Commons talk:Project scope

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to Commons:Project scope.
Archives: 1, 2

Proposed change in wording.[edit]

@Ikan Kekek: @Xover: @Billinghurst: @Yann: I'd like to open a discussion on a wording/guideline change to permit

"archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensable print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera for eventual OCR/transcription or translation on projects such as Wikisource, even though the files being mostly typewritten, or print text, may not be immediately in use, by specific projects."

I will also very strongly state here that I also have no objections to removal of items which can be shown to incompatible with Commons licensing policy, or which are still in copyright. Those have to be removed obviously. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This change is prompted by some recent DR's for historical documents on scope grounds, Something I disagree with, as the clear intent of one of Fae's mass uploads was to 'mirror' or backup specific collections from IA ( such as the Catalog of Copyright Entries) to ensure Commons had a local copy, if the original IA site went down, or became unobtainable. I of course have no objections to specific items being removed if better quality "archival" versions had been or were uploaded by specific projects. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Support change. Yann (talk) 08:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment I have no objection to changing the guidelines, as long as they are clear. But how would we determine which scanned written materials are uploaded for eventual use on Wikimedia projects? We can't make any such assumptions, so I think that if we want to make this change in policy, we should just state that these types of files are allowed as long as they are notable. In other words, I'd propose this form of words: "archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensable print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera is permitted even if the files are not in use in other Wikimedia projects, as long as the works in question are notable." -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:00, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment By the way, what prompted me to start the two deletion threads you are probably referring to is discussion on Commons:Deletion requests/File:IEEE defends duplicate publication 2015.pdf, which ShakespeareFan00 started. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:02, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I had something like Wikisource:What_Wikisource_includes and Wikisource:What Wikisource includes/rewrite in mind.
    I'm not opposed to a notability or semi-formal publication requirement.
    ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:55, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    So to give some examples (non exhaustive):
    • An official English translation of a Indian Central law published in gazette form would be in scope, whereas a user translation of a local city bylaw would be out of scope.
    • A single user's self-published theological rant would not be in scope, but a formally published Bible commentary in the academic journal of a seminary would.
    • A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works would be.
    • A self-published erotic slash-fic would be out of scope, but a 'suppressed' 16th-century erotic novel would be in scope.
    • An 1890 Auction catalog distributed ahead of an estate sale would be in scope, but a typical Ebay listing would not.
    ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • @ShakespeareFan00: Re: "A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works would be." Reasonable, but trying to get a better sense of where the line is. What about a master's thesis? a doctoral dissertation? - Jmabel ! talk 20:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Strong support, many historical documents have enormous educational value, the current wording of the page basically excludes passports, constitutions, Etc. Meanwhile, in practice we've allowed media files of documents for years. User "源義信" and I have found a large number of document sources and it's difficult to argue that these documents don't have any educational value. As for the idea that "An 1890 Auction catalog distributed ahead of an estate sale would be in scope, but a typical Ebay listing would not.", eBay actually has a lot of valuable historical documents and manuscripts, and many of them disappear 6 (six) months after they're unlisted, I've seen election ballots and cadastrial documents on eBay that cannot be found anywhere else online. Currently, eBay lists 9502 historical manuscripts with many dating as far back as the 1400's, we probably shouldn't include wording like "a typical eBay listing" as it could be used to remove historical documents with educational value. It would probably be better to just state that government and corporate documents would be fine, but user original documents wouldn't, unless it's something like a peer reviewed academic paper or something. The Bulgarian Archives State Agency (BASA) has also released a large number of archival materials to the Wikimedia Commons like "File:Skopje Bulgarian Pedagogical School Letter to the Bulgarian Exarch (1).jpg" and while this file may not have much educational value to a random layman, it has tremendous educational value to historians and other educators and I think that the Wikimedia Commons should look beyond "would Wikipedia benefit from this?" and try to serve historians and other educators with useful educational content. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:05, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    You may have missed what I am getting at so the wording of that can be improved. I was trying to say that the 'text' of the listing itself isn't in scope, Not the historical document that the listing is for. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    There are already hundreds, if not thousands, of text files merely of reports alone.
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=panel+report&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=other&filemime=pdf
    These include numerous wiki-sourced reports (such as "Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report") at the above link, indicating that such pdf text files are in scope.
    Formed in 2013, Wiki Education is a spin-off of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia. [[1]]
    For example, there are no pages that use:
    File:Wiki_Education_Monthly_Report_2019-05.pdf
    File:Wiki_Education_Monthly_Report,_August_2019.pdf
    File:Wiki_Education_Monthly_Report_2019-10.pdf
    File:Wiki_Education_Monthly_Report_2020-01.pdf
    File:Wiki_Education_Monthly_Report_2021-03.pdf
    The scope should be worded to accommodate the existing and historical recognition by the foundation that such reports are educational and appropriate for the commons, even if they are pdf text files unused elsewhere at present. Mentionmart (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Comment If there is a proposal for a change of text, then please present the before AND after proposals. Don't make people guess.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • I made some small copy edits. For the "before" text, I think you know where you wanted to insert the new language, so please find the section and copy the relevant part here. Let's see if the formatting is OK when I copy it over....After previewing - yes. So, here's the entire context of the "before" text:

