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:::::I have read the policy a number of times. And by the way, NO WHERE in the policy is the word "harm" even used, so you may want to read it yourself, before misspeaking. The policy does state this... "''(As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.)''" The answer to the first question is obviously no in all of these cases and it is the answer to that second question which is being debated here. It is the opinion of myself and most other editors in the College Football project that can not adequately convey the message we are in these articles with out the images being used. You may interpret that differently, but we are not in violating the policy in our current system. ] (]) 08:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | :::::I have read the policy a number of times. And by the way, NO WHERE in the policy is the word "harm" even used, so you may want to read it yourself, before misspeaking. The policy does state this... "''(As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.)''" The answer to the first question is obviously no in all of these cases and it is the answer to that second question which is being debated here. It is the opinion of myself and most other editors in the College Football project that can not adequately convey the message we are in these articles with out the images being used. You may interpret that differently, but we are not in violating the policy in our current system. ] (]) 08:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | ||
:::::You might want to read ] ''Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.'' how does your usage pass that? it doesnt. thats where the "harm" phrase comes from. you cannot and will not mass use non-free content. ] 08:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | :::::You might want to read ] ''Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.'' how does your usage pass that? it doesnt. thats where the "harm" phrase comes from. you cannot and will not mass use non-free content. ] 08:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | ||
::::::If you have not read the numerous points above on how the logos significantly increase readers' understanding of the article, you should go back and read those. I really don't no what else to say, that already hasn't been said. It is pretty clear they ''significantly increase the reader's understanding of the article. It is not in violation of the policy. And by the way, you are not the ultimate authority on anything. You should not be throwing around threats and ultimatums to other users. You aren't even an admin, so I don't know where you are getting the Holier than thou attitude from. ] (]) 09:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | |||
:::Wrong, If I wanted to remove non-free material, my behavior would be completely different. I support the usage of non-free material in limited usage. ] and ] are two perfect examples of why non-free material is needed. What both my position and that of the foundation is, we must have to cover some topics, but lets keep its usage to an absolute minimum. we dont need a single non-free image used 102 times. the policy is very clear about usage, from the license resolution ''All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above.'' there are ''limited exception''s that are allowed as the foundation knows that some topics cannot be covered properly without copyrighted material. that is not carte blanche for using copyrighted material. Please review both ] and ]. ] 04:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC) | :::Wrong, If I wanted to remove non-free material, my behavior would be completely different. I support the usage of non-free material in limited usage. ] and ] are two perfect examples of why non-free material is needed. What both my position and that of the foundation is, we must have to cover some topics, but lets keep its usage to an absolute minimum. we dont need a single non-free image used 102 times. the policy is very clear about usage, from the license resolution ''All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above.'' there are ''limited exception''s that are allowed as the foundation knows that some topics cannot be covered properly without copyrighted material. that is not carte blanche for using copyrighted material. Please review both ] and ]. ] 04:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC) |
Revision as of 09:54, 16 December 2008
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Critical commentary
Unresolved – Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)What's the point of allowing non-free images to be used for critical commentary? Wouldn't original critical commentary violate Misplaced Pages:No original research and WP:SOAP, as well as violating Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view unless all major viewpoints are represented? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
- take a look at Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima it is an article about a picture, not an event almost everything in that article is critical commentary, as it discusses the image, usage, and effects of that particular image. critical commentary is by default neither positive nor negative. it is just sourced important commentary about said image. β 02:36, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
- "Critical commentary" does not mean "A Misplaced Pages editor's critical commentary". In some cases (see Guernica, Mona Lisa, or for that matter Virgin Killer), an image may have well been the subject of significant sourced critical commentary outside of Misplaced Pages. It is not original research to write what reliable sources such as well-respected publications have to say about them, any more than it's ever original research to cite and attribute a source. Seraphimblade 08:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
- IMO those are merely reports and summaries of existing critical commentary rather than critical commentary in and of themselves, which would be sufficient to meet the "in the context of critical commentary" criterion for cover art, but insufficient to meet the "for critical commentary" criterion used for screenshots, visual art and promotion material. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:23, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
- I just looked through the archives. The last time this received serious, in-depth discussion was in What is "critical commentary"? in archive 31. In that discussion, the consensus was that "critical commentary" basically means "criticism and / or commentary", and we only use the misleading "critical commentary" term because it's a legal term. If so, why doesn't the guideline explain the term or at least mention the fact that it's using the American legal definition of "critical commentary" rather than the plain English definition? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
- IMO those are merely reports and summaries of existing critical commentary rather than critical commentary in and of themselves, which would be sufficient to meet the "in the context of critical commentary" criterion for cover art, but insufficient to meet the "for critical commentary" criterion used for screenshots, visual art and promotion material. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:23, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Template:RFC error I've added an RFC. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I understand the basis of the question. To me (non-American, non-legal), "critical commentary" means casting a critical eye on the subject. That eye may discern a variety of positive and negative aspects - the role of a critic is not solely to disparage, it is to make balanced observations. Furthermore, critical commentary must always come from outside of Misplaced Pages, since we are here to report, not to comment by ourselves (well, in mainspace anyway :). Is there a mismatch in my understanding? Franamax (talk) 08:39, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I think by the sound of it you may have a mismatch, and I'd recommend you do read the discussion that Gordon linked above, particularly the contributions from User:Wikidemo, since Wikidemo is actually a US Copyright lawyer in real life. The point is, as Gordon has said above, that "critical commentary" is an American legal term which essentially covers anything justifiable as "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" (17 USC 106). But see the earlier discussion, particularly Wikidemo's comments, for a fuller presentation. Jheald (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm - that pretty much matches my non/non-view - critical commentary means talking about something, not just saying something exists. I like this quote from Wikidemo: "a requirement that an image be used for purposes of commentary means that it has to actually support and expand on what is said in the text. Merely proving with a picture that the text is true is not adding any commentary value". Franamax (talk) 11:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- In response to your first comment, that's also how I interpret "critical commentary" as a term in plain English, but including one's own subjective judgements and interpretations of a work is prohibited by Misplaced Pages:No original research, while summarizing what critics have said about something is merely reporting or summarizing criticism, not making it. Basically, I have four questions. Does this policy use "critical commentary" in the plain English sense, or in the legal sense? If this policy uses "critical commentary" in the plain English sense, isn't everything encompassed by the term prohibited by Misplaced Pages:No original research? If "critical commentary" is used in the legal sense, why doesn't the guideline explain what it means in accordance with Misplaced Pages:Explain jargon? If "critical commentary" is used in the legal sense and cannot be easily defined, why isn't there at least a statement that it cannot be easily defined, followed by a list of examples like the one at Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm - that pretty much matches my non/non-view - critical commentary means talking about something, not just saying something exists. I like this quote from Wikidemo: "a requirement that an image be used for purposes of commentary means that it has to actually support and expand on what is said in the text. Merely proving with a picture that the text is true is not adding any commentary value". Franamax (talk) 11:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I think by the sound of it you may have a mismatch, and I'd recommend you do read the discussion that Gordon linked above, particularly the contributions from User:Wikidemo, since Wikidemo is actually a US Copyright lawyer in real life. The point is, as Gordon has said above, that "critical commentary" is an American legal term which essentially covers anything justifiable as "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" (17 USC 106). But see the earlier discussion, particularly Wikidemo's comments, for a fuller presentation. Jheald (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, in reference to something that was said a few posts up, "critical commentary" is NOT a term used in U.S. copyright law, and Wikidemo has been very clear about how in that sense it is a very POOR term to use. It's an amalgamation of two SEPARATE terms that show up in fair use discussions: criticism and commentary. You can look up my past comments on this subject, but I believe that the term is very poorly defined. It either means something that would plainly be barred by WP:NOR, or it covers everything we do at every article. I can't imagine very many images of an article subject that do not "support and expand upon" what's in the text. Croctotheface (talk) 19:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
- I would support changing this phrase as well. I did a Westlaw search for the phrase a while ago, and got very few results. There is no use using a faux-legalese term that doesn't have an ordinary meaning. If we want to be more demanding than simply "commentary" we should articulate what we mean in plain English. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, let's try this, replace all references to "critical commentary" with "sourced and verifiable encyclopedic content and discussion in relation to the non-free work", since that's what "critical commentary" is. ViperSnake151 02:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'd support that. By the way, I accidentally used the politics RFC template rather than the policy RFC template. I've replaced it with the correct template and added a new timestamp. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I support replacing it, but I hope we can come up with a slightly more phrase term to use instead. I don't see why we need to say "sourced" when all material must be verifiable to be included at all. I don't see why we need to say "encyclopedic" because something inappropriate for an encyclopedia should be removed anyway.
I think that we could just use the term "commentary" and define it as something more like "enhance the reader's understanding of an element discussed within the article". Croctotheface (talk) 15:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)Actually, I think we should probably just stop using the term or anything like it. We've gotten by this long by saying "screenshots are OK for critical commentary" which, as the current discussion shows, was tantamount to just saying "screenshots are OK" and then following that up with a more or less meaningless phrase nobody really understood. Obviously all non-free screenshots have to pass all of the NFCC, so saying that they're for "critical commentary" or whatever else is basically redundant; they need to pass a much more stringent set of criteria to be considered in the first place. Croctotheface (talk) 15:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Comics in the public domain
I was reading a discussion at ], which combined with this upenn.edu page, seems to be saying that the first two issues of Whiz Comics (and some other comics) are in the public domain. Anyone have a clue? Can Image:Whiz2.JPG be used without a fair use rational? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well I'm not a lawyer, but I think I'm finding evidence that the first two whiz comics are in the public domain, and a lot of other less known comics. For instance, that upenn site lists Time magazine as having issues printed before January 29, 1934 as being in the public domain. http://commons.wikimedia.org/Image:Time-magazine-woodwin.jpg says the same thing except it has the date July 6, 1936. Some superman stuff is in the public domain, see http://commons.wikimedia.org/Image:Fleishersuperman.jpg and Superman (1940s cartoons). I'm posting this in a number of places trying to find someone who knows. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Battle of Iwo Jima
I am amused by User:Megapixie's edit here, as he has now removed the exact example used in the policy WP:NFC#Unacceptable use Images # 4 to illustrate when fair-use is allowed, with the edit summary ""Raising the flag" is NOT fair use in this context - per Policy. Replacing with another suitable image." This must be something of a record in the annals of policy creep. Johnbod (talk) 22:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Wrong. The article that policy cites is Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, an article specifically discussing the photograph.
