Photos from the forum

[Halvar]

We have probably hundreds of photos in the forum that would be nice to use in the wiki, but with our current way of doing things, this means asking each poster in the forum if he/she allows this, which is almost always the case, reuploading them into MediaWiki with a reference to the permission in the forum.

Can we somehow make this easier? Several ideas come to mind, none of them is ideal, but I think it would be worth it to have a better solution for this. E.g . we could allow direct links to forum attachments in the wiki. Or assume that people who post their pictures in the forum are OK with them being uploaded to the wiki. This could also be written into the forum registration rules and/or the post form. This would at least allow this for future posts.

What do you think?

[seebart]

I think this is a great idea! There needs to be an official guideline for this accepted by all users. 002 and webwit should be asked what they think about this. There should be a vote on this.

[sth]

I like this idea too!

[Muirium]

+3.

Think I suggested this a year or two ago, to a cold reaction. But it makes so much sense to me. DT hosts your pics? DT Wiki gets to use them!

I'd also favour hot linking 3rd party images in the wiki like we do the forum. But that's less of a slam dunk. We can't define the terms like how we do on our own hosting.

Ah, I remember now. What led me to this idea was the simple act of uploading images of my own to the wiki in the first place. Nightmare! Too many questions. I didn't make that mistake again.

[sth]

Maybe we can simplify/centralize the media uploading process so that it can even be integrated with the forum uploader?

[bhtooefr]

Hotlinking in the wiki == noooooooooooooooooooope. I've been burned too many times by hotlinked images being replaced with shock images on forums to think that that's a good idea on a wiki.

Making it easy to use images that have already been uploaded to the forums as attachments, however, is an interesting idea, and I like it. However, what license is the wiki itself under? This may affect things. (I'd argue that if this is put into place, it shouldn't be automatically retroactive (so, as of a certain cut-over date, which could be flagged somehow, new posts automatically get flagged as able to be used for the wiki), and there should be something clear stating that any new images uploaded will be licensed under the wiki's license.)

[andrewjoy]

good idea

[Muirium]

Ah, the wikipedians awaken to put us back in our place. Good morning!

Edit: wait? Wtf? You like this idea! Neat. And unexpected.



@sth: see, It's not a technical question. It's a political one.

I believe I got shot down last time because of my filthy disrespect for the media rights purity of the wiki. Fair enough. I really don't give two shits how Wikipedia does it! But others do. And reckoned I should just stfu and suffer my way through their broken process (and atrocious markup or whatever that text shite's called: I'm not a coder, don't expect me to care!) in order to earn my chops as a good wiki dwarf.

Yeah, that incentive worked great! I'd rather the wiki felt and worked as much like the forum as possible. Laziness? Hell yes!

[Halvar]

The media in our wiki are not automatically under a permissive license. At the moment, you can specify a license whenever you upload something. Which of course is a good reason for letting authors upload photos directly to the wiki. A very good
solution IMO would be to let everyone specify/choose a license when uploading an attachment to the forum, too, but that would mean additional programming work.

[bhtooefr]

So, I'm looking through everything seen during the reg process, and noticed this in the terms:

As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “deskthority” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

I'd argue that that should be expanded, to say that forum posts, wiki edits, and uploads are licensed for Deskthority to distribute indefinitely, as if it were under Deskthority's own copyright. (That's not the exact legalese I'd suggest, I'd suggest getting someone better versed in this to write that.)

There's certainly implied consent by publicly posting something, but...

That said, I also think that there should be a license selector on photo uploads. Default to something like "all rights reserved except Deskthority is free to serve the image from its own servers to visitors", with the ability to pick the various permutations of Creative Commons license (this will take a fair amount of code to deal with CC license versioning, too), GFDL, and some other things.

[seebart]

well like I said 002 and webwit need to be asked and we could have a vote but we need to clear up the details before all that. It would be of great practical use if anyone adding to the wiki can use any image and information posted here to add to the wiki. External stuff is obviously a problem in terms of licensing.

[bhtooefr]

It's also worth discussing licensing on the wiki itself, for that matter.

