[Wiki Loves Monuments] WLM photos are deleted on Commons

Thu Sep 8 12:45:57 UTC 2016

Dear Nahid,

> I'm sure you've put numerous effort and hard works on the WLM but 
> calling other community members "freaks and assholes" just because 
> they disagree with you is not a good idea.  And certainly not a polite 
> way to approach others.
>
Sorry, but I have no other words for people who systematically undermine 
our work and spread lies about us and our activities.

> In my understanding, you want problematic FoP  images uploaded on 
> commons as part of WLM during Sept and then you & other organizers 
> will move the images to local projects under fair use, right? If so, 
> while this is a good and reasonable idea but it gives the impression 
> that Commons community is well aware of the violations and 
> intentionally doing it even though just for a month.
If the Commons community is a responsible community, it will know that 
all such images should be at least reviewed, and this review takes time. 
I have quoted the deletion request from last year:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Category:Images_for_transfer_from_WLM-2015_in_Russia
where photos of 18th-century monuments were going to be deleted. Is that 
the way you want to proceed?

The responsible approach to this problem is that the no-FOP images are 
sorted and, when possible, transferred to other projects, so that no 
useful content is lost. I don't see how this responsible approach can be 
considered as an "intentional copyright violation", perhaps only in the 
eyes of those freaks and assholes whom I already mentioned.

If you want to speed up the review and transfer process, please, come 
and help us with that. Unsurprisingly, no Commons users has ever 
assisted us in this work.

I would also like to remind you that there are about 1900 no-FOP images 
from the year 2015. The fact that these images are still on Commons and 
nobody bothered to delete them, whereas images from 2016 face imminent 
deletion, makes me believe that some people on Commons deliberately act 
against WLM, in particular WLM-Russia. This is the main message of my 
e-mail.

> In another part of your mail you've mentioned that  "From technical 
> point of view, it is difficult to separate no-FOP monuments from the 
> rest of the monuments, because Commons follows a very strict policy 
> about no-FOP images. " In this case,  I think it's best to open a 
> request for comment on commons to sort out the clear defination of the 
> Russian law regarding FoP. 
I have neither time nor intention for doing that. Commons has the 
so-called "Precautionary principle" that can be used to justify the 
deletion of any file and that is sometimes used for exactly this 
purpose. As long as Commons works this way, transferring files to other 
projects is a more viable approach.

Sincerely,
Alexander

On 08.09.2016 13:14, Nahid Sultan wrote:
>
> Hey Alexander,
>
> I'm sure you've put numerous effort and hard works on the WLM but 
> calling other community members "freaks and assholes" just because 
> they disagree with you is not a good idea.  And certainly not a polite 
> way to approach others.
>
>
> In my understanding, you want problematic FoP  images uploaded on 
> commons as part of WLM during Sept and then you & other organizers 
> will move the images to local projects under fair use, right? If so, 
> while this is a good and reasonable idea but it gives the impression 
> that Commons community is well aware of the violations and 
> intentionally doing it even though just for a month.
>
>
> In another part of your mail you've mentioned that  "From technical 
> point of view, it is difficult to separate no-FOP monuments from the 
> rest of the monuments, because Commons follows a very strict policy 
> about no-FOP images. " In this case,  I think it's best to open a 
> request for comment on commons to sort out the clear defination of the 
> Russian law regarding FoP.
>
> Best,
>
> Nahid Sultan
>
> User:NahidSultan <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NahidSultan>on 
> all Wikimedia Foundation 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation>'s public wikis
>
> Secretary, Wikimedia Bangladesh 
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh>
>
> Twitter: @nahidunlimited <https://twitter.com/nahidunlimited>
>
> http://blog.nahidsultan.xyz/
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* WikiLovesMonuments 
> <wikilovesmonuments-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of 
> Alexander Tsirlin <altsirlin at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 8, 2016 4:00 PM
> *To:* wikilovesmonuments at lists.wikimedia.org
> *Subject:* [Wiki Loves Monuments] WLM photos are deleted on Commons
> Dear All,
>
> We have a severe problem with some of the photos uploaded during Russian
> WLM. As some of you may know, Russia has Freedom of Panorama (FOP) for
> architecture, but not for sculptures. Therefore, photos of recent
> (post-WWII) sculptures are not eligible for Commons, although they are
> OK for Russian Wikipedia and Wikivoyage where they are stored under fair
> use. From technical point of view, it is difficult to separate no-FOP
> monuments from the rest of the monuments, because Commons follows a very
> strict policy about no-FOP images. For example, they consider a small
> sculpture on a building (which is part of an architectural monument) as
> a separate object that is not covered by FOP. This has been a matter of
> debate and contention for long time, because the majority of
> Russian-speaking users tend to go for a softer interpretation and treat
> such things as architecture (i.e., eligible for Commons), while the
> minority of Russian-speaking users sitting on Commons is generally
> hostile to other Russian-speaking projects and tries to create us as
> many problems as possible.
>
> Last year we found a reasonable procedure that was agreed upon by
> several Commons admins. Out of 23700 photos uploaded in Russian WLM
> 2015, about 1900 photos were identified as "no-FOP". We reviewed these
> images, linked many of them in other projects, and eventually
> transferred 1280 images to other Russian-speaking projects under fair
> use. Subsequently, nobody bothered to delete these photos from Commons,
> one year passed, and of course no legal problems appeared, but from our
> side we did everything we could do and we spent an enormous amount of
> time on doing this.
>
> The only request from our side was that no WLM photos are deleted before
> October 31, 2015, because image transfer is a slow process and it should
> be done carefully. Last year several Commons admins supported this
> strategy and closed the most outrageous deletion request:
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Category:Images_for_transfer_from_WLM-2015_in_Russia
>
> which was submitted by a guy previously expelled from Russian Wikipedia.
> He wanted to delete about 200 photos all at the same time, and he tried
> to covertly delete some photos of 18th-century monuments as being "not
> covered by FOP in Russia"...
>
> So this year a similar story happens again:
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_of_User:Лавров95_2 
> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_of_User:%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B295_2>
>
> Another user - now the one who published defamatory articles about
> Russian WLM organizers last year - accuses us in severe copyright
> violations and writes nonsense that we have not done anything about
> no-FOP photos from 2015. You can check my response to him in the same
> thread, where I write explicitly how images were sorted and transferred.
> Once again, we spent days and hours of our time on doing this.
>
> What we need now is the general support of the community against such
> freaks and assholes who spoil our life and try to undermine the WLM
> process. The strategy of the Russian team is that all cultural heritage
> monuments are important for the project. We do not encourage people to
> upload "no-FOP" photos, but of course people upload them, and our goal
> is to use these images in the best possible way. Last year we did a lot
> of work to achieve this goal, and we are ready to do the same this year
> unless all relevant photos are deleted from Commons immediately, as some
> of the Commons users suggest. If this happens, I am afraid that WLM will
> not make any sense for us, at least not on Commons.
>
> Sorry for the long e-mail, and I am looking forward to your support.
>
> Sincerely,
> Alexander
>
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