- Agency photos cannot be used as a general illustration of the subject of the photo, eg Battle of Iwo Jima; they can only be used specifically in the context of the discussion of the photo itself.
- IMO failure to observe this distinction is probably the most serious systematic image problem we have on WP at the moment. Jheald (talk) 23:42, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- IMO WP:UCS says it's OK to use in that context...Modernist (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Common sense can't supersede US copyright law. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- IMO WP:UCS says it's OK to use in that context...Modernist (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Jheald, you are wrong. The guideline text is: "unless the image has achieved iconic status as a representation of the war or is historically important in the context of the war (e.g. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima)." The image is historically important in the context of the war and can therefore be used in an article about the war, not just in an article about the image. Ty 00:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Correct - the policy example would make no sense at all if it was only referring to the article on the photo. Johnbod (talk) 00:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but we can't use a copyright photo just because we want to. Use of the photograph simply to illustrate the battle is not what is legally called a "transformative use". Rather, it is exactly the use the photograph was taken for, and exactly the use for which people have to pay AP their licensing fees.
- The use becomes transformative if the article, or the section of the article, is specifically a commentary on the photograph itself, and its cultural and historical significance.
- If the guideline doesn't make that clear, then the guideline needs to be rewritten. Because that's the legal position. Jheald (talk) 01:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is your interpretation of the law, which is a notoriously unclear one, and an interpretation which is against long-standing wikipedia consensus, as shown in the guideline and, for example, on {{Non-free historic image}}. An article which sets the image in its full historic context affects a transformation of the image, which is not then seen in the same way as it would be in isolation. Ty 01:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- See the discussion at Template talk:Non-free historic image about the copyright violation problems with this template. IMO we might be better off without this template because it seems to justify all sorts of CVs. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- And it is not that the guideline "doesn't make that clear", but that the guideline clearly says something completely different, but is being ignored. Ishould mention I raised the matter at the Village Pump also. Johnbod (talk) 03:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is your interpretation of the law, which is a notoriously unclear one, and an interpretation which is against long-standing wikipedia consensus, as shown in the guideline and, for example, on {{Non-free historic image}}. An article which sets the image in its full historic context affects a transformation of the image, which is not then seen in the same way as it would be in isolation. Ty 01:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposal
I propose adding the following wording in italics to unacceptable image use #4, to clarify the point:
An image whose subject happens to be a war, to illustrate an article on the war, unless the image has achieved iconic status as a representation of the war or is historically important in the context of the war and the image is being used in a section of the article specifically analysing the image's historical importance or iconic status (e.g. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima).
Jheald (talk) 11:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I support this change.Per howcheng below, I now think that this wording is that great either. But in any event, some change is necessary because the current wording is unacceptable. Jheald's explanation of the relevant law is correct - and this is not a "notoriously unclear" aspect of copyright law. Transformative use is pretty much the key to understanding fair use. It is a copyright violation to swipe AP's image because it happens to be a great way to illustrate the Battle of Iwo Jima (as evidenced by its achieving iconic status). AP took this picture exactly so it could charge people for this use! It is fair use, on the other hand, to use the photo in an article about the photo, because it is transforming the photo, treating it as an artifact in its own right. In short, {{Non-free historic image}} is frequently misused to justify copyright violations. We should clarify the examples and the template text. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)- Note that this is not "policy creep" - the current example is plainly incorrect. If we are going to have an example, it should be an acceptable one. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- If this isn't "policy creep" then it's "policy absurd" lacking common sense, and a misinterpretation of the context of use here...Modernist (talk) 16:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Note that this is not "policy creep" - the current example is plainly incorrect. If we are going to have an example, it should be an acceptable one. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose The proposed wording does not work. It retains the link to Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, which is clearly not the article the example intends to refer to - that is an article on the photo itself, and the degree of iconic status is just not relevant to fair use there. This is the link that has confused some into misreading the example. Equally, if "specific analysis" of the image is required, there is no point at all in the "iconic status" wording, indeed no need to have the whole exception there. But to remove the whole exception clearly would be a change in policy - downgrading to nothing all educational/non-profit factors & relying wholly on transformation. This approach runs against both US law and the Misplaced Pages Foundation declared approach, and should be resisted. I would add that Battle of Iwo Jima has sufficient analysis of the specific image to justify fair-use even if this wording were to be implemented, both in the lead, just opposite where this image was removed, and a much longer section slightly lower down. So even on this policy creep wording, it's removal was unjustified. Johnbod (talk) 16:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Oppose.As I tried to do in this edit, it's not that the guideline is incorrect -- it's that the example is. By using Raising the Flag, we create a conflict between #4 and #5, the latter requiring us to NOT use the photo because there's an entire article about it. Instead, the lead image in Six-Day War would be a much better example (although now that I look at the article more closely, it really needs more discussion to justify its use, but IIRC this one photo is emblematic of the war from Israel's perspective). howcheng {chat} 17:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)- N.B. I just added more details about the photo to the article, which should now easily pass NFCC. howcheng {chat} 17:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- But do you believe some change is still required, then? BTW your changes have just been reverted. If the text is WP:UNDUE as claimed, does the image even meet NFCC in that article? Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- I unreverted and explained to Nudve why it was there, and he has agreed that the passage should be there. howcheng {chat} 18:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC) PS -- I guess I am not opposed to extra wording, just the example.
- The western wall photo should at most be thumbnailed next to the section discussing it. It should not be being used display-sized as the main photo, nowhere near the discussion of it. As regards Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, there is no conflict between #4 and #5, because "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" is the article entirely about the photograph. Jheald (talk) 19:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- The conflict is when people use "Raising the Flag" in other articles beyond the article about the photo itself, which prohibited by #5, but #4 implies that they can do so. howcheng {chat} 19:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- The western wall photo should at most be thumbnailed next to the section discussing it. It should not be being used display-sized as the main photo, nowhere near the discussion of it. As regards Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, there is no conflict between #4 and #5, because "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" is the article entirely about the photograph. Jheald (talk) 19:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- I unreverted and explained to Nudve why it was there, and he has agreed that the passage should be there. howcheng {chat} 18:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC) PS -- I guess I am not opposed to extra wording, just the example.
- But do you believe some change is still required, then? BTW your changes have just been reverted. If the text is WP:UNDUE as claimed, does the image even meet NFCC in that article? Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- N.B. I just added more details about the photo to the article, which should now easily pass NFCC. howcheng {chat} 17:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
A response to Johnbod's comment above: Is it a bit hazardous to be relying on our educational/non-profit status solely. From our article Fair use:
- "The subfactor mentioned in the legislation above, 'whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes,' has recently been deemphasized in some Circuits 'since many, if not most, secondary uses seek at least some measure of commercial gain from their use.' More important is whether the use fulfills any of the 'preamble purposes' also mentioned in the legislation above, as these have been interpreted as paradigmatically 'transformative.'"
The analysis in the case cited is very persuasive and is worth a read. On a tangentially related note, there was a recent related holding in the patent context: "our precedent does not immunize any conduct that is in keeping with the alleged infringer's legitimate business, regardless of its commercial implications. For example, major research universities, such as Duke, often sanction and fund research projects with arguably no commercial application whatsoever. However these projects unmistakably further the institutions' legitimate business objectives, including educating and enlightening students and faculty participating in these projects. The projects also serve, for example, to increase the status of the institution and lure lucrative research grants, students and faculty.". See also Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music:
- "The central purpose of this investigation is to see, in Justice Story’s words, whether the new work merely “supersede the objects” of the original creation, or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message; it asks, in other words, whether and to what extent the new work is “transformative.” Although such transformative use is not absolutely necessary for a finding of fair use, the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works. Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine’s guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use." (citations omitted.)
