Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:06:48 UTC

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Bug 5169 - Restricting images to particular articles
Restricting images to particular articles
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
File management (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Lowest enhancement with 3 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedi...
:
: 6880 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2006-03-05 00:42 UTC by Chris Sherlock
Modified: 2011-03-13 18:06 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Chris Sherlock 2006-03-05 00:42:39 UTC
We have an issue with fair use images whereby an image may be uploaded for a
particular article and correctly used under fair use, but in another article may
not be used as a fair image. An example of this would be [[TIME Person of the
Year]], where there are TIME covers that are appropriate to this article as they
illustrate and make critical commentary about the TIME article, but are
inappropriate on the article about the person themselves because that article
doesn't have critical commentary about the article. 

I would like to ask for a way of restricting images (particularly fair use
images) to particular specified articles.
Comment 1 Brion Vibber 2006-03-05 03:34:43 UTC
Due to the open and fluid nature of Wikipedia and its requirement for free licensing,
content that imposes these kinds of restrictions probably isn't appropriate for Wikipedia.
Recommend WONTFIX.
Comment 2 Chris Sherlock 2006-03-05 04:00:33 UTC
Good luck with Wikimedia gets SUED.
Comment 3 Chris Sherlock 2006-03-05 04:01:47 UTC
Hmmm... that was harsh. But you are dead-set wrong: we DO allow content that is
not free: fair use images. 
Comment 4 Brion Vibber 2006-03-05 04:42:47 UTC
That's a mistake. Hopefully it'll be corrected, since our entire project is based on being freely editable, copiable, reusable...
Comment 5 Minh Nguyễn 2006-03-06 08:31:34 UTC
One problem with this proposal is that free use images can legitimately be used
in more than one article – a TIME cover might be used not only with a Person of
the Year, but also in an article about that year (it might be the year that
person famously died), a more general article with a section that deals with
that person, etc. This would simply put up lots of red tape to legitimately
including fair use images in articles.
Comment 6 Chris Sherlock 2006-03-06 13:44:07 UTC
With respect, I cannot agree with that last comment. My enhancement request
would not restrict all images from being used in different articles (the
mechanism would be to allow you to specify a list of articles the image can be
used in), so it wouldn't be applied to truly free images. 

Currently we have a situation where fair use is being abused. Unless we get rid
of it entirely, as Brion has suggested, we must have a way of restricting its
use. This is a compromise that would allow fair use but restrict its use. 
Comment 7 brianna.laugher 2006-04-23 15:55:33 UTC
Just an idea: This proposal could also go some way to stopping penis pictures
(etc) being used in vandalism attacks.
Comment 8 Chris Sherlock 2006-05-22 10:28:44 UTC
Can I ask whether developers are still interested in this bug?
Comment 9 Rob Church 2006-12-24 02:08:37 UTC
*** Bug 6880 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Rob Church 2006-12-24 02:09:28 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Just an idea: This proposal could also go some way to stopping penis pictures
> (etc) being used in vandalism attacks.

Use the bad image list for that. Although, if the picture is superfluous to
requirements, perhaps it should just be deleted.
Comment 11 ejsanders 2006-12-24 21:36:17 UTC
Bad image list is for /really/ bad images, and stops them being in-lined at all.
It would be useful to have an control list for unfree images (allowing on
multiple pages if required) Saying that all Fair Use should be removed (which
would be nice) isn't really a fix for this bug.

As an alternative, if someone could write a bot to enforce a template based
system (Template:Allowedin), which would run:
 foreach image in Category:Restricted use images
 {
   Open image page, extract whitelist.
   (Remove non article namespace links from whitelist.)
   (Check for redirects in the whitelist. Auto-fix (if possible) or add to to-do
list.)
   Write cleaned whitelist back to image page.
   Iterate file-links for image.
   {
     If page not in whitelist, load and remove image instances.
   }
 }
I have put the template on a few test images, if you want to play around.
Comment 12 Daniel Kinzler 2007-01-13 21:50:54 UTC
As an admin on the german wikipedia and commons i can only say: get rid of fair
use images. Its even unclear if description pages for fair use images are legal,
not to speak of image dumps, Fair use material is a huge problem for a site that
tries to host truly free content. This is a policy issue, not a technical issue.
I don't think its even feasable to implement this - what if the "allowed"
article gets renamed? Should the image be allowed on the talk page? What if it
is replaced? How to make the restriction obvious and easy to handle for users?
How and when should the restriction  be (re)checked? What if the relevant text,
refering to the image, is removed from the artilce? etc...
Comment 13 ejsanders 2007-01-13 22:02:21 UTC
As mentioned, this would also be useful for moderately offensive images that
aren't worthy of the bad image list. I agree with your sentiment with regards to
Fair Use, and in an ideal world we probably wouldn't need this, but then in an
ideal world we wouldn't need any of the anti-vandalism tools we have, but we
still code them.
Comment 14 Chris Sherlock 2007-01-14 08:32:54 UTC
As an admin on the English wikipedia, I say: don´t get rid of fair use, as it is a 
valid and useful legal concept. There are certain images, for instance [[The Falling 
Man]] and screenshots of software, that are extremely valuable and are valid uses of 
fair use.

Please note that I agree that fair use is far too liberally used. However, if you 
don´t want fair use on the .de Wikipedia, that´s fine. Just don´t foist this on 
the .en community.
Comment 15 Rob Church 2007-01-14 08:35:29 UTC
Reclosing as WONTFIX per Brion; if he changes his mind...well, he knows how to
reopen. ;)

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