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Disputes relating to URAA, policy, Israeli images, and behaviour

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the notice boards on Commons, or who is subscribed to the [Wikimedia-l] mailing list, will be aware of a huge, wide-ranging and unfocused set of disputes and ill-natured arguments that have been raging for several months. The disputes are becoming more and more intemperate, and the positions of some editors more and more entrenched. While a few contributors have tried hard to pull the community back to constructive discussion and have made sensible suggestions, their comments have been drowned out in the noise.

We need to stop now and focus not on stating a re-stating positions, but on making definite and constructive proposals for ways in which these issues can be fixed. The [Wikimedia-l] discussion has been non-productive for some time, and I suggest that editors should drop discussion there and should focus attention here.

As a contribution, I'll start things off here with a brief overview for those who might not be familiar with the very complicated history.

History of the dispute

On 2nd April Yann closed the RfC on Massive restoration of deleted images by the URAA as follows:

Closed as YES. URAA cannot be used as the sole reason for deletion. Deleted files can be restored after a discussion in COM:UDR. Potentially URAA-affected files should be tagged with {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}.

In Implementing the closure of Commons:Massive restoration of deleted images by the URAA I pointed out the problems with the closure of that RFC, and suggested that the community contribute to a new discussion on updating the Precautionary Principle.

The resultant review of precautionary principle RfC suggested that one way forward might be to look again at the wording of the Precautionary Principle policy. That suggestion was not approved by the community, and was closed as "rejected" by odder on 21st June with the careful comments:

It is my understanding that the outcome of this discussion stands in direct contradiction to the recent discussion on restoring files affected by URAA.

Given that there are many problems with the way in which the URAA discussion was closed, and given the fact this discussion was originally initiated as a means of resolving the incompatibility between the precautionary principle and the outcome of the URAA discussion, and the fact that the precautionary principle is an official Commons policy, it is my understanding that at this time there is no community agreement to host files affected by the URAA.

Where are we now, and how do we move forward?

Legal and policy

1. Commons is a website owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, and we are required under their Terms of Use to ensure that we comply with US law.
2. Although some Wikimedia editors would like to argue that the URAA can be ignored entirely, that is not an option that is legally open to us. Under US law, URAA-based copyright is just a valid as any other copyright and we absolutely have to ensure that we comply with it, no matter how poorly that law may be viewed from the perspectives of other countries.
3. The best that can be said, based on the community's views so far and the US legal requirement, is that images should not be deleted purely based on an allegation that they are covered by the URAA. Instead, each image should be evaluated carefully, and its true copyright status under US and local law determined as carefully as we can. If the end result of that is that there is indeed significant doubt about the freedom of the image under US or local law it must be deleted. To be quite clear on this: if the image is definitely protected by the URAA under US law, or if there is significant doubt about that, it must be deleted.
4. The licensing policy at COM:L was amended following the URAA RfC closure, and that needs to be corrected as it is now misleading.
5. As the community is not prepared to amend the precautionary principle, we still have to work to the significant doubt test.

The Israeli images

Since we are legally unable to ignore US copyright protection, each image has to be reviewed to determine to the best of our ability whether it is copyright-protected in the US or not. That protection may arise from the URAA, but may also be a general US copyright which differs from Israeli copyright due to the US government's non acceptance of the rule of the shorter term.

If an image is public domain in Israel (under Israeli law) but is copyright-protected in the US (under US law) then we may not host that image on Commons. That is the case whether or not the US copyright arises from the terms of the URAA.

Now, what about those images that have fallen into the public domain under Israeli law and where the Israeli government has confirmed their public domain status? The question for us, in that case, is whether the US courts would accept the Israeli public domain statement as applying in the US as well. If so, the images can be retained, and if not they must be deleted.

Traditional Commons practice has been to accept a government statement along those lines only if it it makes clear that the government considers the public domain status to be global. Without that, the Israeli government has made no statement whatsoever about its intentions with regards to its US copyrights (which exist in the US whether the Israeli government cares about that copyright or not).

That Commons practice has been in effect for many years and is the reason that we continue to hold UK Crown Copyright expired material which might otherwise be protected under US domestic law. The UK holdings are based on an email from a civil servant at (I think) the Patent Office, who said "any Crown copyright material published before <1954>, would now be out of copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world".