Excluded educational content[edit]

Certain content is excluded from Commons, not because it is intrinsically non-educational, but because there are other Wikimedia Foundation projects that are more appropriate for hosting such content. This applies both to media files and to text.

Excluded educational content includes:

  • Encyclopedia articles; these may be hosted on Wikipedia.
  • News (this may be hosted on Wikinews), general weather reports, and the like.
  • Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text. Purely textual material such as plain-text versions of recipes, lists of instructions, poetry, fiction, quotations, dictionary definitions, lesson plans or classroom material, and the like are better hosted elsewhere, for example at Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikiversity or Wikisource.

The "after" text would replace the last bullet. So let's focus this. Here's the before text:

  • Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text. Purely textual material such as plain-text versions of recipes, lists of instructions, poetry, fiction, quotations, dictionary definitions, lesson plans or classroom material, and the like are better hosted elsewhere, for example at Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikiversity or Wikisource.

Here's the after text:

  • Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text, except that archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensable print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera is permitted even if the files are not in use in other Wikimedia projects, as long as the works in question are notable. For example:
  • An official English translation of an Indian Central law published in gazette form would be in scope, whereas a user translation of a local city bylaw would be out of scope.
  • A single user's self-published theological rant would not be in scope, but a formally published Bible commentary in the academic journal of a seminary would.
  • A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works would be.
  • A self-published erotic slash-fic would be out of scope, but a 'suppressed' 16th-century erotic novel would be in scope.
  • First of all, ShakespeareFan00, are you OK with the "after" wording? Second, what do the rest of you think about the main bullet and the other bullets? Yes, let's discuss dissertations. Is any Doctoral dissertation OK, or do we have to make some kind of determination of special notability, and then what about Masters dissertations?

-- Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wording looks good so far, I would say Doctoral Thesis (as those tend to be "new" research, certainly, I would include Master Thesis as well, but not undergraduate items unless obviously submitted to journals, and thus peer review. 21:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Let's see if we can get a consensus behind that. I again have no opinion, except that it probably makes sense to include PhD dissertations. If we can, the third bullet could be changed to:
A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review or PhD or Masters dissertation on Darwin's life and works would be. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That seems a bit clunky reading wise, but I can support that as a third bulleted example. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:23, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Feel free to copy edit it! I think there's a problem with ending the bullets with "would be." So let's try this:

For example:

  • An official English translation of an Indian law published in gazette form would be in scope, whereas a user translation of a local city bylaw would be out of scope.
  • A single user's self-published theological rant would not be in scope, but a formally published Bible commentary in the academic journal of a seminary would.
  • A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works or a PhD or Masters thesis on that topic would be in scope.
  • A self-published erotic slash-fic would be out of scope, but a 'suppressed' 16th-century erotic novel would be in scope.

