, sourced only to "Google", and claimed to be under the CC-BY-SA license. Further, the uploader has a history of copyright violations. The obvious conclusion is that the uploader did a Google image search, took the first good-looking image he found, and uploaded it with a false license statement. --Carnildo (talk) 22:57, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. I thought I might "save" the image. I guess I'll have to get a new one. The uploader replaced the picture of the old pool with a picture of the new pool. When it got deleted - it was all gone - there was a big hole in the article. I put the old picture back. -GroveGuy (talk) 04:35, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I am mistaken, ImageRemovalBot deletes links to files even when the files have been mistakenly deleted as orphaned (WP:CSD#F5). See User_talk:Fastily#Please_restore_File:Uwfseal.jpg (permanent link[6]). Maybe there is no way round this. However, far better would be to flag up a problem or even reverse the deletion. Thoughts? Thincat (talk) 11:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bot issues

On File:Slamet Rijadi.jpg, File:HIM Damsyik.jpg, and other fair-use images of people that I've uploaded, the bot seems to not see that there are sources listed. It doesn't seem to read this template well. On posters, like File:Sang Pencerah poster.jpg, the bot doesn't seem to realise that the links aren't necessary (it's assumed that the poster is sourced to the distributor). A couple fixes, perhaps? Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of File:Slamet Rijadi.jpg and File:HIM Damsyik.jpg, you put the non-free content rationale inside a navbox template. Navboxes should only be used for organizing navigation links, so the bot ignores their contents, rather than trying to figure out what the free-form text inside means. In the case of File:Sang Pencerah poster.jpg, the "Distributor", "Publisher", "Website", "Owner", and "Source" fields were all empty -- in short, the bot said you didn't provide a source because you didn't provide a source. --Carnildo (talk) 05:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • So rather than put the links in the box, add extra links outside? Untidy. For the poster, I feel as if you did not read my comment: "it's assumed that the poster is sourced to the distributor", and as such a source is implied. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of the poster, who is the distributor? I've read the entire image description page, and I don't see the name of the distributor anywhere.
For the other images, don't use a navbox. Use one of the standard templates like {{Non-free media rationale}} or {{Information}} instead. --Carnildo (talk) 06:10, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That sort of thing, yes. --Carnildo (talk) 06:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alright, thanks. BTW I left a comment above about the PD-Old-Anonymous template (rounding would be nice, since no country's law specifies "66 years" or something like that; they are usually multiples of ten). A cut-off, if possible, would be nice. I don't think any country allows more than 100 years of copyright after the creator's death. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Côte d'Ivoire specifies a copyright duration of 99 years for anonymous works, many countries have durations of 25 or 75 years, and the US has a duration of 120 years under certain circumstances. I figure it's easier just to say how many years it is than to try to handle all these cases. --Carnildo (talk) 06:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to your comment

So the CES pictures can stay?
For the other pictures,the full sizes have the sites' (i.e. Tengxun, Netease) watermarks. Most of the pictures were actually from the news articles that were posted by them, in which the pictures have been taken and put into the Baidu Images search system. Does the watermark mean anything? (I have the full size pictures too-I cut the pictures I uploaded in half so the size wouldn't exceed the limit)On their news articles (which often have pictures), it doesn't say '请勿转载/Do not repost'. If I have to find the original article the pictures were from, it is quite hard, because the news is 2009-2010. Besides, none of the articles I go through say something like 'This is not under a free license/This is a license free picture'. The most the articles have is [Copyright sign],DATE,WEBSITE. I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

This is why I was wondering how I can accurately prove that the pictures are usable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuoyuDMY (talk • contribs) 09:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey

Can you do me a favor and look at Talk:Hope_Williams_Brady ?

I am proposing a merger and am basically getting a bunch of "nos" from people with interest conflicts. I need some objective wikipedians to take a look because I think they would agree with me here. 67.246.14.41 (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BHAG

Hi I am just wondering why the Image on the Bank Hall Action Group page was deleted recently? ThanẬks JMRH6 (talk) 00:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Savannah, Georgia