There is an active proposal to extend this approach to the expired copyrights of other governments at Commons:Works by non-U.S. governments declared to be in the public domain globally. Although that is still a proposal, in practice I think it highly likely to be accepted, especially if the Israeli images could be included within it.

Quite a large number of editors from outside Commons have expressed outrage that some very well known images have been deleted, but that is the reason. There have been several suggestions on [Wikimedia-l] that a local editor should ask an Israeli official to make it clear that they understand the public domain to be global, but surprisingly not a single editor has confirmed that that question has yet been put. It should be, as it may quickly solve some of the problems. If it is difficult to get the required statement from a top-level politician, as it may well be, I would recommend instead putting in a quick request in to one of the legal advisers at the Patent Office.

If that turns out to be impossible, could Commons change its policy to accept a government statement of public domain to be assumed global, even if unstated? Could we reasonably say that the current Israeli government statement can be deemed to put beyond significant doubt its intentions regarding US copyright? The community would have to accept some risk that a government might at future time attempt to enforce its US domestic copyrights before the US courts, regardless of what it says now.

An argument could certainly be made along those lines. Government copyrights are different from private ones, and where a government states that their works have fallen into the public domain without qualification, they are no doubt making a statement on the basis of an international treaty that they have themselves signed. For that government later to apply to enforce a foreign copyright that they arguably have not recognized under international law is in practice unlikely to happen, and if it did could easily cause an international incident. That's quite different from a private individual attempting to exert continued control and perhaps extract money for their own works in the US given the 'free' additional local copyright the US government has handed them.

In any event, if that is a reasonable argument, it should be put up for consideration by the community as a new policy. As things stand at present, we require a 'global' declaration and no amount of anguish will allow individual images to override existing policy. Anyone who thinks that policy is wrong should propose a new one.

Behaviour

Some Commons admins have recently been acting with little regard to the policies that they have committed to uphold on behalf of the community. There have recently been multiple out of process deletions, restorations and wheel-warring, and that must stop. Contentious out of process actions and wheel-warring are never acceptable.

Admins who violate the community's trust in that way (no matter how 'right' they may be, and no matter how much they argue they are 'just trying to enforce policy') have no place on this site.

1. Admins must at all times comply with Commons policy. While nobody would criticise an admin who used discretion to deal promptly with something quick and easy, such as an uncontentious courtesy deletion, it is quite another matter for an admin to delete or undelete contentious images out of process based on their own view of what is 'obviously right'.
2. Any admin who deletes or restores a contentious image out of process (including closing a Deletion Request before the normal period) should be reported to AN/U for community discussion. Any admin who makes a habit of doing that is liable to have the sysop bit removed for non-compliance with the admin policy.
3. The correct response to an out of process admin action is to ask the admin on his or her talk page to voluntarily revert. If the admin refuses or is non responsive, any admin may do the reversion. One such a reversion has been done, nothing further out of process should happen. In particular, the original admin must not engage in wheel-warring by reverting back. And if that does happen, the second admin must equally not engage in wheel-warring. Wheel-warring is never acceptable behaviour, regardless of the merits of the argument and regardless of who started it.
4. Of course, should there be a real emergency that requires immediate admin action in order to protect an individual or the site, the admin should of course do what is necessary, but should then explain the reasons straight away to the community.

Examples and admin training

If we are going to keep the "reasonable doubt" test for deleting files, it would be useful at the very least to provide some community-approved examples of what should and should not be deleted. "Reasonable doubt" is interpreted very differently between admins at the moment, which increases uncertainty for our users and re-users. With a set of suitable examples, we could then think about providing (or perhaps even enforcing) admin training with a view to improving consistency. Erik Moeller has made a suggestion along those lines. Would there be interest in setting up a task force to work on such a project? Who would care to sign up? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would like to join a task force. As one of the most active uploaders to Commons, I have felt at some significant personal risk due to my liability for damages should my uploads not meet copyright law, particularly as defined in the U.S.A. and in Europe. It has been my experience that a significant proportion of admins find international copyright law confusing (such as interpreting sweat of the brow, or the significance and nature of liability remaining after a government agency has published media as public domain, both U.S. and non-U.S. governments or a GLAM has published material as 'no copyright known'). I have also been concerned about how new users with a lack of English skills, can perceive administrator actions, particularly when the new user may be unclear about copyright or how to use Commons processes. We have seen recent difficulties with openness, I would hope that how to maximize openness for administrator and other actions is part of training. Due to our international scope, I would seek as much virtualization as possible, so that training and materials were accessible for those with limited opportunity for travel. Not everyone is able or happy to jump on a plane, even if the expenses are covered. --Fæ (talk) 15:35, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