Clearly transformation is at the heart of fair use analysis. It should be at the heart of our NFCC analysis as well. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- I am by no means proposing we rely "on our educational/non-profit status solely" - you are the one resting everything on transformation, which, I repeat, reflects neither the law nor Foundation policy. Are you saying "iconic status" is wholly irrelevant? If we are quoting cases, Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation would seem more relevant here. Johnbod (talk) 20:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Transformation is only one of the four factors of free use. There are a number of cases where the use of the copyrighted material was not deemed to be transformative, but the use was still ruled to be fair anyway, such as Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.. However, those cases aren't always applicable to us. For our purposes, yes transformation is indeed important. The story of the JonBenet Ramsey photos is a good case study. howcheng {chat} 20:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Non-free (as in speech) is non-free, no matter how much fair use in copyright law is strengthened or weakened. Even if US copyright law explicitly stated "all reproductions of copyrighted work for non-commercial purposes is completely legal", our NFC policy cannot be reflected to accommodate that change because reproductions of copyrighted work still carry non-free use issues, and thus require rationale to be used on en.wiki in light of the free content mission. That's why it's important to recognize that the NFC policy is not derived from copyright law but from the free content approach. --MASEM 18:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Except our NFC policy also is intended to be well within the bounds of what is allowed by copyright law. These non-transformative uses of historic images, especially those by press agencies, are not well within these bounds. To that extent that our NFC policy aims to ensure that wikipedia's use of these photos is legally sound, it must track what the law says. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- In response to this, I have amended {{Non-free historic image}}. ViperSnake151 12:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
No time limit
I read somewhere (but cannot find it any more - old talk pages don't seem to show up in Google, and the internal search is no good for this) that there is "no time limit" as such, and this means that "replaceable" applies not only to things for which someome has a replacement here and now, but for anything for which replacement is or will be possible. The images are Image:Ldn Ovrgrd Train.jpg and Image:Ldn Ovrgrd Train Internal.JPG. The usual exemption here for future things is when it's not certain that they will exist, however in this case we are not only past the point of having any doubt, but the subject now exists. This photo is several months old, and I am reliably informed that the first units of the real thing are doing the rounds in testing. As I understand it, "reasonably" does not extend to having to know where something is at any given time, otherwise we could say that photographs of anything not rooted in the ground (including people) are not replaceable. I'd like to hear a few other people's thoughts. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 10:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'll say this again pretty much. It wasn't replaceable at the time it was uploaded, but it could be now. We just need someone to get off their office chair and get us the goods. ViperSnake151 12:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, but your response was one of the reasons I asked here instead. I had hoped for an answer from someone that actually understands Misplaced Pages policy. This may be a grey area, but "it's fine until someone actually replaces it" is definitely not the correct answer. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 12:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that we should not use photos of things that will exist in the future, including architects' sketches of buildings (which seem to be included frequently in articles of buildings under construction) and these train mock-ups. We wait for other photos to be uploaded, never knowing when an image will become available, and these we know will become available. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure about that. I agree that once something becomes replaceable with a free image, the non-free image becomes immediately invalid, but until that can be done, a non-free is appropriate, though I would expect that in describing the "replaceable" aspect in its rationale to estimate how long that image cannot be replaced for (completion of building). That is, the "replaceable" aspect of non-free applies to the past and the present (what we know to be true if replacement is possible), but we cannot crystal-ball into the future. Example, a building that is being built gains appropriate sourcing to be an article, but mid-point in its construction, something happens to cancel it (collapse, lack of funds, etc.) The planned building doesn't lose any notability, but it will be impossible to get a free image of the final product. --MASEM 16:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- But in that case, wouldn't we just be able to undelete the image if the project is canceled? Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I would think stuff like buildings would need an illustration of some sort of final concept anyway, since most articles on them will go quite into detail about what they are going to be like externally -- thus allowing the fair use until they are done. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- But why can't we wait until the building is done, like we do for every other subject? It may be years before we get a picture of Tulsi Giri, for instance--and for that matter we are likely never to get a picture--but we don't allow a nonfree image there. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- With living people at the present, it is always possible to get a free image, even if the likelihood of getting one is not readily apparent. You can't do that for a building that isn't completed. As long as editors are aware that as soon as something that could not be taken as a free picture becomes as such and thus voiding any allowable use of non-free images, we are sticking to the policy correctly. (and in the same fashion as soon as a living person dies, a non-free image of them is then allowable if there has been difficulty finding a free one while they were alive). --MASEM 23:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- To avoid any confusion, people were taking photographs of this in the latter phases of construction over 6 months ago, and I'm reliably informed that the trains have been sighted in the wild. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 09:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- With living people at the present, it is always possible to get a free image, even if the likelihood of getting one is not readily apparent. You can't do that for a building that isn't completed. As long as editors are aware that as soon as something that could not be taken as a free picture becomes as such and thus voiding any allowable use of non-free images, we are sticking to the policy correctly. (and in the same fashion as soon as a living person dies, a non-free image of them is then allowable if there has been difficulty finding a free one while they were alive). --MASEM 23:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- But why can't we wait until the building is done, like we do for every other subject? It may be years before we get a picture of Tulsi Giri, for instance--and for that matter we are likely never to get a picture--but we don't allow a nonfree image there. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure about that. I agree that once something becomes replaceable with a free image, the non-free image becomes immediately invalid, but until that can be done, a non-free is appropriate, though I would expect that in describing the "replaceable" aspect in its rationale to estimate how long that image cannot be replaced for (completion of building). That is, the "replaceable" aspect of non-free applies to the past and the present (what we know to be true if replacement is possible), but we cannot crystal-ball into the future. Example, a building that is being built gains appropriate sourcing to be an article, but mid-point in its construction, something happens to cancel it (collapse, lack of funds, etc.) The planned building doesn't lose any notability, but it will be impossible to get a free image of the final product. --MASEM 16:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that we should not use photos of things that will exist in the future, including architects' sketches of buildings (which seem to be included frequently in articles of buildings under construction) and these train mock-ups. We wait for other photos to be uploaded, never knowing when an image will become available, and these we know will become available. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, but your response was one of the reasons I asked here instead. I had hoped for an answer from someone that actually understands Misplaced Pages policy. This may be a grey area, but "it's fine until someone actually replaces it" is definitely not the correct answer. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 12:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I'd prefer that "replaceable" be read as "replaceable through the effort of modern persons". So, my preference is that depictions of future events be allowed (provided it meets the other criteria) until such time as it is no longer "future". I think it is silly to disallow non-free images when there is no possibility to create an alternative in the present-day. Obviously an artist sketch should be removed once it is possible to create an alternative, but not before that in my opinion. Dragons flight (talk) 09:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- I refer you to the comment immediately above. See also here - first page contains 4 photos of the subject in question. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks to those Flickr images, I would say that we are no longer talking about the future. It is time to delete the designer's sketches of that train (though it is still fine to have an external link to the source.) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- I refer you to the comment immediately above. See also here - first page contains 4 photos of the subject in question. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Non-free examples of paintings in lead sections on biography articles
I was wondering if I could get a few more opinions on the discussion here. J Milburn (talk) 21:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Is this a free-use license?
Please see http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/about/terms.html. Does this mean that photos found on that site are free use? -- Avi (talk) 01:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- No, it just means that you don't need to pay them to view the website. --Carnildo (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Great, thanks for the clarification. -- Avi (talk) 17:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Opinons requested - New CSD i9 propsoal
As this includes proposed removal of specific NFC wording I am letting editors know about the New CSD i9 proposal and request for comments. If you wish to read the discussions that led up to this proposal you can find them at Important I9 add needed, Misplaced Pages:Images and media for deletion/2008 December 4#Image:Australian embassy bombing flag.jpg and admin noticeboard. Thank you. Soundvisions1 (talk) 13:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
How long can copyrighted quotations be?
The policy states that "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used... Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." What is the exact difference between "brief" and "extensive"? I've removed quotes longer than 100 words citing this policy only to be reverted. This article, for example, includes a 127 word copyrighted quote. Is that considered "brief" or "extensive"? Kaldari (talk) 18:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- Given the lack of supporting text I would say that that usage is too much. Canis Lupus 20:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
For more tips, see:
Misplaced Pages talk:Copyright problems#"Repeating quotes verbatim is not plagiarism."
and the one that follows it (Guidance for writing "in your own words"?)
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 21:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- "Brief" versus "Extensive" is very context-sensitive. The courts have ruled that quoting a single sentence of a 500-page novel was not fair use (a newspaper review of the book giving away the twist ending), and have also ruled that quoting the entire lyrics of a song was fair use (an extensive line-by-line analysis of the song). --Carnildo (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- For the "novel", I believe you're referring to Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, which was more than a sentence (300 to 400 words), but still a tiny tiny portion of the 500-page memoir. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- OK, then what's your specific opinion on the usage in this instance: Why Men Rule#Part IV: The Meaning of Male and Female. Personally, I think it's excessive. Canis Lupus thinks it's excessive as well. What are other people's opinions? Kaldari (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'd drop the quote entirely. --Carnildo (talk) 00:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
- OK, then what's your specific opinion on the usage in this instance: Why Men Rule#Part IV: The Meaning of Male and Female. Personally, I think it's excessive. Canis Lupus thinks it's excessive as well. What are other people's opinions? Kaldari (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- For the "novel", I believe you're referring to Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, which was more than a sentence (300 to 400 words), but still a tiny tiny portion of the 500-page memoir. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Require marking of fair use INSIDE articles?
Well, my interpretation of this particular line in the licensing policy suggests that we are still not in full compliance (but then again...we're not in compliance 100% at any point)...
As you know, the line I am about to bring up was used to rename all the non-free media templates to be prefixed with "Non-free" (which in my mind, actually makes sense from the ground up, even while not factoring this in, because the difference between "Non-free software screenshot" and "Free software screenshot" just "goes together".
Non-free content used under an EDP must be identified in a machine-readable format so that it can be easily identified by users of the site as well as re-users.
Personally, since it does not fully say "where" it has to be marked, I am assuming that there has to be machine-readable markings ANYWHERE dealing with a non-free image. The recommendation of the Comics Wikiproject "suggests" that a comment such as <!-- FAIR USE of IMAGENAME.jpg: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:IMAGENAME.jpg for rationale --> be placed next to every image (but then, it ALSO "requires" that a copyright notice of the publisher itself be used on the page too, which if anything...may be something to look into requiring everywhere, but still).