The collage (4 photos) illustrating the article Savannah, Georgia was summarily removed. No reason was given in the Savannah "Talk" section, but the WP admins (if I follow the red-link discussion) seem to have reached their consensus through sheer confusion. First of all, the 2 bird's-eye-view images of the city were formally waived of copyright and have been in place for several years; the last two images (lighthouse, city hall) were added anonymously (using same ID label). That appears to be the problem. WP Comments sections often attest to slap-happy deletions on the part of loopy WP admins who throw out the baby with the bath water, and I think a couple of admins have ditched the baby again. Can anything be done?Mason.Jones (talk) 17:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the image description page, User:toneythegreat claimed to be the creator of all four images making up the montage. The investigation at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 April 27#File:Montage savannah.jpg determined that the top image was a copyright violation from here (a website with a very nice "all rights reserved" copyright statement), and that the city hall was re-used from commons:File:Savannah Estados Unidos5233.JPG without the attribution and license terms required by the license of that image, and additionally, since the uploader had lied about the origin of two of the images, it was likely that he had lied about all four. If even one image making up a montage is a copyright violation, the entire montage is a copyright violation. Here, it's likely that all four were.
If you've got concrete evidence that the investigation was wrong and that all four images were, in fact, in the public domain, provide it, and I'll restore the image. --Carnildo (talk) 04:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A/B test results from ImageTaggingBot

We finally got them done. Naturally, it looks like statistically significant results was in the no source/no license template, which appears to be the most common one? In any case, it's pretty clear the more imperative wording in the default version is superior. Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks again for working with us Carnildo. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strange

Dear Carnildo, the picture I uploaded on the article Bandar bin Khalid was immediately deleted due to copyright issues, although seven days should have been waited. I have nothing to say about it, it okay for me. But, yesterday another photo was uploaded and clear inappropriateness notice was added to this photo on the upload page, Ghassan Tueni. The photo has not been deleted since then. So, is there any standard procedure in such cases. Or what? I could not understand the process. Thanks, Egeymi (talk) 21:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Untagged has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Block of Itsmejudith

I've asked for this to be reviewed at WP:ANI where I presume you'll want to comment. Dougweller (talk) 12:28, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping to avoid the Drama Board, which is why I forwarded my block to the ArbCom for review. --Carnildo (talk) 20:30, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't have any problem with Doug's action, I appreciate the sense of this. I am not making any complaint against you. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:47, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pending arbitration motion

Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions as well as your e-mail. Please respond to the concerns raised, either on-wiki and/or by e-mail to the Committee, at the earliest possible time. Please do not take any further administrator actions, especially relating in any way to pedophilia or related issues, until this matter is resolved. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:26, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know, Carnildo, I will support any future RfA you start. Just drop me a line when you do it. SilverserenC 23:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DRAFT N CRAFT on blacklist?

Per your work at MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist, would you please comment on the "blacklist" comment at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sagar Pratap Singh/sandbox I don't know what to make of it. Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 05:22, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Arbitration motion regarding User:Carnildo

For exercising long term poor judgement in his use of administrative tools, including his recent block of User:Itsmejudith, User:Carnildo's administrative tools are removed. Carnildo may regain the administrative tools in the usual manner via a successful Request for Adminship.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 15:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this

Re. ArbCom's recent motion

I'm sorry you lost the toolset. Really, I am. I mean, I'm not 100% familiar with you (other than having read up on some of the dramafests from 2006), but when I saw some of the allegations that were made and the links provided, I guess I just sort of got an uncomfortable feeling. Nevertheless, you do great work here, and I hope to see it continue on for many years to come.

And as an aside, thank you for participating in my RfA. It's been an experience, to say the least, but it's nowhere near as negative as I had feared it would be. Master&Expert (Talk) 08:06, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:12" Promo "I Specialize in Love" Expose.jpeg

Hi Carnildo. Today an image I posted to the article "I Specialize in Love, " File:12" Promo "I Specialize in Love" Expose.jpeg appears to have been deleted by your bot. On page " Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2012 August 13" you can see the reason give by the person who nominated the file for deletion. There was no community discussion regarding the image. Only one person, Stefan2, stated the reason as to why he felt the file should be deleted, is based on WP:NFCC#3a, stating, " You don't use multiple unfree images if one image is enough to understand the topic. In this case, the extra image doesn't help me understanding the topic any better." --Stefan2 (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2012 (UTC). I contend that Stefan 2's understanding and interpretation of W.NFCC#3a does not apply because "I Specialize in Love" Expose.jpeg is not an "extra" or multiple image. It is a totally different image, posted to clarify between two distinct recordings of the song "I Specialize in Love," described in the article, the first by Sharon Brown and the second, ten years later by the group Expose. I added the image to the Infobox referencing Expose's recording of the song, using the appropriate fair use album art license. In my view, the image aids the reader's understanding of the article and is in compliance with Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, #8, "Contextual significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." The image I uploaded shows the second recording of the song, by a different artist (Expose), as described in the article. It is important to note that the deletion of this image was only advocated by one person, Stefan2, with whom I respectfully disagree. Do you think the best way to try to have the image reinstated would be via "Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion"? It seems to apply because the debate consisted of "no participation other than the nominator." If you think this is a good way to approach reinstating the image, please let me know, and if this applies to both articles and images that have been deleted. Thank you so much!Mayanalda (talk) 05:34, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bot not providing notice