We're not actually Wikipedia compatible, licensing-wise (they're under CC-BY-SA), and I wouldn't be surprised if there's stuff from Wikipedia on this wiki - even if there isn't, Wikipedia compatibility would be useful. There's two resolutions for that - go CC-BY-SA ourselves (requires consent from every person who's made an edit), or figure out if anything came from Wikipedia, purge it, and replace it.

[002]

Yeah...hot-linking is not a good idea. I think the suggestion that people can blanket allow *their* images to be uploaded to wiki under their terms is fine though, as long as it's clear that the candidate image does indeed belong to that person. Some members here have actually already advised that their images are fair game for the wiki, which is great. I also know that a lot of Japanese collectors have graciously allowed the use of their images on the DT wiki too.

The main problem though is that this is still leaving the burden on the few people who maintain the wiki to collect and upload the images etc. Sometimes, something is so rare or interesting that the wiki editors will actually be motivated enough to upload it on behalf of the image owner. Sometimes editors will help out with this task if the user is not confident or proficient enough with mediawiki to do it themselves.

I think there is actually a page on the wiki somewhere that keeps track of various individuals and their licensing terms. It's great if people want to allow the use of their images, but if a particular image or article is not present on the wiki then (aside from aforementioned exceptions) there should be no finger-pointing at anyone but the original image owner themselves

[kbdfr]

[…] I'd argue that that should be expanded, to say that forum posts, wiki edits, and uploads are licensed for Deskthority to distribute indefinitely, as if it were under Deskthority's own copyright. (That's not the exact legalese I'd suggest, I'd suggest getting someone better versed in this to write that.) […]

That would be a reason for me to instantly leave DT and have all my posts, contributions and photos removed.
This is not Facebook.

That said, I also think that there should be a license selector on photo uploads.

Nothing to object to that.

[Muirium]

This is why it's a bloody good thing I'm not dictator of the wiki. To me, I just can't imagine why anyone would up an image to DT and then get bent out of shape if it's used in the wiki without a night of kabuki to beg for their permission first. Apathy is what's holding the wiki back as the forum thrives. Every hoop to jump through worsens this. Yet people do feel strongly about these usage rights.



I respectfully inform you that ALL YOUR IMAGE ARE BELONG TO US, MAKE YOUR TIME!



Wut? No. No! At no point have I given this impression. Unacceptable!



But he respectfully inform!



With great sadness. No. I cannot offer this.



The way of the wiki is quiet and long. We must bear great suffering on our storied path to enlightenment. Join us now.



There is no way. You place me in impossible position!


So, stasis it is.

[Halvar]

Apathy is what's holding the wiki back as the forum thrives. Every hoop to jump through worsens this.

Yes, this is exactly the reason why I want to make it easier, too. On the other hand, since with these legal things, assumption is really the mother of all screwups, I guess we'll still need to find a way so that we get people's consent in some way before using their photos in the wiki.

How about a selection dropdown with the following options on attachment upload in the forum (under the condition that someone is willing to implement this in phpBB, of course). This should be as simple as possible for the uploader, no complicated choices

1) restricted use, only in Deskthority forum (also use this if attachment is not your own work)
2) own work, allow use only in Deskthority forum and wiki
3) own work, Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 (same as Wikipedia standard license, attribution to forum nickname)
4) own work, allow unrestricted use for everyone (akin to "Public Domain")

If someone really wants a different license from those, one can still use "restricted use" here and upload it to the wiki separately with any license.

[seebart]

WTF is up with these freakish Japanese people Mu? A little scary. Don't scare little mongo seebarto like that! Yes I am on the wiki path to enlightenment. Like a true wikininja I added one of my RAFI's this morning. Pure Zen.

[Muirium]

Good on you.

The pictures are Kabuki actors. A prestigious Japanese style of drama where every move and expression is *a big deal* and the stakes are always high. Well, the ones I've seen. I like it. It's an honest artform that captures politics very well. No one listens. They're all too focussed on their own delivery!

I swear my mind kicks open a fresh scene every time I'm asked about licensing. I am but a simple samurai, I can only act with my sword.

Aha, it is a fortuitous day. I learn something new from the Wikipedia! I didn't know the historical backstory.

[kbdfr]

I'm not opposed to allowing unrestricted use of my photos, but not once and for all. I want to be able to decide upon it on a case-by-case basis. So make it mandatory, like Halvar suggests, to select a license option when uploading, but do not expect me to sign a blank cheque.

