[Wiki Loves Monuments] WLM photos are deleted on Commons

Sun Sep 18 07:48:34 UTC 2016

Hi Nevile,

Thank you. I'm glad you will step into the breach. I will take a look in
another 2 days.

Best,

Isaac.

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 8:36 AM, Neville Borg <neville.borg at wikimalta.org>
wrote:

> Hi Isaac,
>
> Thanks for pointing this out. I'm the WLM organiser for Malta, so I will
> try to clarify this with User:James John Borg. I don't know this user
> personally (despite our shared last name!), but I will try to find a way to
> contact them. For what it's worth, both James John Borg and Joshua Schembri
> are fairly common names in Malta, so I would assume that they are two
> different people, but that wouldn't automatically exclude the possibility
> of James John Borg having taken the photos.
>
> Best,
> Neville
>
> On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 at 09:26 olatunde olalekan isaac <
> reachout2isaac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I stumbled across another participant, User:James John Borg
>> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/James_John_Borg>.
>> Looking at the metadata of their uploads
>> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/James_John_Borg>,
>> it shows that the copyright holder of the files is "* Joshua Schembri*".
>> I think the user is a participant from Malta. Do we have WLM organizer from
>> Malta willing to take this up?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Isaac.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 2:23 AM, Alexander Tsirlin <altsirlin at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Lodewijk,
>>>
>>> I find it a bit difficult to assume good faith when someone approaches
>>> me with a knife. I find it more natural to defend, and that's what we have
>>> to do now.
>>>
>>> I truly regret that Commons did not develop a more civil approach than
>>> submitting deletion requests on every possible occasion. Even if we assume
>>> that this is the reasonable course of action, it hardly makes sense for
>>> WLM, because only uploaders receive notifications about possible file
>>> deletion. The organizers have no idea about it, although they should be
>>> contacted in the first turn. Most of the uploaders are new users who do not
>>> speak English. What do you expect to hear from them?
>>>
>>> All photos related to WLM Russia contain a template saying:
>>>
>>> Please read the guidelines
>>> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Monuments_database_in_Russia>
>>> before making any changes that can affect the monuments database!
>>>
>>> If you actually read the guidelines, you will see the following:
>>>
>>> If you see a potential candidate for deletion, *inform us in the first
>>> place*. We will organize the file transfer and you will be able to
>>> delete the photo afterwards. Should you do it differently and nominate a
>>> WLM/WLE photo for deletion without informing us, this will be highly
>>> detrimental and disrespectful to our work. We don't like vandals.
>>>
>>> All these deletion requests are indeed highly disrespectful to our work.
>>> But they happen, and we have no other choice but to fight against that. And
>>> whet our knives, because we will likely need them.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Alexander
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17.09.2016 12:17, Lodewijk wrote:
>>>
>>> Hey Alexander,
>>>
>>> Assuming good faith is always good - even if you have to work harder for
>>> it. It makes the interactions more pleasant and the work more fun. So I
>>> will always recommend to keep doing it - even if it goes against your
>>> natural response.
>>>
>>> The case where the names don't seem to match seems like a valid case to
>>> me to ask questions, and this process is (unfortunately) the process being
>>> used for that at Wikimedia Commons. It is uncomfortable, but it is what we
>>> have to deal with. Because there are so many pictures, there is a bunch to
>>> be expected.
>>>
>>> I'm not going to pretend that the Wikimedia Commons community is always
>>> easy or fun to work with - but their intentions are usually good. They are
>>> very tough on copyright, and very suspicious. While these are some
>>> disadvantages, it does allow us to use a lot of shared infrastructure, and
>>> makes competitions like this one possible on an international scale. Please
>>> do realise that the number of uploads typically raises with 30-100% during
>>> Wiki Loves Monuments, and this puts some stress/strain on the reviewers
>>> too.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Lodewijk
>>>
>>> 2016-09-17 8:58 GMT+02:00 Alexander Tsirlin <altsirlin at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> Rather than complaining to the process could you please for once think
>>>> that this is your project too and everyone in this together?
>>>>
>>>> It is not my project. Like many other people, I am forced to use it as
>>>> a common image repository, even though I emphatically do not want to. As
>>>> you probably know, before migrating to WMF servers Wikivoyage had its own
>>>> image repository, and we wanted to keep it, because it was much better
>>>> organized than Commons, and we did not want other people to impose their
>>>> rules and practices of "nominating everything for deletion" on images that
>>>> we have carefully collected ourselves.
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately, our request was ignored by the WMF, so yes, we are also
>>>> in this strange thing that was supposed to be a common project, but is in
>>>> fact run by a handful of people who believe that unjustified and
>>>> well-hidden deletion requests are the best way to solve all problems. But
>>>> it stinks, and we try to be as far from it as possible.
>>>>
>>>> Your experience of license review for WLM Bangladesh might be
>>>> interesting if we would ever have time to do this. At the moment, I spend
>>>> most of my free time on finding and fighting these well-hidden deletion
>>>> requests. Thank you, my dear Commons community, for creating such a
>>>> wonderful working environment.
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>> Alexander
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 17.09.2016 11:32, Nahid Sultan wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Though it seems a bit odd but on a commons perspective it is also a
>>>> normal procedure. Commons has a huge issue with people finding images
>>>> online and then uploading them as their own work, so regular contributors
>>>> on commons can sometimes be overzealous in making sure that people actually
>>>> have the right to release what they are releasing. That is where the OTRS
>>>> system comes in. Rather than complaining to the process could
>>>> you please for once think that this is your project too and everyone in
>>>> this together?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We, from WLM Bangladesh team have created a work-board/list for such
>>>> users who have problem with metadata, previously published same image on
>>>> other media to make sure that they are actually own the copyright. we even
>>>> created a hand book for reviewers explaining what to look during the review
>>>> (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NahidSultan/WLM). So, every
>>>> reviewer check for those mistakes when reviewing an image then if they
>>>> found such problematic user they immediately contact them via email or talk
>>>> page and list them on https://commons.wikimedia.
>>>> org/wiki/User:NahidSultan/WLM/possible_copyright_problem.  It works
>>>> for us.
>>>>
>>>> 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@
>>>> lists.wikimedia.org> <wikilovesmonuments-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>>> on behalf of Alexander Tsirlin <altsirlin at gmail.com>
>>>> <altsirlin at gmail.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, September 17, 2016 11:09 AM
>>>> *To:* Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] WLM photos are deleted on Commons
>>>>
>>>> Now it is not only about Freedom of Panorama and non-free images.
>>>>
>>>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_
>>>> requests/Files_uploaded_by_VekaSpb
>>>> Here, one Commons user nominates a bunch of excellent photos for
>>>> deletion after he sees that the user name does not match the name in
>>>> EXIF, even though the connection between the two is pretty obvious.
>>>> This
>>>> deletion request has been closed yesterday, but it still costed me a
>>>> lot
>>>> of time and a long e-mail exchange with the uploader, where I tried to
>>>> convince her that everything is fine, and this deletion request was
>>>> only
>>>> a mistake. Yes, just a small mistake, really...
>>>>
>>>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_
>>>> requests/Files_uploaded_by_PhotoJinn
>>>> Here, the same user nominates for deletion some photos of a 13th
>>>> century
>>>> cathedral claiming that there is no freedom of panorama. What???!
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> That's a very systematic course of action against us taking place on
>>>> Commons. It would be silly to assume good faith here.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Alexander
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>
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