This is a good set of ideas; HT to Eloquence. Training for subject knowledge / effectiveness / grace, for admins and anyone who wants to enforce apply such standards, would be useful on all projects. I agree that any training should be virtual. --SJ+ 17:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi SJ. Rather than "enforce standards", let's be a bit more mellow and try "apply best practice" or maybe "act to promote best practice", cheesy but hopefully you get my drift. Generally, though being an administrator can occasionally involve blocking accounts, it is still rewarding to be helpful (and in the long term discouraging to be punitive), especially to newcomers and poorly behaved contributors, who may well go on to do good stuff, and it would be great to see that emphasised in any training. --Fæ (talk) 17:39, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I used that term to highlight those who see their role as enforcers, but see this wasn't clear; now revised. I support your drift. --SJ+ 21:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

If this training is taking place over a period of 4 weeks in Bora Bora, then count me in. Otherwise, there's more important things to do on this project than drinking Koolaid and going to charm school. russavia (talk) 19:15, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

• You can count me in. matanya • talk 21:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of a training: @Eloquence, Sj, MichaelMaggs:, if you (and presumably your respective organizations, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK) are interested in how to contribute to the curation and maintenance of (arguably) the world's greatest collection of freely licensed media, I am sure that a number of the admins here (and also frequent contributors who are not admins) would be more than happy to put together a training. If it would help, I would be happy to design a training program, and recruit Commoners more knowledgeable than myself to develop a curriculum and deliver the training. (This is of course not a small undertaking, and what I do for a living; I would need to charge my full rate for doing so, and I assume that any admins and volunteers would want to be adequately compensated for their efforts as well. So it might be best to start with some questions about what resources your organizations are prepared to invest.) -Pete F (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Pete: that's quite a self-promotional direction to take this section. In other forums you have been fanning flame wars about this topic. What do you hope to accomplish? --SJ+ 21:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

@Sj: I'm not especially eager to take on this work, so I'm sorry if it comes across as self-promotional. I'd much rather see somebody else put together a corps of Commons admins/volunteers to conduct a training. (I don't see much value in people from an organization that sees Commons as being run by a "club of zealots" coming in to tell the alleged zealots how to be less zealous, though. That idea strikes me alternately as hilarious, and depressing.) -Pete F (talk) 22:37, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: how about trying a different angle on this for a moment?

If you consider that a grant per se would be neutral, and the community has a free hand to define its scope, perhaps along the lines of:

"To publish improved training materials to support the administrator and other trusted roles on Wikimedia Commons and deliver training events, with the outcome of a wider consensus supporting best practices (or norms) for the implementation of these roles, and a measurably better experience for new users and contributors that are subject to necessary administrator action",

then none of this has to be about an email from one man with rather silly pointy wording. It's not like it's the first time we have seen this schoolboy behaviour, but perhaps trustees like SJ can have a quiet word to explain why emails like this from a senior manager only serve to damage the WMF and its reputation and must stop. A few employees could do with being sent to "charm school" themselves.

I see nothing wrong with our community accepting a grant to run a modest improvement project like this, so long as it is unpaid volunteers in the driving seat (preferably not just volunteers who happen to be WMF trustees or chapter trustees please), and have the final call on how money should be directed for best value. --Fæ (talk) 05:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Sure, @Fæ: -- this all makes good sense. There happen to be two grants I'm aware of where something similar has been done, and might be worth looking at for brainstorming purposes. (For scale, I think each of these cost about $10,000):

• meta:GLAMcamp DC (also, final report) (I helped put this one together)
• meta:Grants:IEG/Elaborate Wikisource strategic vision

I do hope @Sj: will have a private word with @Eloquence: as you suggest. This is actually something Sj and I have discussed in person before, and my impression was that he shares my concern -- so hopefully he will make an effort to do something about it.