Anyway, per interpretations of the policy, should non-free images be marked INSIDE articles too? ViperSnake151 21:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
- HTML comments and other notices within the articles should be avoided. as for template naming all non-free license templates should currently start with non-free. Canis Lupus 21:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Clarification request
A Bot has marked the images of the article Starshine (comics) as being non-fair use and orphaned- despite being from comic book covers (which as I understand makes them usable on Misplaced Pages since their purpose is promotion.) Also they are clearly not orphaned if they are being used on an article. I believe this to be a Bot error. Please someone explain this to me, otherwise I'll proceed to remove them from the orphaned list. Thank you. -Wilfredo Martinez (talk) 15:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
- Neither Image:Starshine I.png nor Image:Starshine II.png has ever been marked as orphaned, and I don't see any other images having been used in the article recently. Which images are you referring to? --Carnildo (talk) 21:45, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
- Precisely those images. The notice is at the bottom of my personal User talk:Wilfredo Martinez page. Again, note this was done by a Bot, which is why I think it's an error (and had to come here to ask. I hate bots.) -Wilfredo Martinez (talk) 03:39, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- The bot's telling you about Image:Starshine I.gif and Image:Starshine II.gif (note that they're .gif files, not .png), which are indeed no longer used. --Carnildo (talk) 08:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- So the Images were changed from .gif to .png? And now the old ones are no longer used? That's OK, then... but why tell *me* about it? Couldn't the person who did the change have removed the originals? Again: this is why I hate bots. I'm seriously thinking of just ignoring them from now on. Give me a REAL person to talk with. -Wilfredo Martinez (talk) 01:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Severe overuse problem
I've become increasingly aware of a growing fair use overuse problem and would like some input on how to proceed.
The problem is college sports logos are being distributed across a huge number of articles. For an example, I cite one of the most egregious cases: Image:Ohio State buckeyes logo.png. This fair use image is used in 102 articles. 102. There's only rationales for 6 articles, but that's not the real problem here. The problem is the immensity of use, and the rationales for such use.
The typical purpose of use in these cases is "Identification and critical commentary in the NNN article, a subject of public interest. The logo confirms to readers they have reached the correct article, and illustrates the intended branding message."
Now, WP:NFC says regarding acceptable use of team logos, that they can be used for identification. So, an argument could be made this is acceptable use. Yet, there is contradicting evidence. Looking at some major league sports, we don't see the proliferation of team logos on things like 2004 World Series, 2007–08 Los Angeles Lakers season, 2006–07 Boston Celtics season, 2005–06 Detroit Red Wings season and many other similar articles. In fact, I haven't found one where the logos are being used on such articles like Image:Ohio State buckeyes logo.png and many other college sports logos are being used.
I did a test case of addressing this. On 12 November 2008, I removed the sports team logos from 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game (). Yesterday, they were restored.
There's nothing codified, but the general practice on major league teams seems to be this: "Sport team logos are used only on the article specifically about that team, and on an article regarding that team's logos, if such an article exists. The use of the logos on every page regarding that team, such as season or game articles, is not supported" Am I wrong? If not wrong, I'd like to see this added to the guideline to help clarify the use of team logos.
Comments? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- To "brand" a page as belonging to a team to make it easier to the reader to know they hit the right page is definitely out of line. We don't use company logos on specific product pages (beyond any branding already on product's logo or picture), we don't reprint the title card of a television show on every episode page it may have. The only time a logo may go "free" on a page with a "for identification" rationale is on the company the logo represents, any other time it must be for criticism and commentary about that logo ("Company X said Company's Y logo was too similar to theirs and started a lawsuit..." would be acceptable to use the Y logo on page X for example). Unless the sports logo is already part of another non-free image for that page, the addition of a separate logo image needs to be removed. --MASEM 15:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed, but the guideline doesn't indicate that. It says purposes of identification are sufficient. The common practice is as you say, but the guideline doesn't reflect that. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- WP:NFCC#3a covers that. β 15:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- Not really. There's nothing there regarding not using images unless really necessary. #8 might apply, but #8 is frequently controversial and subjective. I'd prefer seeing something in the guideline regarding the general case of team and corporate logos not being used liberally everywhere the entity is mentioned. Right now, the only thing to point to is the guideline and it says that identification alone is sufficient, and that's exactly what the team logos are doing all over the college sports pages. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- WP:NFCC#3a covers that. β 15:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is blatant overuse. I personally think that we should just say, "Logos can only be used on the page of their subject, or if they are critically discussed in an article that is not directly about its subject" (which would clear articles on their subjects, and the few cases where a logo is famous enough for its own page, and maybe on season articles where we can say "the team also debuted this new logo for the 2009 season".). I do not think that these images are critically discussed inside the article, so unfortunately they must go. I have done this swiftly for every page they are still used on (well, within the scope of college sports) by removing the Image parameter from the offending template. ViperSnake151 15:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- I am seeing this as an overall issue, and it extends from logos to basic images. As it relates to logos I have been seeing some editors replace Template:Non-free logo with Template:PD-font claiming that fonts can not be copyrighted therefor any "logo" that uses fonts is PD. The greater issue is how to address any image that could be considered "fair use". The problem is that all images could be considered for that use. And that is, as I am seeing it, the core issue. Misplaced Pages has one set of editors that say anything and everything is fine, there are no limits. There is another section that says only images of news items are for use, other images, such as logos or images or artwork, are not. Other will narrow it down more and say logos the use text don't fall under fair use, they fall under Template:PD-font. I am not sure how to fully address the largest issue because we have policies and guidelines that already explain the issue fairly well. When it comes down to actually removing something that is a violation, that is where the real issues come up. I tend to feel, as does, User:ViperSnake151|ViperSnake151]], that explicit is better in this case. I do not think being vague is better, nor being worried about a user feeling we are not adhering to the "assume good faith" concept or the criteria are having too much "instruction creep". For articles we have WP:GNG and we break that down into subject specific guidlines, and some of those are pretty specific. I see nothing wrong with being that specific for images of certain types. Soundvisions1 (talk) 16:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- To be better stated, I would add two lines, one affirming the use of the current logo(*) of a company, product, or organization as allowable on the associated topic's page, and then a second negative use disallowing the logo on other pages for purposes of identification and/or without criticism and commentary. (*) This doesn't allow or disallow historical logos which I would still say is unresolved from the discussion last month. --MASEM 16:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
This is not enough discussion to warrant wanton changes across the spectrum. While I see where people are coming from, fearing that universities will start suing Misplaced Pages for including their logo in a game article (I know, I know, doesn't pass the "laugh test"), I respectfully disagree that they are being overused when an article is about the team involved and the proper Fair Use rationale is provided. --Bobak (talk) 22:17, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- The argument "they'd never sue" is seen very, very often around these parts. It doesn't work. The fair use policies here are a superset of the law. These aren't wanton changes. See my original post in this section and note the articles on major league sports do not use logos in the way you want to use them. There's strong, strong precedent for deprecating this use.
- To others: I removed the logos from Jeweled Shillelagh, Bobak saw it and restored them. Sigh. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- And now, after I removed the inappropriate rationale from Image:LSUTigers.png, Mastrchf91 has reinstated it. Weeeeee! --Hammersoft (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- And the undoing of my efforts continues apace . --Hammersoft (talk) 22:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC) --Hammersoft (talk) 23:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- And on and on --Hammersoft (talk) 23:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Everyone realizes this is being done in good faith and you all mean to do the right thing. However, you really shouldn't be surprised that you've brought our attention. This subject has been discussed heavily before, and the result was the current system. Older pages had logos for every team a school played in the season, now that was overuse. You're not going to find people receptive to this current system. Moving forward without discussing it with WP:CFB or other pertinent projects? That's not the right way to go about it. --Bobak (talk) 22:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, I think this argument is trying to create a problem where there is no problem. These logos are used in articles about the organization that uses said logo. Period. None of the arguments presented here justifies changing the current situation, imo. Zeng8r (talk) 23:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- Actually you do have to consider this isn't just a legal issue, but one of the few things that the Foundation says "this is the way it has to be". While I for one agree that it's probably fair use under US law, it does to me seem to skirt WP's policy right on the line and in light of what the rule is (note I say rule here, and not consensus), Hammersoft is probably right. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:20, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- Our fair use policies are not written with the intent of finding ways to use fair use content as much as possible. Rather, it's the opposite. Using fair use imagery, even if already on the project, on dozens of articles does not support our m:mission of creating a free content encyclopedia. The more we make use of fair use, the less close to our mission we become. It becomes increasingly harder and harder for downstream users to make use of our work, and yes that is a consideration in what we do. It's one of the chief reasons we exist. If the use of logos to merely identify something were sufficient fair use claim, then we could scatter logos all over the project. But, this is not a transformative use, and if you want to get into fair use law, you do have to address that. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'd respectfully disagree that this use of collegiate logos interferes with the Foundation's mission. Until a university objects about the use of its logo in an article, there's no reason to remove it. We're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist yet, and there's no simple alternative for the use of these logos. Nothing is as identifiable with the subjects of the articles, and a free use alternative simply doesn't exist. Until the consequences of using these logos outweigh the benefits to readers -- understandability, cohesiveness, etc. -- I can't agree that they need to be removed. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- Our mission isn't to remove content when contacted by universities. The problem already exists; fair use content being used in an excessive manner, contrary to our policies and mission. The simple alternative is naming the respective teams. That also makes them replaceable. The consequences of using them are severe; a free content encyclopedia that is considerably less free. That's our mission here; not trying to not annoy universities. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree first that there is a problem, and second that a university would be "annoyed" by such a use. Furthermore, a textual representation is far less effective than a pictoral one. It doesn't make as striking an impression, and to not use an image of the one single item that the vast majority of individuals associate with the subject is absurd. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes they very likely wouldn't mind. Lots of people wouldn't mind WP linking to their YouTube videos of themselves playing PD music (perfectly legal on all counts) but we don't do that either. That's not the point (and shouldn't be brought up). The point is that -- annoying as it is to lose the aesthetic value the logos have (and I'm one who's BIG on aesthetics) -- WP rules simply do not allow them there. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- An established policy that 1) makes wikipedia better, 2) does not violate any copyright laws, and 3) is supported by a whole lot of users (judging by the near-instant reverts of a premature "cleanup" process already begun by Hammersoft) is a perfect candidate for Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules, imo, especially since I'm not even sure any rules are being violated. Zeng8r (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- No, no rules are being violated. Except that small little thing of our m:mission. No mind, who cares if we're a free content encyclopedia? Who cares that WP:NFCC and WP:NFC devolve from the mission statement? Who cares that the Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy strictly limits fair use image use? It's not a concern. Afterall, it improves the articles and I'm sure the universities won't complain. Perhaps we should start Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject Fair Use Distribution. What say you? --Hammersoft (talk) 03:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Respectfully, if you wish to repeal WP:NFC, then please do a request for comment, but in any case, consensus appears to be overwhelmingly in favor of those who disagree with you. — BQZip01 — 06:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- This is about enforcing our policies, not repealing them. I'm not sure where I gave you the impression that I was advocating getting rid of our fair use policy. That would cause all manner of fair use to used all over the project. My position is the polar opposite of what you suggest. Also, be aware, fair use policy is not a consensus issue. Please note the very first line of Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy where it says "This policy may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored on local Wikimedia projects." I.e., even if consensus was unanimous to overrule that policy, it would still stand and would have to be followed. In particular from that policy, "Such EDPs must be minimal". Using any logo dozens of times across many articles is a clear breach of that policy. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Respectfully, if you wish to repeal WP:NFC, then please do a request for comment, but in any case, consensus appears to be overwhelmingly in favor of those who disagree with you. — BQZip01 — 06:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- No, no rules are being violated. Except that small little thing of our m:mission. No mind, who cares if we're a free content encyclopedia? Who cares that WP:NFCC and WP:NFC devolve from the mission statement? Who cares that the Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy strictly limits fair use image use? It's not a concern. Afterall, it improves the articles and I'm sure the universities won't complain. Perhaps we should start Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject Fair Use Distribution. What say you? --Hammersoft (talk) 03:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- An established policy that 1) makes wikipedia better, 2) does not violate any copyright laws, and 3) is supported by a whole lot of users (judging by the near-instant reverts of a premature "cleanup" process already begun by Hammersoft) is a perfect candidate for Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules, imo, especially since I'm not even sure any rules are being violated. Zeng8r (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes they very likely wouldn't mind. Lots of people wouldn't mind WP linking to their YouTube videos of themselves playing PD music (perfectly legal on all counts) but we don't do that either. That's not the point (and shouldn't be brought up). The point is that -- annoying as it is to lose the aesthetic value the logos have (and I'm one who's BIG on aesthetics) -- WP rules simply do not allow them there. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree first that there is a problem, and second that a university would be "annoyed" by such a use. Furthermore, a textual representation is far less effective than a pictoral one. It doesn't make as striking an impression, and to not use an image of the one single item that the vast majority of individuals associate with the subject is absurd. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Our mission isn't to remove content when contacted by universities. The problem already exists; fair use content being used in an excessive manner, contrary to our policies and mission. The simple alternative is naming the respective teams. That also makes them replaceable. The consequences of using them are severe; a free content encyclopedia that is considerably less free. That's our mission here; not trying to not annoy universities. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
"I disagree first that there is a problem, and second that a university would be "annoyed" by such a use." This hits the nail on the head. Universities do everything possible to get their brand and their image out there for recruiting purposes. There is no logical reason why they'd be annoyed by the use of an official university logo on an article about the university. Zeng8r (talk) 01:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I totally agree with User:Zeng8r that this is really not an issue. While I don't doubt User:Hammersoft is bringing this up with good intentions, I simply don't see what the problem is with using a fair use image in a few articles specifically relating to the team. I don't see that as overuse in any way. I think if College Football pages are being targeted specifically here, this should be discussed on the College Football project page where all of our editors can give their opinions on this. I really don't care either way (would support keeping the system the way we have it now) but if we are going to make a standard or policy on this, it definitely needs to go through the College Football project first. Rtr10 (talk) 01:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Totally agree with both Rtr10 and Zeng8r. There is no issue at all on this, and even if there were, then it should go through the proper channels. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 03:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Let's make something clear here. Proper channels is not and never has been a given project. The proper channel for discussing this is right here, on this page. Another potential channel is the Village Pump policy page. But, projects are not the arbiters or what should or should not be allowed within their area of coverage. Stamping an article as falling within a particular project doesn't protect that article from editing by any interested party. Similarly, it does not prevent it from be subservient to our policies. This is the proper place to discuss that.
- Compare; Let's say someone decides to put Milk Can (college football) up for deletion. The article is watched by Wikiprojects Idaho, Sports, and College Football. Should we then have three discussing regarding that article's deletions among the project members in those projects? No. We bring the article to WP:AFD. Similarly, we don't make policy decisions or conduct enforcement with the approval of a particular project. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You are making a flawed comparison here Hammersoft. At AfD, it is considered good form to notify major contributors to the article proposed for deletion. The deletion process also states, "Place a notification on significant pages that link to your nomination, to enable those with related knowledge to participate in the debate." By this logic you absolutely should have notified the Wikiprojects that work on these articles. The debate could be centralized, but the noticing should have been broad and inclusive. Johntex\ 03:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Totally agree with both Rtr10 and Zeng8r. There is no issue at all on this, and even if there were, then it should go through the proper channels. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 03:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The issue is the same as it always is with non-free content; debating whether the university would mind or not is completely missing the point. When you use non-free content in an article you limit the re-usability of the content. Thus, using non-free content is always and indisputably bad; it's just that occasionally it's even worse not to use it. CIreland (talk) 02:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is an incorrect conclusion. If fair use images were always bad then they would be completely prohibited. They are not prohibited because they are sometimes desirable to have. So your statement is false. Johntex\ 21:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Section break the First
One of the key factors of fair use is "minimal use". You are supposed to use as little as you can, as little as possible. This is why we nuked the Trinity Broadcasting Network logos from all the articles of their "translators", because it was used too much, and it didn't increase the understanding as technically the stations all take a network feed and do not have their own logo. ViperSnake151 01:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Frankly, I can't see why Hammersoft should be appalled at our "undoing of efforts". It's much better to garner a wide consensus than to go on an incredible removing spree. Either way, the current system works now, and it's a bit ridiculous to start removing these images due to a very imprecise policy that could be interpreted many ways. I am a firm believer in policy, but common sense of IAR should apply here. Mastrchf (/c) 03:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's a bit ridiculous to include fair use images as far and wide as possible every time a particular team is mentioned. The common sense around here is that we are a free content encyclopedia. Those of you advocating for liberal usage of fair use images need to understand this basic, fundamental point. We do not use fair use images within the bounds of law. The law is really quite irrelevant. Whether someone would sue is irrelevant. If you believe those are the most important issues at hand, some education is in order.
- Let me give you an example. If the only concerns were whether something was legal use and whether copyright holders would complain, then we'd have album covers on every discrography of every group. It is legal, and the vast, vast majority of music groups would be most happy to have increased coverage of their works here, on a top ten website of the world. Yet, the reality is we do not have ANY album covers on discographies. Why is that?
- Here's another example: Why do we not have per character images of every character on every list of characters on the project?
- Here's another example: Why do we not permit the use of fair use images of people when we can reasonably expect to find free licenses images? It's legal to use the fair use images, and in most cases the people being depicted would probably enjoy the additional coverage. So why don't we permit it?
- Here's another example: Why do we not permit the use of fair use images in userspace, or on templates, or on portals? In a significant majority of those cases, the usage is legal and certainly holders wouldn't complain. So why isn't that permitted?