[…] you own your posts and images on deskthority forum. […]

Edit: I just can't believe I had forgotten the "not"!

[Muirium]

As we're talking of attachment uploading: any way we can make batch uploads a reality?

All the pictures I put in my Matias Ergo Pro review the other week meant a whole freaking lot of back and forth in the browser, reloading the composition page every step of the way. More friction still would not be welcome. But if we could make the process less arduous, I'd accept it. Gladly, if I can sign a "blank cheque" to the wiki as Kbdfr puts it!

For me, my pictures are free to DT, just don't stumble me with more compulsory textfields and buttons.

[zts]

Spoiler:

I respectfully inform you that ALL YOUR IMAGE ARE BELONG TO US, MAKE YOUR TIME!



Wut? No. No! At no point have I given this impression. Unacceptable!



But he respectfully inform!



With great sadness. No. I cannot offer this.



The way of the wiki is quiet and long. We must bear great suffering on our storied path to enlightenment. Join us now.



There is no way. You place me in impossible position!

Is this new DT EULA? ... it should be

[tactica]

Blame my age but I tend to support the classic approach: a number of people volunteering to help maintaining the wiki contact people asking for permission to use their pictures whenever something useful is found. In addition to this, as 002 mentioned there's a page in the wiki (the main help page) listing people who give permission by default and the specific terms to reuse their pictures. So, in order to save some work we could post a general announcement requesting people who openly allows their pictures to be reused on the wiki to drop <someone> an email and provide the specific terms. A wiki maintainer then updates the aforementioned listing as more people email us and thus we all know which pictures we can be used, reducing the number of subscribers who need to be contacted. Those who are afraid that their pictures suddenly become "owned" by someone else could still carry on, knowing their photos won't be used without being asked first.

Images are assumed to be originally created by posters except when there's a reasonable doubt, you can see some examples near enough. In that case we would have to ask to be sure.

Alternatively the announcement could be a sticky thread somewhere with people replying to it, but then replies would be public while some might prefer this to remain private for whatever reason. Also, emails can be stored and retrieved, while PMs are easily lost or deleted by mistake.

Summing up, I'm proposing an "opt-in" scheme instead of "opt-out", precisely because we aren't Facebook.

@Mu: Ever heard of spoilers?

[Muirium]

Sure I have. I steer away from them like the plague because they ruin movies!

[Halvar]

Summing up, I'm proposing an "opt-in" scheme instead of "opt-out", precisely because we aren't Facebook.

Facebook reserves the right to use uploaded pictures showing people for whatever purpose they see fit. I don't think that's comparable in any way to the use of keyboard pictures posted for the DT forum in the DT wiki.

I like the idea of the roll call for the general permission list as a first step. Let's see how far that takes us before investing in more complicated technical solutions. If a good part of the users that regularly post photos do that we'll be a good step farther. I just added myself to that page.

[Madhias]

I just added myself to that page.

I'll do the same.

[Muirium]

I just tried. But it won't even edit on my old iPad. Aw! Anyway, someone go put me on the list. Hopefully it proves helpful.

The internet: making text complex.

[tactica]

I just tried. But it won't even edit on my old iPad. Aw! Anyway, someone go put me on the list. Hopefully it proves helpful.

Which terms, public domain or something else? Write up something short and I'll paste it there.

[Muirium]

Every image I upload to DT is completely free to use without limit, for any purpose. Done!

I'm a little more protective about my writing, but not much. It's certainly all cool to be used on the DT wiki.

[bhtooefr]

Every image I upload to the Deskthority forums as an attachment to a post is also licensed for use on the Deskthority wiki with attribution, as well as under CC-BY-SA 2.0 (to ensure compatibility with future wiki license changes). Please ask before using images hosted on http://bhtooefr.org, but I will likely grant permission for usage on the wiki.

In addition, I place any of my contributions to the Deskthority wiki under both any existing licenses to Deskthority (including implied licenses for others to create derivative works that are also on the Deskthority wiki), as well as CC-BY-SA 2.0 (the most compatible version, as it's upward compatible with everything newer - it's rather outdated, but in case the wiki chooses to adopt 2.0 as well, it's compatible).

Edit: Added myself to the page.

[chzel]

I added myself!