Hi, Carnildo: Your bot appears to be deleting images without first asking the uploader to provide a FUR, as it usual and as image-copyright checker User:Sfan00 IMG, for example, does. Many images are appropriate that may lack full FUR information that can be readily added, as other editors specializing in copyright issues note. I believe your bot, as Wikipedia bots sometimes do, is operating over-aggressively and may need a tweak, as bot operators often will do. I hope we can discuss this, since giving unloaders notice is the generally accepted practice. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

recover Mario

hey you! you should recover File:Mario MTUTD.jpg because i already put permit distribution but your fucking robot delete it

i will not recover image again because annoy about fucking robot and fucking adminstrator

if you do not understand, see th:ไฟล์:Mario MTUTD.jpg thankyou --โจ : แฟนท่าเรือ : เกรียนที่หน้าตาไม่ดีแห่งไร้สาระนุกรม : พูดคุยกับควายตัวนี้ได้ที่นี่ 06:23, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand quite well: User:Future Perfect at Sunrise deleted the image because it is an easily-replaceable non-free image, and as such, violates the non-free content criteria. --Carnildo (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Autobiography-of-a-Yogi.jpg

Hello, Carnildo, this image is of a book which is in public domain: meaning its cover and content: text, photographs and illustrations. Many free editions and publications of the book are currently available in many countries around the world. Perhaps we should need more information to prove the cover is not in public domain, not the inverse because of the fact the facsimile of the book: its cover, text, illustrations and photos - are free for download everywhere for many years now and a facsimile of it is also commercialized at amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles etc.). After such a long time, if the book was copyrighted the owner of the copyright would have prevent the publication of the book a long time ago.

PS I could upload the image again in Wikipedia claiming fair use, as Red Rose did with the copyrighted cover by SRF, but this would be unecessary since the book (its cover and contents) is in public domain. I will be very grateful for your help. Tat Sat (talk) 18:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Carnildo, just to give you evidence about the false allegation the cover of the book which is in public domain, please check this legal decision. The doubts are about photographs published in old magazines, not in the book Autobiography of a Yogi which first edition cover was wrongly marked for deletion: As you can see, here are two links - among many - to online facsimiles of the Autobiography of a Yogi. The publishers - who has not been prosecuted for copyright violation - state the book is in public domain and offer the book for free download (including the use of the original cover:

  1. The publishers states the book is in public domain.
  2. Free download by Holy Books.

I am sorry for the length text but please bear with me for this is important to clarify that the issue about the photographs were published in Bold textSRF´s maganize as you can verify, not in the book. There is no mention of the photos nor the cover of Autobiography of a Yogi which was already ruled to be in public domain without any doubt, since 1991, due to a lack of renewal of the copyrights. Please Self-Realization Fellowship versus Ananda this information, since you recommended not only the cover but photographs that are in the book should be deleted. I quote:

"29 - The final category of works in which SRF claims valid copyrights are not works by Yogananda but rather photographs of Yogananda and another religious leader, taken by various third parties and published in SRF's magazine under its blanket copyright. For four of the photographs, SRF can identify no known photographer as the author. A fifth was taken by a man identified only by his name, Arthur Say, while the remaining photographs were taken by SRF employees Clifford Frederick and Durga Mata. The district court rejected SRF's claims that the photographs were taken as works for hire or by a corporate body, and held that SRF had not introduced a triable issue regarding assignment." Thank you and forgive me again for the long post, but this is relevant information. Tat Sat (talk) 16:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The big problem with the book cover is that we don't know if the photograph is copyrighted or not. I think it's likely that it isn't, but since Commons prefers to err on the side of caution, the book cover should be deleted from there unless strong evidence for the lack of copyright becomes available.

You've demonstrated that there's a lack of evidence for the photograph being copyrighted, but that's not the same thing as evidence for a lack of copyright. Until the latter shows up, we need to assume that the photograph is copyrighted and that the copyright holder has, for whatever reason, simply not asserted their copyright. --Carnildo (talk) 00:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Commenting out vs removal

I am cleaning out Category:Articles with missing files and have come across some of the ImageRemovalBot edits being undone. See this for example. Why does the bot comment out some deleted images yet remove others? Is it related to captions? Can the bot operation be changed so that it does removals all the time?

