User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive/2013/4

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

"Ample evidence" for File:Paul Myners.jpg (copied from en.wikipedia)

Hi Jimmy,
I was wondering whether you could comment on the issue I brought up on your Commons talk page almost two days ago, i.e. why you claimed that there was "ample evidence" that this file had been released by the copyright holder — the London-based VisualMedia agency — under CC-BY-SA, and why you blankly refused to provide OTRS with a written evidence of such a release; especially now, after its representative informed us that they have never agreed for the picture to be used for commercial purposes in the first place.

Seeing that you were able to respond to other threads brought up on your Commons talk page very promptly, and yet you didn't answer my questions for two days, I am feeling a bit ignored, so any response would be greatly appreciated — particularly after all your comments on how Commons and its OTRS process are broken. Thanks, odder (talk) 22:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Jimbo tends to be busy but allows others to explain misunderstandings: I wanted to note that Jimbo's responses seem to reflect the limited time he has, to post messages, amid many other activities. So one message might get an answer, while a nearby topic gets none. Jimbo has noted reading several forums, rather than just enwiki or Commons, and replies have not been systematic, so responses within "two days" should not be expected. Here, on enwiki, several other editors (or other admins) often reply to questions to Jimbo, as in this case, which appears to be a misunderstanding about the license for that photo. Perhaps, originally, the release of the photo was believed (or presumed) to be limited to only use within the article, as not everyone fully understands the implications of a "CC-BY-SA" license, but upon re-thinking then it was realized the photo would be considered "free" for any use, including commercial adverts, and so that could lead to restricting the usage as only within the bio-page article. Jimbo has often waited for such misunderstandings to be tracked and explained by others, which might include analysis of "meta-misunderstandings" as "misunderstandings about the extent of the misunderstandings" with some aspects being, perhaps, more misunderstood than others. In essence, once a major misunderstanding is detected, then tidying all the related issues can become a "ball of yarn" of related sub-misunderstandings to be explained. Further discussions often lead to a point of diminishing returns, as somewhat tedious chatter. In fact, in several cases, Jimbo's only response might be to 'hat' the discussion, to be considered concluded as no longer productive, within a collapsed box. I hope that clarifies why Jimbo, within limited time, has tended to avoid back-and-forth replies about such matters. -Wikid77 06:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
    • It doesn't. odder (talk) 09:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
    • Jimbo asserted repeatedly that Commons' failure to take his word for it that the copyright holder had released the image under CC-BY-SA was evidence of how broken Commons is. Now it turns out the copyright holder hasn't released the image in this way, some kind of comment from Jimbo would be highly appropriate. Rd232 talk 10:43, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
    • I, too, would like comment from Jimmy in this situation (and on this case only), given that he was quite aggressive towards individuals personally, and Commons and OTRS generally. Also of concern is that User:Sj (a Wikimedia Trustee) got directly involved in this case, and suggested that the images were all ok (totally disregarding my very initial comments about the copyright holder to Jimmy), and all but insists that others should be doing the licence verification work for Jimmy. Well, in this case, and in this case ONLY, this was done (due to Jimmy continuing to insist that the files were correctly licenced after it had been deleted), and it demonstrates that Commons and OTRS is not broken. There is a lesson to learn here; I hope that Jimmy can firstly comment on that, and learn from it. Russavia (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
      • Everyone interested in the subject definitely should read Sj's summary of the situation at User:Sj/Permissions#Case_studies, it neatly points out what's wrong with commons at the moment, and how to easily fix it. --Conti|✉ 12:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
        • Except that Sj's summary there makes an assumption about this case which has been disproven, thereby proving precisely the opposite of his point. The User:Sj/Permissions#A_problem_with_basic_license_process discussion is more illuminating on explaining the problems. Also whilst I welcome ideas for improvements, I don't think either of Sj's suggestions there (android app for sending permissions to OTRS, and "a queue/backlog of images waiting for agency/creator confirmation of free license") are really helpful. Rd232 talk 15:17, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
        • Bottom line: we should be talking about how to raise evidential standards, not complaining abut them being too high. This case, where those standards proved to be exactly on the money in terms of preventing copyright mistakes, ought to illustrate that. Rd232 talk 15:21, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
          • Oops, my bad. I wanted to link to User:Sj/Permissions, and not just one subsection of it. I agree that, in this case, Jimbo should have gone through OTRS. The problem lies in the disparity between the OTRS requirements and the (non-existing) requirements for every other upload. We could either lower one or raise the other. --Conti|✉ 15:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

If I tell you that it's safer to cross the street with the light, and you do so and get hit by a car that would have missed you had you crossed against the light, that doesn't prove my advice is wrong. It is possible for an alternative to be better than another one on the average yet sometimes fail when the worse alternative would have worked. The fact that you could have done better this one time by not following Jimbo's advice doesn't mean it's bad advice or shouldn't be followed in the future. Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Just because you can chuck in an analogy that says nothing about the issue at hand doesn't mean you should. Rd232 (talk) 13:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
The analogy is relevant. The point is that "We followed Jimbo's advice and it didn't work, and if we had done something else it would have worked" doesn't prove that the advice is bad or that the alternative is good. Not all good advice works 100% of the time, and not every bad alternative fails 100% of the time.
There are people who are only alive because they weren't wearing seatbelts. There are even people who are alive only because they are obese (it involved a flesh-eating bacterium stopped by the fat). That doesn't mean that being thin is bad and obesity is good, even though "if they followed medical advice and lost weight they would have died". Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Your irrelevant analogy doesn't even match what happened: we didn't follow Jimbo's advice, and it turns out it was good we didn't. Jimbo in effect demanded a lowering of standards, which he didn't get, and now it turns out that the existing approach was correct in this specific instance and that the lower standard demanded would have had us host a copyright violation. What is your actual point about what Commons should do? Lower standards regardless? Almost every aspect of this debate (including most of what Jimbo has said) points to trying to raise standards across the board. Rd232 (talk) 00:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Agreed here, Jimmy throws his weight around and demands to be held to different standards than everyone else, then when a few people do a bit of research uncover Jimmy's carelessness in regards to licencing and copyright, he conveniently becomes too busy to discuss the topic any further. Just a simple "Sorry, I stuffed up, maybe the established standards do make sense" would suffice. Lankiveil (talk) 11:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC).

{{Hab}}

Morozov

[1] Instead of just tweeting insults in Morozov's direction when he says something you don't agree with, why don't you write an essay in response? Or better yet, if we could get one organized, would you be willing to have a public debate with him in person? Cla68 (talk) 22:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive/2013/4&oldid=99699944"