- Understand; the DEFAULT case on this project is NOT to include fair use material. A very strong argument must be made in each use of each image as to why that image is critical to user's understanding of a particular subject. That's just square one. There's plenty of additional constraints that, even if apparently legitimate uses can be found, prevent their use. Fair use content has to jump over massive barriers here to be included. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:35, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agree with Hammersoft. These are (in totality - a few uses will be ok) a clear breach of policy. Johnbod (talk) 03:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I also agree with Hammersoft; these images are largely being used with complete disregard for the (non-negotiable, non-consensus) issue of minimizing non-free content. CIreland (talk) 03:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'll have to disagree with Hammersoft, and others pushing for this. Yes, in the case offered by Hammersmith where there are 102 uses of the Ohio State logo but only 6 Fair Use Rationales on the image's page, then 96 articles need to have the image removed because there is no FUR in place explaining why the image/logo is being used. But just today Hammersmith came and removed the logos of LSU and Ole Miss from Magnolia Bowl, an article that is extensively about both universities. Those are acceptable use, both images have a FUR in place for use in the Magnolia Bowl article, and both should not have been removed - especially in the midst of an ongoing conversation here about the very subject. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ 04:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Magnolia Bowl is not about either college, only the bowl game. Their logos are completely inappropriate for the page - this is further unnessitated by the actual game logo (which is appropriate) that repeats parts of both college's logos. --MASEM 04:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You can't have a bowl game without the colleges.. they are indeed appropriate to the article as a means of identifying the bowl game participants. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ 05:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The colleges aren't playing, it is their representative teams. And logos for the purposes of identifying anything outside of the article about that topic is inappropriate. --MASEM 05:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- We are not using the logos of the colleges we are using the logos of the representative teams/athletic departments which ARE participating in these games. Just something you might want to think about. They are very appropriate in the article. Rtr10 (talk) 07:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, true, at least, the LSU one is the team logo, however, the logo serves no purpose beyond identification of the team on a page that is not about the team directly, and is duplicated by the official logo that should be on that page. There is no valid reason for those logos to be used here. --MASEM 07:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please enlighten me, if these pages are not about the teams what are they about? They are specifically about the teams and nothing else. If two teams are not relevant to a rivalry, I don't know what else is. Your logic is totally flawed. The page directly involves the teams and there is easily a valid reason for those logos to be there. I don't know how I could make that more clear to you, but it is right there. You are simply refusing to acknowledge it. Rtr10 (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The article is about a rivalry between two college football teams that has earned a specific nickname. It is not about the teams themselves. As with the general use of logos, the individual teams' logos on this page cannot be used just for identification, but must be accompanied by commentary and criticism with respect for the logo's images to be included, otherwise it is simply decorative, since those logos, for a reader who has no idea about college sports but needs to research this particular team, will not be helpful in anyway, at least given that one can clickthru either team to get the full logo or can look at the game's logo to see parts of the teams' logo. Again, logos are historicly only used on the single page of the company or organization the logo represents. -MASEM 12:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't think rivalry articles are about specific college football teams, than you have no clue about college football and really shouldn't be chiming in on the matter. About 95% of these articles do not have "nicknames" they are simply "Team A-Team B Rivalry" so the team logos are definitely warranted. You may want to look a little more into this, rahter than just looking at one article. Lord forbid you collect an informed opinion. Rtr10 (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you can't keep your comments civil, then please do not post them. There's an answer to your query, but I certainly do not see, and I hope Masem equally does not see, a reason to respond when confronted with behavior like this. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 20:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you don't think rivalry articles are about specific college football teams, than you have no clue about college football and really shouldn't be chiming in on the matter. About 95% of these articles do not have "nicknames" they are simply "Team A-Team B Rivalry" so the team logos are definitely warranted. You may want to look a little more into this, rahter than just looking at one article. Lord forbid you collect an informed opinion. Rtr10 (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The article is about a rivalry between two college football teams that has earned a specific nickname. It is not about the teams themselves. As with the general use of logos, the individual teams' logos on this page cannot be used just for identification, but must be accompanied by commentary and criticism with respect for the logo's images to be included, otherwise it is simply decorative, since those logos, for a reader who has no idea about college sports but needs to research this particular team, will not be helpful in anyway, at least given that one can clickthru either team to get the full logo or can look at the game's logo to see parts of the teams' logo. Again, logos are historicly only used on the single page of the company or organization the logo represents. -MASEM 12:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please enlighten me, if these pages are not about the teams what are they about? They are specifically about the teams and nothing else. If two teams are not relevant to a rivalry, I don't know what else is. Your logic is totally flawed. The page directly involves the teams and there is easily a valid reason for those logos to be there. I don't know how I could make that more clear to you, but it is right there. You are simply refusing to acknowledge it. Rtr10 (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, true, at least, the LSU one is the team logo, however, the logo serves no purpose beyond identification of the team on a page that is not about the team directly, and is duplicated by the official logo that should be on that page. There is no valid reason for those logos to be used here. --MASEM 07:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- We are not using the logos of the colleges we are using the logos of the representative teams/athletic departments which ARE participating in these games. Just something you might want to think about. They are very appropriate in the article. Rtr10 (talk) 07:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The colleges aren't playing, it is their representative teams. And logos for the purposes of identifying anything outside of the article about that topic is inappropriate. --MASEM 05:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You can't have a bowl game without the colleges.. they are indeed appropriate to the article as a means of identifying the bowl game participants. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ 05:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Alas, this is something that I find so incredibly mind-blowing - People get too caught up in the bureaucratic ways of the project to actually aid the project. As to your posed questions, (the "Why is that?" sort), I'm afraid that I'm not the one who can answer that. Undoubtedly consensus discussions, a bit of chance here and there. Ok, so non-free images aren't tops on our list of wanted things. Some things are going to undoubtedly be non-free. But, you know what? I don't think anyone, save non-free image crusaders, are going to complain about an extra image or two on a page. People come here to get information on something. They don't come here to look if the article has an incredibly ill-defined "limit" of non-free images. I can promise you that, even if only one person looks at that article and says, "Look, that image is there, that helps me gain a better understanding of this article" (of course that's not what would be said, but you get what I'm meaning), that will be one more person than persons coming on here, save for those who are trying to remove these on here, that say the opposite.
- I have no doubt that this will be shot down in any number of ways, and in retrospect will probably mean little to nothing in this discussion. But is deleting possibly helpful images really aiding the construction of an encyclopedia? Mastrchf (/c) 04:56, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- There are probably a large fraction of pages on WP that would be better served with more non-free images to help improve the demonstration of content. However, first and foremost, WP's goal is a "free content" encyclopedia, and every piece of non-free media deters from that goal. People aren't coming here to "look" at articles, they are here to research, per the mission. Images are secondary to that goal save when it is impossible to discuss that content without visual or media aid. --MASEM 05:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- And yet again, this is what I'm talking about. Bureaucracy attempts to trump common sense. Trust me, without people who "look" at articles, I bet our daily page view count would be hovering at a nice even eight. How many of us legitimately came to Misplaced Pages to "research", not "learn"? We have a fundamental disagreement over the purpose and natures of Misplaced Pages, it's quite apparent, and I respect your view and realize that it's probably just about as true as mine. True, the goal of Misplaced Pages is being a "free content" encyclopedia, but completely removing a majority of these images dramatically hurts Misplaced Pages's goal of simply being an encyclopedia. We need to find a happy medium, and rashly removing dozens if not hundreds of images from pages (I haven't checked to see how many Hammersoft removed) is possibly the worst way to go about this. Well meaning, no doubt, but a horrible way of going about it. Mastrchf (/c) 05:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The happy medium is permitting fair use in very limited circumstances, for example a sport logo on the page regarding that team, rather than it's rivalries, seasons, etc. If you think that's draconian, try spending time at the German language Misplaced Pages. They do not permit fair use there at all. The happy medium isn't permitting fair use wherever and however people want to use it. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Comparisons to the German Misplaced Pages are inherently flawed because their copyright laws are different. It is legal concerns that dictate much of their approach. Johntex\ 04:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- If WP was worried about its page count, then yes, the end user experience would be placed at a higher level. But we're not here for page counts, we're here to build a free content encyclopedia that will grow and last the ages, and we have also been tasked by the Foundation to keep non-free use to a minimum. Remember, there are some versions of wikipedia (de.wiki notably) that disallow any non-free content, yet they continue to build and expand. --MASEM 05:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- So, just making sure, we're here to make an encyclopedia that's going to be here theoretically forever, but, we don't care if anyone reads it or gets anything from it. Right? That's not what you meant to say, true, but that's pretty much what it sounds like. And the "page view count" wasn't meant to be taken literally, by the way. I'm assuming you realized that.... Mastrchf (/c) 05:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- We want people to read it, but we're not in any competition or for any profit; things that would normally be done on commercial or competitive websites to draw in viewers, such as more visually appealing pages, that otherwise interfere with the mission goals should not be done. --MASEM 06:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed with Masem and Hammersoft. We've for some time allowed logos en masse in articles about the subject the logo represents. I don't think that's a great idea, but it's current practice. On the other hand, use of those logos outside those articles is unnecessary and excessive. When we can name a team rather than using its logo (i.e., in all cases), the logo is replaceable. We can just as easily say "Somewhere Foos vs. Elsewhere Bars" rather than putting logos, and that's perfectly clear. Seraphimblade 07:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's obviously a matter of degree. 100 uses of a logo are too much. But the other extreme, for example the removal of images from Template:NCAATeamSeason is equally wrong (so, for example, 2008 Pittsburgh Panthers football team could not display a logo). In those cases, that logo is the logo of the subject and is thus perfectly appropriate. A rivalry page? Sure, include the logos. But more perplexing to me is this notion that fair use images and a viable 💕 are mutually exclusive. Why is that so? If images allow us to convey information more strongly, that makes Misplaced Pages a better source of information, which is why it's here after all. That in turn brings more readers, some percentage of whom will become editors, which leads to the creation of more content. I think the notion that non-free images (which I believe we all agree enhance the reader's experience) detract from Misplaced Pages's mission is misguided. Oren0 (talk) 08:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is an excellent point, Oren0. 100 instances is definitely excessive, but if it is only a few instances and there are Fur's in place for all of the uses, there should not be a problem with their use. Taking the absolute worst example (the Ohio State logo with over 100 uses) and trying to extrapolate policy from that is ridiculous to the extreme. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 10:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It isn't the point at all. The number of uses isn't the issue. The type of use is. Taken from that perspective (which it should be), the use of a fair use image just once beyond the bounds of where it should be used is just as much a problem as 100 uses. I'm not interested in the number. I used the Ohio State logo because that is what brought this problem to my attention. I fully expected and still expect to find other sports logos used rampantly like the Ohio State logo was. It's just one case of many. I highlighted a serious overuse problem. It isn't ridiculous to do so. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Every non-free media inclusion on WP harms the free content mission, though for en.wiki we recognize that some non-free media is needed for some subjects to make articles more comprehensive. That's why we need to strive for as minimal use as possible. As soon as you relax the requirements for certain classes of images, you will find people will use that to have the same for other classes, and maintaining minimal use will be impossible. We have to limit extraneous uses where the images may look nice and make pages more visually appealing because these cases serve no improvement for helping readers to comprehend the text. --MASEM 12:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is an excellent point, Oren0. 100 instances is definitely excessive, but if it is only a few instances and there are Fur's in place for all of the uses, there should not be a problem with their use. Taking the absolute worst example (the Ohio State logo with over 100 uses) and trying to extrapolate policy from that is ridiculous to the extreme. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 10:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's obviously a matter of degree. 100 uses of a logo are too much. But the other extreme, for example the removal of images from Template:NCAATeamSeason is equally wrong (so, for example, 2008 Pittsburgh Panthers football team could not display a logo). In those cases, that logo is the logo of the subject and is thus perfectly appropriate. A rivalry page? Sure, include the logos. But more perplexing to me is this notion that fair use images and a viable 💕 are mutually exclusive. Why is that so? If images allow us to convey information more strongly, that makes Misplaced Pages a better source of information, which is why it's here after all. That in turn brings more readers, some percentage of whom will become editors, which leads to the creation of more content. I think the notion that non-free images (which I believe we all agree enhance the reader's experience) detract from Misplaced Pages's mission is misguided. Oren0 (talk) 08:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed with Masem and Hammersoft. We've for some time allowed logos en masse in articles about the subject the logo represents. I don't think that's a great idea, but it's current practice. On the other hand, use of those logos outside those articles is unnecessary and excessive. When we can name a team rather than using its logo (i.e., in all cases), the logo is replaceable. We can just as easily say "Somewhere Foos vs. Elsewhere Bars" rather than putting logos, and that's perfectly clear. Seraphimblade 07:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- We want people to read it, but we're not in any competition or for any profit; things that would normally be done on commercial or competitive websites to draw in viewers, such as more visually appealing pages, that otherwise interfere with the mission goals should not be done. --MASEM 06:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- So, just making sure, we're here to make an encyclopedia that's going to be here theoretically forever, but, we don't care if anyone reads it or gets anything from it. Right? That's not what you meant to say, true, but that's pretty much what it sounds like. And the "page view count" wasn't meant to be taken literally, by the way. I'm assuming you realized that.... Mastrchf (/c) 05:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- And yet again, this is what I'm talking about. Bureaucracy attempts to trump common sense. Trust me, without people who "look" at articles, I bet our daily page view count would be hovering at a nice even eight. How many of us legitimately came to Misplaced Pages to "research", not "learn"? We have a fundamental disagreement over the purpose and natures of Misplaced Pages, it's quite apparent, and I respect your view and realize that it's probably just about as true as mine. True, the goal of Misplaced Pages is being a "free content" encyclopedia, but completely removing a majority of these images dramatically hurts Misplaced Pages's goal of simply being an encyclopedia. We need to find a happy medium, and rashly removing dozens if not hundreds of images from pages (I haven't checked to see how many Hammersoft removed) is possibly the worst way to go about this. Well meaning, no doubt, but a horrible way of going about it. Mastrchf (/c) 05:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- There are probably a large fraction of pages on WP that would be better served with more non-free images to help improve the demonstration of content. However, first and foremost, WP's goal is a "free content" encyclopedia, and every piece of non-free media deters from that goal. People aren't coming here to "look" at articles, they are here to research, per the mission. Images are secondary to that goal save when it is impossible to discuss that content without visual or media aid. --MASEM 05:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- (outdent) Let me just repeat something Masem said above me -- we have also been tasked by the Foundation to keep non-free use to a minimum. That's all the matters in the grand scheme. I absolutely agree that WP 'should' be able to have all these images. As I said, I'm a very aesthetic person, and I think the lack of images (or the horrid quality of some) is a bad thing. But this is a case of the fact that even if you don't agree with the rules, you still must agree to the rules. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm curious where this "task" comes from. Are you referring to Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy? It states: "Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works." Logos are specifically called out as when non-free content is appropriate. My reading of that document is that it says that non-free content is allowable for those three cases, plus limited other cases. I don't see anywhere in that document (though there may be something in another meta page), nor do I see anything in WP:NFCC, that limits the use of logos provided a rationale and that the logos identify their subjects. This is why I don't buy Masem's "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk" argument. We're not the ones who say that logos are OK, meta is. Oren0 (talk) 18:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's the "limited exception" part that is important. Without it, the Resolution suggests that anytime a logo would make sense to include because the subject has been identified on an article, we should include it (such as the cases in point here). Limited exception means that we (through consensus) need to determine the exceptional cases when logos should be used to maintain minimal use. Now, it is true that there is nothing explicit that says "logos on the organization article's page only", but that's been an unwritten approach that has been used, and seems to be consistent with all other non-free use. --MASEM 18:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I believe we are at a grammatical impasse. The way that sentence reads to me is: "Non-free content can be used for these three things (including logos) or used in other ways as a limited exception". The "limited exception" doesn't apply to logos or the other two appropriate uses as written IMO. I don't believe that I'm wikilawyering here, as it seems that the intent is to allow NFC for these three cases (with no indication that that type of use should be limited) and in a limited manner for other cases (such as when a non-free replacement is unavailable and the pic is low-res, per en-wiki policies). Oren0 (talk) 18:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- (ec) That's an odd reading of the phrase. A more natural one would be that, apart from limited exceptions, an EDP should limit the use to illustrating historically significant events, including identifying protected works such as logos, or complementing (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. Jheald (talk) 18:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- For example, a Google search for "with limited exception" brings up hits like
- "With limited exception, at least 10 facilities completed the survey in all regions" -- ie apart from a very few exceptions, in every region at least ten survey forms were returned
- "A provider of consumer loans (each limited to up to $25000) must, with limited exception, be licensed under Alaska law as a small loan company to make such loans" - ie except in certain exceptional circumstances, a loan company has to be licensed. Jheald (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- For example, a Google search for "with limited exception" brings up hits like
- On the other hand, it doesn't give carte blanche to use logos absolutely anywhere. While the logo may be identifying of the team, I find it hard to see as identifying of the competition. EDPs are supposed to tightly control usage even in allowed categories. WP:NFC is our EDP, and has to be respected. Jheald (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, I can see the "limited exception" could be read a couple different ways, but even the basis of "to include identifying protected works such as logos" seems to me to state that we include logos when it is necessary to identify them - that is, on the pages of the company, organization, or product it represents, and in rare cases on pages about the logo itself. No one has yet demonstrated the need to identify the logo of a college team on a page that is otherwise not the main article of that college team save for "it helps readers to identify the team", which is not a necessity (a good question to ask is would the article be impacted by de.wiki-type no non-free use requirements? Clearly here, the answer is no, there is no impact).
- Again, while it is possibly being concerned about something that will never happen, I've seen enough arguments on this page that evoke WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS to try to justify excess use of non-free images. NFC needs to be as normalized as much as possible to prevent carving exceptions that others will see as special treatment and demand more for their articles of preferred interest. --MASEM 20:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's the "limited exception" part that is important. Without it, the Resolution suggests that anytime a logo would make sense to include because the subject has been identified on an article, we should include it (such as the cases in point here). Limited exception means that we (through consensus) need to determine the exceptional cases when logos should be used to maintain minimal use. Now, it is true that there is nothing explicit that says "logos on the organization article's page only", but that's been an unwritten approach that has been used, and seems to be consistent with all other non-free use. --MASEM 18:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm curious where this "task" comes from. Are you referring to Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy? It states: "Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works." Logos are specifically called out as when non-free content is appropriate. My reading of that document is that it says that non-free content is allowable for those three cases, plus limited other cases. I don't see anywhere in that document (though there may be something in another meta page), nor do I see anything in WP:NFCC, that limits the use of logos provided a rationale and that the logos identify their subjects. This is why I don't buy Masem's "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk" argument. We're not the ones who say that logos are OK, meta is. Oren0 (talk) 18:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- "No one has yet demonstrated the need to identify the logo of a college team on a page that is otherwise not the main article of that college team..." See, there's the issue. I agree that non-free logos should not be used on articles that are not directly related to the owner of that logo. But that's not the case here. For example, Florida Gators football is the main article about the University of Florida's football team. But then 2008 Florida Gators football team is also about an edition of the team, as is every other season article about Gator teams in different seasons, as is every article about traditional rivalries of the Gators. And that's just the football team. All the other UF sport teams use the same logo, so it belongs on all those articles plus their corresponding season articles, as well.
- Obviously, that leads to a lot of use of the Gator head logo, but it's all justified and well within wikipedia guidelines. The logo shouldn't be used on non-athletics related UF articles, of course. I see absolutely no problem with using it on multiple pages as long as it's useful, lawful, and applicable. Zeng8r (talk) 21:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It don't see why the logo is necessary for 2008 Florida Gators football team article. Specifically, how does it significantly increase my understanding of the 2008 team? I understand the argument for using it in the main team article, but even there I think it is at the very edge of acceptable use. CIreland (talk) 21:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Using the logo of a sports team on articles about that sports team is "on the very edge of acceptable use"??? Sorry, but that seems like a ludicrous statement to me. By that standard, "fair-use" = "no use". Zeng8r (talk) 21:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It don't see why the logo is necessary for 2008 Florida Gators football team article. Specifically, how does it significantly increase my understanding of the 2008 team? I understand the argument for using it in the main team article, but even there I think it is at the very edge of acceptable use. CIreland (talk) 21:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Section break the Second
- Generally speaking, there are several potential reasons to remove an image from an article:
- It is a copyright violation
- A replacement exists or may exist in the future
- The image detracts from a mission to promote free content
- The use of a logo in an article about a sports team does not violate any of the above:
- Fair use allows use of the logo to identify the brand/product/company being discussed, exactly as being done here.
- By definition, a logo is unique and their is no replacement. Any user-created drawing that was similar enough to the logo to be recognizable would still be covered by the trademark or copyright of the owner of the logo.
- Since no replacement can be created, there is no advantage to us in avoiding the use of the logo.