Some questions of scope: Is "Indian Central" an official designation? If not, how about just "Indian law"? And what about state laws? I think those would be relevant. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree with you on the Indian law wording.. what i am getting at is that user-transalations are out of scope, and for the most part local city byelaws aren't that automatically notable in my view. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:23, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Bullets edited accordingly. Do you spell bylaws "byelaws" in the UK? Merriam-Webster considers that a variant spelling but does not state that it's "chiefly UK" or anything. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:09, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
byelaws would be the British English spelling I've encountered.. see w:Byelaws_in_the_United_Kingdom for a usage. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Looks good, do we have a wording that can be put to a more formal proposal vote? I think we do. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:13, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Just seeing all of this now - what about handwritten text? E.g. a poem handwritten by the author? Kritzolina (talk) 19:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"Notable" Manuscripts should be in scope. Thanks for raising this point :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:18, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
What about a scan of just the first page of a public domain journal issue, such as File:Revue littéraire Art et critique.jpg, currently the subject of a deletion request? Would we want to host that or not? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:17, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not sure. It may need some more opinions. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • OK, revised "after" text:
  • Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text, except that archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensable print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera is permitted even if the files are not in use in other Wikimedia projects, as long as the works in question are notable. For example:
  • An official English translation of an Indian law published in gazette form would be in scope, whereas a user translation of a local city bylaw would be out of scope.
  • A single user's self-published theological rant would not be in scope, but a formally published Bible commentary in the academic journal of a seminary would.
  • A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works or a PhD or Masters thesis on that topic would be in scope.
  • A self-published erotic slash-fic would be out of scope, but a 'suppressed' 16th-century erotic novel would be in scope.
  • Notable manuscripts are also in scope.

Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think we have something to put to a vote.
  •  Support the change. Allowing local copies of notable/educational material as described in the above discussions would be very useful in case the original source (e.g., the Internet Archive) becomes unavailable.
  •  Comment What does "notable" mean? This is a very vague word that comes heavily freighted by association with Wikipedia:Notability. A handful of examples isn't sufficient to define it. Why not just say what is really intended: That the document must be within the inclusion policy of Wikisource in the respective language, such as Wikisource:What Wikisource includes for English documents? Toohool (talk) 02:09, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Question Do Commons users need to know or abide by Wikisource definitions of notability? Shouldn't we be able to explain what we mean by it? I'll have a look at the link later, but I'm unfamiliar with Wikisource and doubtful about outsourcing our policies or guidelines to another wiki. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment OK, I read through the link. I notice it does not mention novels or poetry written after 1927. I think that if we are including notable written material, we should allow the inclusion of notable novels and poetry if they are properly licensed. We would have to create some kind of guideline for what makes it notable. Presumably, if there is a Wikipedia article about the piece in question, it would be unquestionably notable. Perhaps if there were a Wikipedia article about the author, it could be notable. We would also want notable reviews or reviews of notable works of art and such, if properly licensed, to be includable. Again, we would need a standard, perhaps similar to the one I mentioned for novels and poetry. I also don't agree with Wikisource:Extracts if it means that properly licensed photos of book covers that are notable can't be included on Commons by themselves. Whether we want to allow the inclusion of a scan or picture of just the first page of a historic text is a topic I brought up in the discussion above. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:19, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment I am fully with Ikan here, and would approve the criterium of "author has a Wikipedia article" as sufficient for a text to be notable, as it could very well be used to illustrate the article about this person. --Kritzolina (talk) 07:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The 'etxracts' rule as I understand it, was because Wikisource ideally wants "complete" works. However, from a Commons perspective, single page crops such as title pages ( especially illustrated ones by identifiable artists, or from significant editions) are going to be potentail resources. I've also noted that sometimes single press clippings have been uploaded, to support academic commentary on specific events or biographical subjects. Hmmm. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support The change in wording --Kritzolina (talk) 07:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Support in principle, but with two reservations:
  1. The restriction to "scanned copies of [...] print material" excludes a substantial number of official publications which aren't sourced from scans of physical documents, like uploads of Taiwanese presidential gazettes by Jusjih (talk · contribs) or US government documents by Illegitimate Barrister (talk · contribs). These are excellent use cases for Commons and should be written into policy.
  2. Conversely, allowing any scan of a freely licensed print document to be uploaded puts us in a situation where a user can "force" otherwise unsuitable content into scope by printing it out and scanning it. Some sort of criterion for the notability of a publication and/or the publisher is going to be needed.
Omphalographer (talk) 20:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Could you suggest another form of words? I'm also wondering whether we should copy a lot of what's at Wikisource:What Wikisource includes and add to it. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I hadn't seen that policy before. Using their inclusion criteria wholesale (freely licensed documentary sources, published analytical and artistic works, and scientific research, and any written work 95+ years old) would address most of my concerns, and would reduce friction for users uploading source documents to Commons for later use at Wikisource. We might need to tighten up the definition of "analytical and artistic works" a bit, but overall it's a great start. Omphalographer (talk) 04:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Bringing a point back here from a deletion discussion: requiring analytical works to have passed through "peer review or editorial controls" before publication is an important criterion, as it screens out material that may have been published by a notable source, but which is probably unsuitable for inclusion in Commons (like, for example, celebrity gossip blogs). Omphalographer (talk) 23:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Also an "editorial controls" criterion should weed out some 'vanity' journals, where the 'value' of the published research is marginal at best. Hmm. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:59, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Question Do I understand this correctly: Any peer-reviewed scientific article with a sufficiently free license would be allowed now? Not that I'd be opposed to that, but are you all aware of how big of a change that would be? en:PLOS One alone publishes about 20k papers per year. If someone just starts batch-uploading them without putting proper meta data in place (like it's been done so often with images), that would be a huge amount of files to clean up - and PDFs are much more cumbersome to work with than images.
How about this as a minimum requirement: There must be a corresponding item on Wikidata, and it must be linked in SDC via digital representation of (P6243)? --El Grafo (talk) 13:19, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I see your concern, but there are countless uploads by Fae that do NOT have linked Wikidata items (They probably should though, which is why I've been dropping hints about the {{Book}} template on uploader talk pages), so someone can automate the Wikidata link up process at some future date.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:24, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@ShakespeareFan00: I suppose old uploads could be grandfathered in. IMO, people should not be allowed to start a new batch upload before they've cleaned up their previous ones, but that's a discussion for another day. El Grafo (talk) 09:49, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hmm... Not everyone is going to be searching Wikidata on each upload, but I understand what you are saying given the sheer publishing volume. (I'm still slowly cleaning up a previous bulk upload's results...) 's like to wait for some additional viewpoints however. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:28, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In view of the discussion, I think an update is needed, so I'll be happy to propose a new form of words, but first, let's discuss whether freely-licensed medical abstracts as opposed to full articles should be OK to host here, or under what circumstances. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:44, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Referenced papers from Wikipedia, in scope, Abstracts on their own would count as 'extracts' to me which is what Wikisource wants to avoid. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:01, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Do we want to avoid them, though? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Do they have a 'realistic' use as a documentary source? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:26, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not familiar with medical journals: are there cases where the abstract is under a free license but the whole article is not? El Grafo (talk) 09:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes. That's extremely common. You can look at PubMed for examples. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:53, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