Also, is it possible for the bot to go through the contents of Category:Articles with missing files to remove images which are completely wrong? Examples would be those that are a http link or a computer file path name. It will save me a lot of time! Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 05:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The bot comments out images when it can, because that's what was requested when the task was originally approved back in 2005. The only time it removes images outright is when a bare filename is provided as a template parameter: I've found cases where comments interact badly with the fancier templates, so complete removal is the safest option.
As for removing incorrect image links, that would be easy enough to add to the bot's tasks. Could you provide some examples of articles with such links, so I know exactly what the bot should be looking for? --Carnildo (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some examples with a File:Http://... .ext format:
Thanks. BRFA filed. --Carnildo (talk) 03:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spurious warnings from User:ImageTaggingBot when using template for description

Hi Carnildo, just wanted to let you know ImageTaggingBot is repeatedly leaving spurious warning templates on my uploads and my talk page, even after I revert it - see [7]. The short story is: I have a set of files which all have identical file descriptions, and share that description using a template (see Category:Tile set of Katedrála, Template:Tile set/Katedrála) and ImageTaggingBot is not quite smart enough to figure out what I'm doing. Can you please at least prevent it from edit warring with me? Thank you! Dcoetzee 15:35, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The bot persists in edit warring with me, so I've blocked it for now. I'll be happy to unblock it when you have a fix, or any other admin can feel free to unblock at that time as well. Thanks! Dcoetzee 16:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that your uploads don't follow the image use policy, since you've hidden all the information in {{Tile set}} and related templates, leaving nothing but a template transclusion on the image description page. ImageTaggingBot is able to detect that {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} has been transcluded (though under the policy, it should have warned you about that as well), but the bot is unable to find the {{Image information art}} tag to make sure the appropriate source fields have been filled out.
By using a highly unusual format for your image description pages, you've set up a situation where a bot needs a reasonably full-featured MediaWiki parser to understand them. The bot would need to dig through (in the case of File:František Kupka - Katedrála - Google Art Project-x0-y0.jpg) 14 different templates to see which one contains the information template, then parse the full transclusion tree to see if the template it found is actually the one that got transcluded.
And even then, that doesn't solve the problem. ImageTaggingBot isn't the only bot that reads image description pages, it's just the only one I'm aware of that's currently active. You'll need to keep watching the images to make sure that future bots don't cause problems. There have been various proposals over the years for a bot to check all past uploads for missing information, and sooner or later someone's going to solve the problem of vandalism detection that's kept past bots from being approved.
The easiest solution is for you to follow the image use policy, and place the copyright tag and image information directly on the image description page. --Carnildo (talk) 03:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Placing the image information directly on the image pages would lead to a long-term maintenance nightmare where their descriptions could diverge over time as people make corrections to descriptions for one of the 12 images but do not change the others accordingly. The templates exist to prevent this. All the information required under policy is visible on the rendered page, and the policy does not appear to explicitly prohibit such an approach. If parsing templates is too complex, I would be fine with a very simple special-case exemption, such as ignoring any page containing the string "{{Tile set/", or not reverting edits by administrators, or I could add a special comment to the page indicating that ImageTaggingBot and similar bots should skip it. I realize that tile sets like this are new to English Wikipedia, but on Commons I've uploaded 26 of them already and this is the same approach used for all of them. Let me know what works for you - I hope we're able to find a reasonable compromise. Dcoetzee 08:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can fake out ImageTaggingBot's source detection by placing at least seven characters of plain text on the image description page; something like "See template {{tl|František Kupka - Katedrála - Google Art Project}} for source and licensing information" will keep it from tagging the page as lacking a source. There's no telling what other bots will do in the future, though.
I've got special-case exemptions for a number of tags such as {{DC-Comics-trademark-copyright}}, but every such case is for a specific template that states the copyright holder. "{{Tile set/" would be for an entire class of templates, most of which have not been created yet. --Carnildo (talk) 03:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'll just add a bit of text to the pages. Bot is now unblocked. I'll deal with future bots as they appear. Thanks for your help! Dcoetzee 20:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]


did you vote?

hi there, your vote in ArbCom elections triggered a spoof CSRF alarm. Would you be so kind as to please confirm that you actually voted? :) Apologies for the inconvenience. Pundit|utter 07:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I voted. If I'm remembering the timezone conversions correctly, it was either a few hours before the end of voting, or a few hours and a day before the end of voting. --Carnildo (talk) 10:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Caption left hanging

OrphanBot seems to have left a caption hanging incongruously when it removed an image. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Valiollah_Fallahi&diff=287593001&oldid=286668571 TresÁrboles (talk) 20:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The caption wasn't properly attached to the image to begin with, so there's nothing the bot could have done about it. --Carnildo (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question about ImageRemovalBot

Hello,

There's a question about ImageRemovalBot here that perhaps you could answer.

