GuildWiki:Admin noticeboard/Resolved3

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GFDL content on Guildwiki

There is some insecurity about allowing GFDL content on GuildWiki. The article GuildWiki:Archiving Help, initially copied from GWW, was copyvio-tagged and speedily deleted (luckily I already had the page open for editing, the present version is 100% rewritten).

Now publishing GFDL content on GuildWiki is not a copyright violation per se; if it was, we couldn't publish GFDL-licensed images, either. All that was needed to cure the page was to place a notice on it that said, in effect: "This page is not under BY-NC-SA, but under GFDL".

I suggest that we also add that "all user contributions to the page are considered dual-licensed under both licenses until the GFDL content has been eliminated, then the page (and all contributions) reverts to BY-NC-SA". This allows for step-by-step rewriting of longer articles.

Another way to do it is to say on the page that "all content in blue boxes is GFDL-licensed, please add your edits outside of these boxes". We can then step by step cut these down by rewriting the content outside the boxes and cutting the box contents until none are left. Thoughts? --◄mendel► 23:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

New image license

I propose a new image license. The proposal is at Template:Licensed image. It would find use for images such as Shadowphoenix2.gif, Banjthulu IPU.png (the licensing info on that image is inaccurate) and Valid-xhtml10-blue.png. If the admins so please, I would ask that it be added to the image upload dialog dropdown. --◄mendel► 22:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about what the advantage is compared to the pre-existing license choices we have, which to my knowledge cover everything - is there some other licensing which does not easily fall into one of our categories? (T/C) 09:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, what existing license should have been used for those 3 examples? They're not fair use, really. --◄mendel► 10:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Hrm...other than the IPU, those other images don't have their licenses set up in such a way as to be easily classified, yet they probably have the proper documentation somewhere. (probably in RL) I can see how this does present a problem for us...I guess that fair-use is the closest applicable policy. The problem with simply linking to or pasting a copyright from somewhere else is that it may not have the same legal standing as our current licenses do (when properly done)...I don't know. We need someone here who has real legal expertise. (actually, such a person could have been useful many times over for I can't think how many major wikidramas...>.>) (T/C) 10:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The IPU is not easily classified. Have you looked at wikipedia:Image:Uri.svg? It provides both a link and a copy of the license. We need to be able to do licenses somewhat like that, in my opinion. For the XHTML button, I can provide a weblink to the license on w3c.org, or copy the text from there. As I said, it's not really fair use unless you use it to illustrate an article about it or some such.

Do we have a section on the wiki that states who to send DMCA takedown notices to? I'd suggest pointing to the admin noticeboard or the admin info page. --◄mendel► 10:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I had looked at that but now I see it's just a generic infobox and not a license template. Now I am inclined to agree. However, unless there are more than just those three images (?) it does seem a bit silly to create a tag just for them...oh well. If others agree I'll go ahead and add it (unless someone beats me to it!) to the menu.

I don't think such a page exists as we have never had to take such an action before. The copyvio template isn't mvuch help either. (T/C) 11:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The wiki should decide which licenses are acceptable and, for most cases, not allow images under other licenses. This should probably mean only CC, GFDL, and whatever license/terms ANet allows fan sites to use their material under (and of course anything in the public domain). I gave the three examples only the briefest of investigations, but:

• Image:Shadowphoenix2.gif: I did not see where the stated author has allowed copies of her work under any license. Unless the wiki has an article about her work as an artist, I can't see how it could be fair use. Kill it.
• Image:Banjthulu IPU.png and [[Image:Valid-xhtml10-blue.png: The licensing terms are clearly stated but are currently not being met for at least the W3C icon. The W3C icon requires the image to always be used as a link to revalidate the page but the image's page itself does not do that. It won't do that unless you resort to JS tricks to rewrite the page. I didn't check whether the IPU logo's requirements were being met everywhere it was being used. Regardless, I would recommend it not be allowed even if made compliant because it's not CC/GDFL/ANet. Probably want to kill these.

The problem with allowing random licenses is that, well, they can be weird and can break the general wiki paradigm of editing whatever you want to make things better. I can't inline the IPU image saying "hey, I like this image." I can't edit the W3C to change the color. Although I know this, random users won't. Verifying random licensing terms for more than a handful of strangely-licensed images will, at best, just lead to copyright violations even if no one ever notices or cares.

While we're on the topic: fair use. Since this is a Guild Wars wiki, and probably all of ANet's stuff is available under their fan site terms, off the top of my head I can't really think of a case where fair use could be reasonably claimed. I took a look through the (small) fair use category for images, and it wasn't pretty. "Fair use" seems to have been picked because the uploader knew it wasn't under any license but wanted to upload the image anyway. "I want it on my user page" is not a good reason, even when it is GW related but not under any license. (For example, there's some GW concept art. If it's not available under the usual fan site terms, then it's not fair use unless maybe we've got an article discussing the art of GW. But, as far as I know, all we have are game guide-type articles, so I would not say it would hold up as fair use when used anywhere here.)

Finally, DMCA takedown notices would go to Wikia (as registered with the US Copyright Office.) --65.13.59.67 11:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

wikihelp:Displaying_images#Licensing. Sigh. --◄mendel► 02:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

"Don't use CC nc licenses because we don't want to get sued for putting up ads they go against our open content mission." Upwards of 99% of the content here is probably CC by-nc-sa 2.0 already. --65.13.59.67 04:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is because the wiki had that license when it moved here. Still, the page strongly suggests that we should shelve the "special licenses"idea - apart from the open source philosophy you clubbed us with ;-) - and rightly so. --◄mendel► 05:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)