New proposed wording[edit]

Here's a new proposed "after" wording, based on discussion above:

  • Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text, except that archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensed print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera is permitted even if the files are not in use in other Wikimedia projects, as long as the works in question are notable. To a large degree, this overlaps with what is posted at Wikisource:What Wikisource includes.

Works created over 95 years ago[edit]

Most written work (or transcript of original audio or visual content) published (or created but never published) more than 95 years ago may be included, so long as it is verifiable and either public domain or properly licensed. Valid sources include uploaded scans and printed paper sources. These works must meet copyright requirements using {{PD-old}} or a license such as {{PD-USGov}}.

Works created less than 96 years ago:[edit]

Documentary sources[edit]

Documentary sources are characterized by one of two criteria:

  1. They are official documents of the body producing them, or
  2. They are evidentiary in nature, and created in the course of events.

These documents may range from constitutions and treaties to personal correspondence and diaries. This category may include material not historically available, such as historical telephone calls, judicial proceedings, and transcriptions of military operations. Documentary sources must be added in their complete form whenever possible, without substantive editorial amendment. The source of these works must be noted in order to allow others to verify that the copy displayed at Commons is a faithful reproduction.

Analytical works[edit]

Analytical works are publications that compile information from other sources and analyze this information. Any non-fiction work which is written about a topic after the main events have occurred generally fits in this category. These must have been subjected to peer review and cannot have been self-published.

Scientific research[edit]

Scientific research may be included if the work has verifiable scholarly peer review from a trusted entity. The work must be free or released under a free license.

An example of such acceptable research work is a thesis that has been scrutinized and accepted by a thesis committee of an accredited university.