Thanks, — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Frequency of ImageRemovalBot runs

I am trying to clear the backlog at Category:Articles with missing files. A rather Herculean task! Apparently ImageRemovalBot runs only once a week and one of the tasks it to remove files with http:// and with c:\. Files of this type should be deleted fairly promply IMO. They are unneeded clutter and don't need to hang around for up to a week. Do you think the bat should be run more often for these types of files? You may also be interested in my comments at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Removal_of_red_linked_images. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know who added that feature, but now that I do, thank-you. It has been very helpful. I sense that the consensus will support retention, with a modification to remove after three months, but if you get the impression that the consensus is leading to a different conclusion, and I've failed to keep up on the subject, please ping me. I find it beneficial, and want to retain it. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

image removed

an image I found on English wiki and then posted for same sort of entry in french wiki was deleted from the French wiki because it failed copyright tests accotdiu,g to "Yann" although I thought that what was good for the goose was good for the (French) gander. Not so am told.

Now, just to make sure, I trailed back to the site where the pic came from, and I found this (in french but you'll get the drift of what is, I think, the main point, in bold):

Droits concédés aux utilisateurs L’ensemble des contenus publiés sur www.transeuropeennes.eu peuvent être librement cités pour autant que soient clairement indiqués la source (www.transeuropeennes.eu), le nom de l’auteur, le cas échéant le nom du traducteur, la date de publication et l’URL de l’article ou du site, en clair ou sous forme de lien hypertexte.

Now, just to know, for future ref because this pic story is getting tedious: is that sort of authorization enough ?

Thanx — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ostera65 (talkcontribs) 20:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it isn't. In order to be acceptable, the authorization needs to allow copying, it needs to allow modification, and it needs to allow copying of modified versions. The site in question only allows the first of the three. --Carnildo (talk) 22:25, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! A long haul! will try when I got the time. Thanks for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ostera65 (talkcontribs) 06:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) arbitration case opened

An arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). Evidence that you wish the Arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence sub-page, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 23, 2013, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can contribute to the case workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, — ΛΧΣ21 03:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to let you know that Category:All Wikipedia files with no copyright tag, which might be relevant to ImageTaggingBot, has been deleted — it was populated by a template that has since been retargeted. Nyttend (talk) 03:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can you check why your bot claims that there is no source for this image? There is clearly a source, although the image really should be tagged with {{bsr}}. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The source is hidden inside a {{navbox}} -- a template normally used to set up navigation between a group of related articles. If you want the bot to understand the source information, use one of the structured templates such as {{information}} or {{non-free use rationale}}. --Carnildo (talk) 23:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. I missed that the uploader used a non-standard template. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reference desk questions

What is up with these?

Shadowjams (talk) 10:33, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For April Fools' Day, I decided to come up with seven variations on "there's more than one way to skin a cat". Admittedly, some of the questions are rather forced. --Carnildo (talk) 11:46, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I'm a little dense to not make that connection... I thought maybe your account had been compromised. :) Shadowjams (talk) 12:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Files missing description details

Dear uploader: The media files you uploaded as:

are missing a description and/or other details on their image description pages. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the images, and they will be more informative to readers.

If the information is not provided, the images may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Theo's Little Bot (error?) 09:17, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image file deleted

Hi Carnildo, I am inquiring as to why your bot deleted the file 'Pulaski Monument in Savannah.jpg' that was being used on the Casimir Pulaski Monument in Savannah page. If there were issues with the file it would have been nice to be informed about them in case they could be corrected. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to the deletion log, the file was deleted by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise as a violation of the non-free content policy. If you want to know why he thought it was a violation, you should ask him. --Carnildo (talk) 22:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Its Not Vandalism :|

my edit is not a vandalism . please read more about persian gulf .