Pete - Thanks for explaining your intent. I don't recall the in-person discussion (one of many reasons I prefer public discourse), and your impression misses the mark. Erik's comments, including the suggestion that inspired this section, are some of the most considerate, thorough, constructive reflections I have seen. I regret that you or Fae think this hurts anyone's reputation; even if a few subjunctive possibilities were put bluntly, in my view the quality and detail of those emails represents the sort of dialogue that any community should be proud to have.

In contrast, I was somewhat concerned about your contributions to that mailing list thread; specifics moved to your talk page to help focus the discussion here. --SJ+ 05:20, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The one place where you and I disagree, Fae, is that I think those conducting a training like this should be paid. That is why I pointed out that I'd want payment if I put it together -- I can see how it sounded like I was looking for the work, but all I wanted to do was put that notion on the table. I think that the volunteers (like you) who know Commons processes the best deserve to be compensated for the considerable effort it would take to effectively share that knowledge with others.

I didn't take any payment for GLAMcamp DC (though in spite of a budget that's readily available online, I recently noted with some amusement that a number of Wikimedia critics assume I got filthy rich off it), but I also likely wouldn't do something like that without compensation again. It was a good learning experience to do it one time, and I'm proud of our results. Now that I look, I'm pleased to see that those putting the Wikisource event together did get paid. So maybe it wasn't as necessary as I assumed to make that point. -Pete F (talk) 06:22, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

@Fæ:, it seems a training is first needed for the WMF staff themselves. They are not good in marking third party rights; this is not the first time we are seeing it. Jee 06:29, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, we are in agreement. I have no issue with a grant being used to pay professionals to help either create materials, or to support the delivery of training events (be it in real time or in virtual). I also have no issue with supporting non-professional Commons regulars being paid something to ensure they can put aside enough time to help create materials, or can schedule time to help with possible events; the academic world is familiar with using a modest honorarium for this purpose, rather than a contract. Having unpaid volunteers in the "driving seat" is a question of ensuring best value and to reassure the wider Commons Community of its neutrality and ethical approach (including a fully open tender process for any procurement decisions). Keep in mind that I was one of the architects behind WMUK's successful train the trainers programme (which originally came from my quality management background and Japanese management methods) which has been one of the most expensive things that WMUK has ever procured. --Fæ (talk) 06:34, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Ah, glad to see we are in agreement after all. This is all good stuff. And, thanks @Jkadavoor: for underscoring one of the major issues motivating my initial comment. -Pete F (talk) 07:03, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

New policy options

Above you say, Anyone who thinks that policy is wrong should propose a new one. -- I think that policy is wrong, specifically in these edge cases. One way of phrasing the current debate in terms of policy alternatives might be this:

Replace

"Delete where there is reasonable doubt that something is in the public domain almost everywhere"

with

"Keep something that is public domain in its country of origin, as long as there is reason to believe that rights-holders would want it to be used in the rest of the world."

NB: We do not currently enforce the former: Commons hosts files that are freely licensed only in the US, and not in most of the rest of the world; and some files that are only freely licensed in the US and in their country of origin, but not in most of the rest of the world.

I think of partial-PD media in terms of classes of similar-origin works, each covered by the same laws/principles/creators. It seems fitting to me and in line with Commons principles, to keep each of these classes until there is at least one complaint from a rightsholder about a work in that class. That way we don't have to guess whether there might possibly be such a complaint. And moreover, it is useful to free knowledge to collect such complaints: these are examples of inconsistencies in global public domain law being used by creators to restrict reuse of their works. That helps motivate corrections to broken laws.

So, for example: it is circumstantially clear that the Israeli government has no interest in pursuing reusers of government works that are PD in the country. There is abundant and reasonable doubt that they would ever complain about such reuse. It does not advance global knowledge for us to wait for an official to publish a letter affirming this, before we include those works on wikimedia projects. Conversely, while there are only a handful of instances recorded anywhere in the world of a rightsholder attempting to enforce (c) by limiting redistribution of a work that is PD in the country of origin, in each of those cases we should avoid hosting other works by those creators without express permission. --SJ+ 17:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Agree; this is inline with Erik's comment in the list. Jee 17:25, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry @Sj: but you seem to be suggesting that we knowingly ignore US laws, and the rights that copyright holders may have in the US. The solution is getting the law changed, not putting editors and re-users of our content at legal risk so that we can protest and essentially give the US laws the finger, and then think this is going to encourage legal change. Because it won't. The WMF has already tried in the courts and lost. URAA is here to stay, we have to work within that law. Or move the servers out of the US, and then risk losing the freedom of speech protections that come with it. Also, Sj, please read Commons:Review_of_Precautionary_principle#Case_study:_Fijian_photos_from_the_1940s.2F1950s -- what you are suggesting above is morally and ethically bankrupt. russavia (talk) 17:43, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