In addition, freely licensed novels, poetry or other published writing by authors who are covered in a Wikipedia article about them may be hosted on Commons, as long as they are not self-published, and abstracts of peer-reviewed articles, such as medical abstracts, may be hosted here if they are freely licensed but the full articles are not. Finally, Commons may host properly licensed pictures of book covers that are in any way notable or pages of the texts of books or articles that have illustrations or decorations on them. Blog posts, even on blogs covered by Wikipedia, may not be hosted here because they are self-published and lack peer review. However, manuscripts by famous authors who are covered in Wikipedia or otherwise notable may be hosted here.

Some other examples:

  • An official English translation of an Indian law published in gazette form would be in scope, whereas a user translation of a local city bylaw would be out of scope.
  • A single user's self-published theological rant would not be in scope, but a formally published Bible commentary in the academic journal of a seminary would.
  • A high-school term paper on Darwin would be out of scope, but a peer-reviewed biographical review of Darwin's life and works or a PhD or Masters thesis on that topic would be in scope.
  • A self-published erotic slash-fic would be out of scope, but a 'suppressed' 16th-century erotic novel would be in scope.
Discussion[edit]
  • Please discuss. I'll start. I don't like this in Wikisource:
  • Previously unpublished scientific research, regardless of being peer reviewed or not, is acceptable to include in Wikisource if an author meets Wikipedia:Notability (regardless of the actual presence of Wikipedia article on the author) and the work is released under a proper license.
  • That may be fine for them, but I don't think we want to host unpublished scientific research that's not peer reviewed unless it's COM:INUSE on Wikisource. Therefore, I left it out. Does anyone feel strongly about including it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The wording above massively expands on what I was thinking about, Thanks :) 21:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks for including the stuff about INUSE, being needed for otherwise unpublished material. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Some other areas :-
  • "Officially published works of the US "Federal" Govt" - we need to be clear if contractor supplied materials are in scope, as this has come up previously (albiet as a discussion of what we actually consider "Federal" works for licensing reasons.)
  • US works - No notice and non-renewal works that were actually "published" have been considered in scope.
  • "Crown" works . - For the UK (and Canada?) the copyright term is 50 years if actually published, not 95 years., which covers a lot of pre 1973 items, such as a number of 'one-inch OS map sheets produced in the 1960's for example.
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: I'd agree that Commons should probably exclude otherwise unpublished research from its scope. There are plenty of other outlets for scientific preprints, like arXiv, and we can always modify policy later if it proves to be an issue. (As an aside, I'm curious how often that clause gets invoked at Wikisource; I suspect that it's rare.) Omphalographer (talk) 21:53, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
ShakespeareFan00, my wording on what's freely licensed is intended to be non-exhaustive, which is why I used the phrase "such as," but please feel free to add additional information relevant to licensing if you think it's important to mention in COM:Project scope and insufficient to mention at COM:Licensing. I'm also not we need to discuss whether material produced for a government but privately copyrighted can be included, as that, too, can be covered at COM:L, but if you think a clarification is needed, please add one. One of the things you might notice if you compare my proposed phrasing to Wikisource:What Wikisource includes is that I greatly shortened and simplified the language, even if it might be possible to go further. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:11, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Please copy edit at will. I'll make the change now, but I am also moving this comment because it was interrupting the proposed words. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:13, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I can't make head or tail of the following Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text, except that archival of scanned copies of public domain or freely licensed print material such as scanned books, laws, reports and historical ephemera is permitted even if the files are not in use in other Wikimedia projects, as long as the works in question are notable. This is not a matter of copy-editing, there are simply so many poorly related clauses that I plain cannot parse it to work out the intended meaning. - Jmabel ! talk 22:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Do I read this to say that for any surviving thing from before 1928 we are an absolute catch-all, limited only by copyright status? Your great-grandmother's shopping list or address book, some kid's classroom notes, a viciously racist cartoon that would be absolutely out of scope if it were produced today, every archive of every country's legal code, anyone's correspondence regardless of any normal criteria of notability? - Jmabel ! talk 22:34, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wait, no, then there's "as long as the works in question are notable" (albeit with no indication of a standard of notability). Guess I'm just back to "I can't make head or tail of this." - Jmabel ! talk 22:45, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The information about written material over 95 years old was directly copied from Wikisource:What Wikisource includes. Should we decline to host some types of content older than 95 years old that Wikisource includes, if they're not currently in use? If so, which types? As for the rest, We could substitute the following:
"Files that contain nothing educational other than raw text, unless there is something notable about them, as defined by the following guidelines, many of which overlap with Wikisource:What Wikisource includes:"
Is that clearer and better? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:07, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This discussion may have died down. Perhaps someone else would like to offer a new edited "after" text for us to consider, but we shouldn't leave things as they are if we want to keep some forms of text files that are not currently in use. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Question I'm just now noticing the wording "scanned copies of [...] print material". The way the previous discussions went, I was under the impression that PDF files from scientific online journals would be covered by this too? Or is this meant to be only for material that was not published digitally? That needs clarification. --El Grafo (talk) 10:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • As long as we don't agree on a new form of words, any text file not in use should be subject to deletion per existing policy. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mass upload of self promotional pictures[edit]