Arabian_Gulf

DjAMIR121 (talk) 02:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the relevant policies: Wikipedia isn't concerned with The Truth or righting great wrongs, it's concerned with reporting how things are actually described. There are a number of things that people refer to by the term "Arabian gulf", so Wikipedia has a page that lists them, with enough information that someone can find the one they're looking for. By making the page a redirect, you're implicitly claiming that all of them (including the Red Sea and a section of the Mediterranean Sea) are called the "Persian Gulf". --Carnildo (talk) 05:30, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK you right . but this Red Sea and a section of the Mediterranean Sea is not called Arabian gulf . they are Arab's gulf . — Preceding unsigned comment added by DjAMIR121 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question on informing publisher of images and/or the removal from pages isn't reported

Hi, Your bot removed references to files (images) as the images were deleted. I had uploaded two pictures to go together with the article on the Dell PE VRTX. I thought/think that the 'fair use' would apply to these images, but apparently it doesn't. And as the pictures were deleted your bot removed references to it.

The pictures itself were deleted by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise. I don't know if you are 'linked' to this user or not; but that is not the point. My Q is not about the deletion of the pictures itself: I will 'fight that out' with FPaS. My question/concern is that I didn't see the changes made to the page Dell PE VRTX even though I had 'follow' on and afaik I don't have a setting that doesn't show edits made by bots.

Do you know why it doesn't show up in my Watchlist ?

And another thing: most bots do send an (automated) email if/when the bot makes a change to someones page - if they remove something they do send a message to the person who added the deleted part and/or they send a message to the person(s) who made the most recent edit(s) and/or to the original creator of that page. I also didn't get any comment from FPaS about deleting my images: I checked my Talk page on both en.wikipedia.org as well as on Commons: and don't see any line about 'I deleted your images because...' (but again: I'll work that out with FPaS).

But I would like to hear from you if you know why I didn't see the changes your bot made in my watchlist and/or your reply on my question/suggestion to inform the stakeholders of the page your bot edits. Cheers, Tonkie (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why you didn't see the edits in your watchlist: they're the most recent edits, so they wouldn't have been masked by someone else editing, and you say you've got your watchlist set to show bot edits. Just to be sure, you might want to double-check the "watchlist" section of Special:Preferences and verify that it didn't get changed by accident.
Bots rarely if ever send emails. For a bot with such wide-ranging activity as ImageRemovalBot, it's simply not practical. A page such as Dell PE VRTX only has one or two possible "stakeholders", but something like World War II has thousands. --Carnildo (talk) 08:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ImageRemovalBot

Instead of hiding the text, why not remove it altogether for the deleted files?(Lihaas (talk) 03:54, 4 August 2013 (UTC)).[reply]

Because when I first wrote the bot, people requested that I do so. If you can get consensus to have the bot remove images entirely, I'll change it to do that. --Carnildo (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MfD nomination of User:OrphanBot

User:OrphanBot, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:OrphanBot and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:OrphanBot during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Elvey (talk) 00:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(you) removed images, why ?

I am new to the wiki and did some severe mistake in the (copyright) tagging of some visual files I uploaded. These errors were then corrected and the Copyright owner of these files (Bernardo Mario Kuczer) sent himself mails (twice) for each of the files to permissions-en@wikimedia.org attaching each of the contented files to each email again. (this happened I think already on the 13-8-2013).Yesterday you deleted (but only some of) the files from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilización_o_Barbarie (they are still on google search for images attributed to Bernardo Kuczer (or Bernardo Mario Kuczer), though). So: what is going wrong ? Is this a problem of synchronization with the permissions department ? What should be done? Upload the files anew ? Thanks --Hammero (talk) 15:28, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect on Commons

Regarding this edit and three others re the same image, please tell the bot that there is a redirect on the Commons which makes the image visible. Just because all other wikis use the meaningless name of file:CTSRW01.JPG there is no reason why the English wiki should do so. And I placed the redirect on Commons to encourage other wikis to use the better name - I wish had been strong minded and moved the image on Commons. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 11:17, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mediawiki bug #45930. --Carnildo (talk) 06:13, 28 August 2013

Cwmsymlog

It concerns the article "Cwsymlog" . I used the talk page of Dougweller. The deleted drawing is back now. The artist is my late wife and I made the photo. All rights are for me and I gave permission for using it. I sincerelly hope the photo will stay now.195.169.52.70 (talk) 08:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC) Romeinsekeizer (talk) 08:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like all the required information is present, so there shouldn't be any problems. --Carnildo (talk) 22:40, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Paul McNally (astronomer)

I had permission from the originator, which was forwarded via e-mail to Wikipedia, to use the image in the article. You deleted it why? Mrwick1 (talk) 13:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]