@Russavia: Your claim that we would be "putting editors and re-users of our content at legal risk" is a complete bullshit, and you know that. It is a strawman argument I have already shown wrong elsewhere. Sj doesn't suggest that we ignore US law, he simply suggest getting our requests reasonable with the existing legal situation. You disregard answering directly, and instead repeat ad nauseam the same nonsense. Yann (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

That would require a relaxing of COM:PRP and that was rejected. What is needed is clear and precise statements from copyright holders that they relinquish any copyright they might have in the US as a result of URAA-restoration when works fall into PD in the source country. Then we'll be able to host such files on Commons with no worry. Simple as that really. russavia (talk) 19:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Russavia, that is not my suggestion. I will not respond endlessly on this topic, but it is worth a bit of clarification.

You have conflated moral and legal obligations. This is primarily a moral question, since we are deciding both whether publishing media would benefit the creator and whether suppressing media would be detrimental to global knowledge.

Legally -

• To your concern about putting [uploaders] at risk: an uploader sharing a file that is in the public domain in their country is not at risk, to the best of my knowledge.
• To your concern about putting reusers at risk: we currently host and publish many files that are not globally PD (those that are only PD in the US, or only PD in the US and in the country of origin). So we regularly put reusers at this (very low) level of contextual risk, and we help them understand this risk by adding detailed license-templates on the files. I would be glad to have a separate discussion about how to address these sorts of risk, but that's not directly on point here. The question here is whether it is reasonable to similarly host other partially-PD files, not just those that happen to be partially-PD in the US.
• To your concern about server location: the primary (very low) risk is to reusers, not to the servers; the host in this case being willing to take on any risk incurred in hosting. Risk to reusers is independent of where the media are hosted.

Morally -

• We should respect the rights of creators, including their natural assumptions about their own copyright and its converse: their assumptions about free availability of their work once it passes into the public domain. It is always appropriate to check with creators to be sure of their assumptions, however both individuals and governments often assume that 'public domain' where they live applies everywhere. The question is how to handle cases where we don't have 99% confirmation.
• Disputes arise when uploaders feel they have context and circumstantial evidence that clearly indicate works are meant to be freely reused and distributed. They believe that publishing the works is the right thing to do - in line with the rights and desires of the creators, and beneficial to future readers. Both sides in such a deletion debate feel the other side is failing to act morally.
• Morally it doesn't matter where our servers are located. So we should be equally concerned about the rights of a US creator whose work is PD in the US but not in other countries.
• How we handle partially-PD materials from 50+ years ago is low on our list of moral risks. More significant moral risk comes from a) insisting on publishing media that the creator or subject do not want published, or without subject consent, merely because a legal loophole allows it, and b) rejecting media that are offered under a free license – including those offered by respected contributors – because of a failure to use sufficiently precise language.

To come back to the obvious example: in cases where people living in a country have strong circumstantial evidence that a class of locally-PD work from that country (say, government works) are expected to be freely reused by the rest of the world, I see no reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt about that class while waiting for confirmation. --SJ+ 19:09, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

• According to wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, Commons can only host material which is free according to Freedomdefined:Definition. Freedomdefined:Definition tells that there must not be any restriction on where the material is used. Therefore, a policy which only considers the copyright status in the United States and the source country seems insufficient, as there are restrictions on where the material is used if it is unfree elsewhere. wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy seems to require that Commons only hosts material which is in the public domain, or freely licensed, worldwide. On the other hand, existing Commons requirements to only care about the source country and the United States seems better to me: USA because of the server location, and the source country because that's where the reusers usually are and because of the rule of the shorter term applying to many countries for expired copyrights. Should we strive to change wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy? --Stefan4 (talk) 23:09, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