What about pictures about a person or institution where each single picture may be considered to be within scope, but by the sheer mass the entirety of the images is clearly self-promotional? Specifically, I'm talking about the Category:Mason Ewing. More than 100 pictures in this category and its subcategories, showing this user at all possible occasions, or his drawings. In the past, I have registered the VRT release for most of these images. Now there are again three tickets in support for approval, and I have to say, in the meantime I feel abused for self-promotion in my work as a support agent. Any opinions on this?

Pinging @Ewing Mason, to give him the opportunity to comment..

Cheers, Mussklprozz (talk) 09:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agree that this user seems to abuse Commons by promoting himself and their company. On the other hand, other famous businessmen/artists and their companies also have hundreds of photos... --P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Seems harmless to me. A marginally notable person, probably bordering on Wikipedia-notable. I think it would be reasonable to ask them not to do a lot more of this, but I don't think what we have is all that excessive. There are probably a few people or organizations at about that level of notability where I've done a couple of dozen photos. - Jmabel ! talk 20:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm a bit confused and naïve about this. The subject is apparently blind, so I can see perhaps a barrier to working with photos and/or uploading files here. But also seems to have his own account here, and the few photos I spot-checked are licensed with "Own Work". So I don't understand the burden to VRT in this case. Do we not allow most Commons users to upload "Own Work" without constantly hitting VRT? How is this a special case? Elizium23 (talk) 20:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would also say that perhaps Commons has a systemic problem of scale.
I can see that editors on Wikipedia encyclopedia-based projects generally get involved in improving and expanding articles, the discussions and stuff that go on to collaborate on the projects. It's very interactive and it seems enticing to want to become an administrator in that milieu, so it's likely that a certain percentage of good editors move on to become admins.
However, Commons has a completely different culture, and it's rather isolating. I can easily see plenty of Commons users just sort of interested in shoveling all their free photos onto the website without concern for what others are doing, with no sense of collaboration or community, and those users are unlikely to show any interest in volunteering or adminship.
Commons is a popular place but I've often hit bureaucratic backlogs and delays that indicate a dearth of active admins.
I'm sorry you have to deal with such things. Elizium23 (talk) 20:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This person has an article in 15 Wikipedias, so IMO it is sufficiently notable to have that number of pictures on Commons. Yann (talk) 21:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree with Yann, although it should be noted that some of these article are automatic translations by the same user. However, I can't see his notability challenged in any Wikipedia, so he is notable enough to keep the images in spite of his promotion efforts.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
On the side point about his being blind, why would that be any kind of issue? Blind people have great technology for interfacing with computers and the Internet. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Correct, @Ikan Kekek, so if this user owns his own account and is uploading his own work, (although it seemed far more likely to me that photographs are the work of a sighted photographer, rather than a self-timer) why in the world does VRT even need to get involved??? Elizium23 (talk) 22:46, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There are a few common probabilities here; forgive me for being inaccurate or insensitive to disability:
  1. Ewing takes all his own photos by self-timer and transfers copyright to his corporation. Ewing owns his own Commons editor account and uploads his own photos. This is the scenario which is indicated by the metadata they're providing. Commons:Username policy in fact requires that the owner of this account must be the person identified by that name, so presumably, Ewing has provided proof of identity to VRT as well.
  2. Ewing is photographed by third parties and they provide the photographs to him, assigning copyright to the corporation, whereby he uploads the photos here and uses COM:VRT to affirm copyright transference. This is not indicated by metadata, because no third-party "authors" are credited.
  3. Someone other than Ewing operates his Commons editor account and uploads photos on Ewing's behalf. COM:VRT is invoked as this person is a third party who affirms the proper transference and copyright, and right to upload said photos.
So, IMHO, something's not right here: either Ewing doesn't need VRT and shouldn't be burdening VRT with requests, or Ewing isn't being truthful about authorship/account ownership and we need to figure out why VRT is involved with this, if they doesn't seem to be necessary. Elizium23 (talk) 22:57, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't think and didn't suggest that VRT needs to be involved. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:06, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hello the whole Wikimedia team, I come here to clarify the situation about the pics I uploaded on the website.
  • First at all I begin at the beginning, how these pics have been taken. That’s a photographer under contract with me. Together, we determined I’m the author of the pics because I tell him what I want, the shots, the style, the place. Of course he advices me on the details (exposition balance, etc) but I take the decisions and he pushes on the button. For the whom who don’t know that, I have been a sighted person for a long time before to turn tragically blind. But I wanna precise I have a contract with this photographer and he doesn’t ask the be credited as pic’s author for the above reasons.
  • Concerning the uploading, the technology allows the disabled persons a great autonomy. That’s the same, even if some people can help sometime, I can manage a lot of aspects.

As Humanity and Inclusion ambassador, I intend to highlight that us, disabled persons wanna show to the world we can be independent. Make the same things as a sighted one is more reachable than you can believe. About the diffusion of the pics themselves on Wikimedia:

  • Fortunately, I’m far from upload all the pics I have. I don’t consider Wikimedia as a ad platform because if I wanna get ad with my pics, first at all I’ll use the provided platforms. The few I have on have been taken by photographers I don’t know.
  • Even if some ones can be surprised, I don’t flout about the Wikimedia Foundation’s community and collaborative minds. Due to my blindness, I cannot code articles, my vocal synthesis are limited. But I suggested articles to volunteers about persons marking the culture, like artists, athletes, politicians from Africa and Europe.

If I break the rules of Wikimedia, please apologize me but that’s not deliberately al all. On the other hand, I read your comments and I understand I upload so much. It seems more relevant to upload only the most important of them. Plus, I intend to highlight that the moderators of Wikimedia asked me this a day and I replied them. Finally I also wanna precise that if I put my own name of Wikimedia, that’s for transparency. For me, it seemed unwelcome to hide myself behind a pseudo/false account. I hope I replied to all your questions.--Ewingmason (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not sure of the legal intricacies of this, and this talk page is the wrong forum for hashing this all out, but if I understand correctly, this is not how Wikimedia Commons defines authorship of a photograph, but it definitely does explain why VRT is perpetually involved for every upload. Thank you for explaining. Elizium23 (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Userpage images[edit]

This has just made some poorly-worded policy worse. It now limits user images here to if you are an active, constructive participant on Commons. Which has a number of problems: it excludes those who are active on other WM projects but not Commons, and it also qualifies this to 'active' and 'constructive' editors. Editors may have been active at one time, but no longer - are their images to be deleted? Also 'constructive' is highly subjective and is formally undefined, because it's much too contentious to do so.

These might seem like small points, but this is a policy page, thus sets precedents. Can I now go through and delete all the user images for any editors whom I see as "too deletionist"? They're not 'constructive' in my opinion, and there's no better guideline to say otherwise! We already have enough problems with single editors re-writing policy pages in mid-argument to justify their 'case'. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm basically with Andy on this. If we want to elaborate the statement of when we do and don't allow images as a courtesy, I'd rather see that taken up on a separate page than to try to sort out a lot of subtlety here on something that is pretty tangential to the project at large. Jmabel ! talk 06:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It should definitely be broadened to any WMF wiki, but I don’t see any problem with the ‘active’ part: it says the uploading […] is allowed if you are an active […] participant (emphasis mine) – this means that you shouldn’t upload personal images if you’re no longer an active participant, but it doesn’t mean that your already-uploaded images can’t remain.
Constructiveness can (and should) be interpreted very broadly, only excluding people who do nothing but vandalize pages, do test edits, post spam etc. People who start deletion requests en masse without any grounds and any visible issues with the files/pages are not constructive, but people who create them with grounds that are not totally made up – however much you disagree with their reasoning – are constructive. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 15:43, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In the section above, there is The uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal user page of Commons or another project is allowed as long as that user is or was an active participant on that project. Isn't that sufficiently clear? Yann (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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