  Hi Stefan, I agree that we should consider this. I think existing Commons requirements have moved in the right direction. I also think the status in the source country -- and the needs of reusers -- matters more than the status in the US. We should strive to support all media that are in the public domain or freely licensed in their country of origin. If that means supporting multiple archives, or archives in multiple jurisdictions, that seems to me the right thing for us to do. In practice (as noted above) even today with our single archive, US law allows our servers much leeway in what they host: which is why we can continue to host files while discussing how to handle them, save where we receive takedown requests. --SJ+ 05:13, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Sj: the community has already rejected the relaxation of COM:PRP. I don't think I should have to point out the pertinent parts of that policy here. On the other hand, perhaps the Commons community will be more inclined to listen to the WMF if the WMF were to guarantee that uploaders, admins whom might use their position to act on those images, and re-users of that content, would have their legal fees paid by the WMF in the event of any legal problems. Until that day comes, sincerely you will not get people such as myself to budge on this issue. And even then, I still wouldn't budge because of the very issues that Stefan4 raises directly above me. This does not mean that we are zealots but that we have the freedom mission in mind. It disappoints that this has to be pointed out to a WMF board member. russavia (talk) 00:43, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Sj: I think the community has already relaxed the situation on copyright further than envisaged by the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, to the extent we only concern ourselves with the laws of the US and the source county. If we actually look at what the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy requires of us, we would in reality, only host files for which there was a CC style licence. For example most of logos tagged {{PD-textlogo}} do not meet the Freedomdefined:Definition of free, most would be covered by copyright in common law countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand, a fair number would be protected by trademark protection that even in the US would limit what you could do with them as a re-user. Then there is all the work of the US Government that we host, such works are not public domain in the scene of the Freedomdefined:Definition, 17 U.S.C. § 105 is clear that it is only copyright protection in the US that is is not afforded to works of the US government, they are copyrighted works and the US Government is free to seek copyright protection in other jurisdictions (see here). Then there is also the situation with freedom of panorama exception; the WMF response to a FOP related DMCA takedown notice would seem to suggest we should not apply the source countries FOP on commons which is inline with the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy. (Note : For the record I am undecided on how a US court would rule on a FOP related case and I am not aware of any relevant case law from the US on matters regarding non-US FOP; it is quite conceivable that a US court could rule that such images of copyrighted works are not DW in the US due to the nature of the law in place at the works location. i.e. the copyright owner knew, or should have known, that by agreeing to the works display in a country with a FOP that they consented to such DW.. LGA _talk^edits 03:04, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

  LGA: you are right. Given our long experience with many edge cases of licensing and reuse, we should consider updating our licensing policy to address these details. The original policy captures an essential ideal, and is appropriate for anything newly created by us and our extended network, or anything that we can recreate ourselves in a way that complies with that ideal.

  However the policy fails for the large and growing body of source material (by definition irreplaceable) and past works that are not now and may never be fully FD-free in every part of the world, yet are free in a significant subset of it. In these cases, I think it is reasonable for us to carve out of those large gray area what feel we can reasonably host/curate with minimal risk (to servers and to reusers). We should also formalize content and metadata partnerships with other very-long-term archives such as the Internet Archive which host and curate knowledge with a much wider range of licenses. This includes knowledge that is temporarily or permanently excluded from free reuse by combinations of (c), FOP, TM and other laws. That way the default response to uploaders who want to share mostly-free knowledge would be to help them place it in a good long-term home, not to delete it. --SJ+ 05:13, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• (This discussion shouldn't be here.)
  • An almost-specific proposal like Sj's is useful: what I think the RfC rejected is the excessive uncertainty/scope of the direction proposed. However, the text above has the same problem: if we argue now on what's the intersection of 2+ laws, imagine the battles on what copyrights holders "would want". A precautionary principle is such if it's actionable and «enables rapid response [lacking a] complete evaluation» (Commons admins are ridiculously overloaded): it must a) be guided by facts rather than mind-reading; b) prevent irreversible damage to reusers (better safe than sorry).
  • The intention of the proposal would perhaps be better expressed, without such problems, as integrating the current «a particular file should be deleted where there is significant doubt about its freedom» with «where the copyright holders operate», or «that is, unless it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt to be free wherever the copyright holders operate». I have no idea if this would work but such a text is at least emendable, e.g. by debating if "free" includes "practically waived", if "copyright holders" includes sublicensees and how, if "operate" means having main seat, or an activity related to copyright, or any activity, or even just visitors to their website from that country, etc. etc. Once clarified, however, it should become easy to determine if the burden of proof was satisfied or not for each file.
  • If the WMF board wants to do something clear in this swamp, it could do so in a couple lines saying that the Wikimedia projects proclaim and follow the Berne convention's rule of the shorter term, until specifically forced to the contrary by law enforcement. PD-art is a community precedent for law interpretation; this would go slightly farther, in the territory of civil disobedience. Again, not my job to determine what this would entail.

  Enough! I wrote too much and spent too much time on this reply... --Nemo 08:53, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comment - Help required

Hey, I need some help setting up Commons:Requests for comment/New extensions. Recently, I stumbled upon bugzilla:67209 which makes this new RfC necessary — hopefully the last time for this sort of issue. The current structure looks messy/ bloated and it might be non-intuitive what the RfC is exactly about or what single options mean. Therefore, please share your thoughts. -- Rillke^(q?) 22:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

The Rfc is not really open to votes and comments on the subject itself but needs some formal considerations before. Comments about that are, however welcome. -- Rillke^(q?) 10:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

"Moldovan language" propaganda with unfree content by User:Лобачев Владимир

I wonder if someone can review the activity of User:Лобачев Владимир who is primarily uploading unfree Russian propaganda content for a so-called "Moldovan language" (practically Romanian), all in the context of tensions in the region, with Moldova signing an agreement with EU yesterday. Examples include: File:Eu vorbesc limba moldovenească.jpg, File:Limba noastra moldoveneasca.svg, File:Graffiti politice în Republica Moldova.png. Also the insistence of adding all kind of politically-loaded content into the Category:Moldovan language, together with other images, such as those relating to the Moldavian subdialect of Romanian which shouldn't belong there. If "Moldovan" is a distinct language as this propaganda tries to imply, then images treating the dialects of Romanian language, such as File:Sprachatlas Weigand 65.JPG don't belong into this category, as a dialect can't be another language at the same time. Any changes and fixes I did have been reverted, while I am accused of a Pro-Romanian stance. As I don't want to get into any edit wars or conflicts, I hope someone neutral can review this. Thanks.--Codrin.B (talk) 09:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

From our wiki article on the matter:

• Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence names the official language Romanian. The Constitution of Moldova names the state language of the country Moldovan. In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian.

So I wouldn't necessary call this propaganda. Also, nominating an image for deletion as "propaganda material" is not proper, we do not censor Commons in that manner, all content is allowed to be here as long as it is not copyrighted. Fry1989 ^eh? 18:29, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. That's why I investigated further and discovered that all those images were unfree, stolen from internet. As a matter of fact, if you look at User talk:Лобачев Владимир, you can see dozens and dozens of violations, plus blocks for edit wars, from the past. So the pattern continues to repeat, unimpeded. He has been ignoring the license requirements and other Commons and WP rules for a long time. --Codrin.B (talk) 08:57, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• User blocked for two weeks because od editwarring 2nd time. I suggest next block to be indefinite. Ankry (talk) 10:07, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

  I think your action is erroneously. It is counterproductive to block productive user for affixing category. Availability deliberate propogandy is questionable. Ю. Данилевский (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

  Yes, I blocked by mistake (looked into diffs of different files and I saw edittwar while it did not exist). I am sorry for that. Block removed. Ankry (talk) 16:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Category:Harbours in Fishbourne, Isle of Wight

As allowed by Commons:Categories for discussion#Closing a discussion, I closed the old cfd for this category (closed as delete). Since I am not an admin and therefore cannot delete the category myself, what is the correct procedure for getting it deleted? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:29, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Deleted. As empty category. Ankry (talk) 14:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. For future reference, though, what is the proper way to get a category deleted after closing an RfD? Is making a request here really the best way? And another question: is being empty a recognized reason to delete a category (not counting administrative categories, of course)? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:59, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion policy#Categories Ankry (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit a protected file page for me, please

Hi, I'm not an admin on Commons so can't edit File:India-locator-map-blank.svg. I would appreciate an administrator editing it for me. The file is no longer an English Wikipedia FP, so please replace {{Assessments|enwiki=1}} with {{Assessments|enwiki=2|enwiki-nom=delist/File:India-locator-map-blank.svg}}. Ta! Julia\^talk 17:41, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. --A.Savin 18:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)