- Therefore, there is no reason to remove these logos from articles. Johntex\ 21:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Simply because no free content replacement exists or could be created doesn't mean that the image should be used. No free replacement exists of album covers either. Do we coat the discography articles with album covers? No. No free replacement exists of screenshots of episodes. Do we saturate episode lists with screenshots of each episode? No. Your conclusion is false. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Your example is false. A screenshot is not a logo. Logos are specifically created to serve as an identifying element of the product / brand. That is not the case for screenshots. Johntex\ 21:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Even if it is false, you don't seem to dispute album covers. They uniquely identify the albums, like no other visual element can. Yet, we do not use them liberally. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- This discussion is about logos, not screenshots. I have shown why your comparison to screenshots is not relevant to this discussion. Therefore, I am not commenting on screenshots further. If you want to discuss screenshots, I suggest you start another thread. Johntex\ 22:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You still haven't answered the question about album covers. Are you attempting to make a case that logos are a unique case, an exception to all the fair use rules? --Hammersoft (talk) 22:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed. You're missing one key point on replaceability. On the rivalry articles, for instance, the LSU logo can be replaced by the text "The LSU Tigers" and no meaning is lost. So I would disagree with you, and state that the overuse of these images emphatically does detract from our mission to provide free content. (ESkog) 21:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Text is not a substitute for a logo, and vice versa. Some people will be more familiar with one or the other. Including both serves to educate the reader. Our primary mission, after-all, is to build the most informative encyclopedia possible. That mission is harmed by removing the logos. Our secondary mission, of promoting free-content, is not harmed by these logos at all. Johntex\ 21:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- The mission is enhanced by removing the logos to make the content as free as possible. Our PRIMARY mission is to provide a free content encyclopedia. Attempting to call it a secondary mission is false. Please carefully read our m:mission statement. Where in there does it state that free content is a secondary mission? It doesn't. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Since when have we had "primary" and "secondary" missions? Do we have "tertiary" missions too? Anyway, on the subject of damaging the free-content goal: Supposing I wish to re-use the article; if it contains non-free content re-use is made more difficult because I need to accommodate the fact that I cannot re-use part of the article. That is obviously a negative effect of the inclusion of non-free content. Now suppose that it's not just me wanting to re-use a single article, but that someone wishes to re-use thousands of articles and it's apparent that the barriers to re-use will be similarly magnified. CIreland (talk) 21:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) There's really been no clear argument from the supporters why the logo is needed in the 'rivalry' articles, beyond WP:ILIKEIT. Look at it this way. In team articles (I'll hold off on the season ones), the article is about 'the team'. So the use of the logo illustrates the team, as it is a part of the team as a whole, just as much as an album cover is a part of an album as a whole or a station ID is a part of a TV station. Conversly, the rivalry articles are about 'the rivalry' itself -- if there's a logo for that (someone mentioned above they exist for some), then THAT is fine. But since the articles aren't about 'the teams' in and of themselves, the use of the logos isn't allowed. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Some people here seem to think that having a logo on an article somehow discourages free content. There is no evidence for that whatsoever. For instance, take a look at 2005 Texas Longhorns football team, which is a Featured Article. That means it has been through the highest standards of review for content, format, etc. It has the team logo at the top. It also has a dozen free-use images and a link to Commons where even more free images are found. The use of the logo enhances the article and does not detract at all from encouraging free content. Johntex\ 22:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's not about "encouraging" or "discouraging" free content. It's about the fact that including non-free content makes the article harder to re-use ("to disseminate it effectively and globally" in the words of the Foundation). Thus the benefit of the non-free content has to be great in order to outweigh the inherent cost of such content. CIreland (talk) 22:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- "re-use" is not a legitimate concern. If it was a determining factor, then we would allow no free-use whatsoever. The people that want to scrape Misplaced Pages content to re-use can and should be responsible for their own verification of what images they take and re-use. Do you want to argue that the fair-use logo at IBM should be removed to facilitate re-use?
- Sigh. Please look at m:mission. Please? Please? "disseminate it effectively and globally" You can't spread things that aren't free. --Hammersoft (talk)
- (/Sigh) Your condescending tone does not make your fallacious argument any more correct. Anyone who wants to reuse content from Misplaced Pages needs to determine if it is the right content for them. That includes determining if it is sufficiently well-written, whether the facts are correct, whether the images are appropriate, etc. Depending on their purpose in re-use, they may have all sorts of criteria with respect to images. For instance, they may want only images that are CC and not GNU. They may want only images that are CC3 and not CC2. They may be legally able to use fair use images, for their purposes, they may not. All that is up to the re-user to determine. Therefore, yes, re-use is not a concern in this discussion. Johntex\ 23:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, you mean like free content being our secondary mission? Like that? By the way; one of the re-users you decry is the Wikimedia Foundation itself. It can't hope to achieve its mission if we dramatically encumber our content with fair use materials. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Re-usability of content is a non-negotiable goal of Misplaced Pages so, I suppose, in the sense that it is not up for debate, it could be seen as "not a legitimate concern" but I suspect that was not your meaning. To answer re: the IBM logo. No, I don't want it removed but it's still the case that its inclusion makes effective re-use more difficult. The IBM example is good demonstration of the benefit outweighing the cost; it doesn't, however, follow that there is no cost. CIreland (talk) 22:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Re-use is a legitimate goal; but it's not clear that a reuser would be any less able to reuse these images than we are. A rough yardstick for WP:NFC is that the criteria are pretty much drawn to reflect what is needed to be confident that a commercial U.S. reuser could reuse an article verbatim without worry. Jheald (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I see. It counts are re-usable if you can re-use it in the US. Thanks for an enlightening comment. I'll get my passport. CIreland (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm merely stating the criteria WP:NFC reflects. It isn't patterned on the EU Infosoc Directive, nor the UK 1956 Copyright Act, which is the basis for law in most Commonwealth countries; instead its concepts and balances are patterned very closely on the U.S. criterion above. But I think you would probably get away with these logos in an educational article in most Commonwealth countries too. Jheald (talk) 22:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- It follows US fair use doctrine because the hardware is in the US; that doesn't change the fact that the content ought to be global in approach. The point about "effective dissemination" is that you shouldn't need to be an expert in copyright law for country X (or, more importantly, shouldn't need to have the resources to hire someone who is such an expert) to re-use the content. CIreland (talk) 22:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- That's a point of view, but the reality is that our copyright policy doesn't start to do that. Almost all of our art images are based on Bridgeman vs Corel, which wouldn't last 5 seconds in the UK; we're quite happy to call anything public domain if it was published before 1923, even if Life + 70 may give its copyright decades to run in Europe; our standards for text-based works, like the IBM logo (free in the U.S.), are based wholly on U.S. law and don't start to apply in the UK. The fact is, if you're not in the U.S. you're going to have to review all the copyrights anyway. Jheald (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Responding to jheald; note that a commercial use of fair use goes through significantly different hoops than educational use. Misplaced Pages's usage is educational. Commercial interests have different requirements. But again, fair use law is really irrelevant to the discussion. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes Hammer, but the point is WP:NFC is deliberately patterned very closely on the commercial criteria needed for commercial re-use, not the educational criteria. If we used the educational criteria, we'd have more freedom. But we don't. In setting the line, it is the commercial criteria WP:NFC is designed to satisfy. Jheald (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't understand either how having non-free content limits re-use. If there's an issue for the reuser, they can take out the picture without violating the GDFL, as I understand it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- And there you've hit it on the head. If an image can be removed without resulting damage to the article, then why have the image? If an image is discussed in an article, then it's not enough to just remove the image. You have to reconstruct the content of the article in addition to removing the image in order for the article to make sense again, post image-removal. If you don't need to reconstruct an article, then why is the image on the article in the first place??? It's obviously not needed. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is a completely nonsensical argument. Melodia did not mention damage, and removing a discussed image will damage an article without normally requiring a rewrite - other than removing "see left" or whatever. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- The argument makes perfect sense. There's lots of fair use images that are used in ways directly linked to the article's text. Let's take an example; Logos and uniforms of the New York Giants. If you removed the logos from the article, you'd need to restructure the text of the article in order for it to make sense. Specific logos are referred to in the text. A downstream use would have to do more than simply strip fair use images from the content. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is a completely nonsensical argument. Melodia did not mention damage, and removing a discussed image will damage an article without normally requiring a rewrite - other than removing "see left" or whatever. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- The Texas Longhorns logo now exists on 18 articles. It even exists on the UT marching band article, which isn't even a sports team, nor is the logo incorporated in the uniforms of the band, or on hallmark items such as big bertha. Pray tell, why is the logo in use on that article? --Hammersoft (talk) 22:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- You did not do your research very well. It absolutely is the logo for the UT marching band. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for it to be on the article about the group it represents. In this case, the UT band. Johntex\ 23:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Does the logo exist on their uniforms? No. Does the logo exist on their equipment? No. If you want to use a logo to help the user understand that they reached the right article, then use something that people visually identify as being that band. For example, the big "TEXAS" emblazoned on the back shoulders of every uniform. For example, the icon on Big Bertha. THOSE are recognizable as being associated with this band. Why the reluctance to fix this glaring problem? Why the absolute insistence that you must use the Longhorns logo on this page, where it's clearly inappropriate? --Hammersoft (talk) 14:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- In what way does the existence of that logo, on that article, increase the reader's understanding of that subject? WP:NFCC#8? Black Kite 02:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- From WP:LOGO: "The encyclopedic rationale for including a logo is similar to the rationale for including portraits of a famous actor: most users feel that portraits provide valuable information about the person that is difficult to describe solely with text. Logos should be regarded as portraits for a given entity. Unlike people, however, where it is often possible to take a free photograph of that person, logos are typically protected by copyright and trademark law and so cannot be replaced by a completely free alternative." - Johntex\ 02:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it's fairly obvious here that Hammersoft took a completely wrong approach in trying to correct this "problem." Assuming for a minute that he is correct, how do you go about suddenly changing the content of hundreds of articles edited by hundreds of editors? Certainly not by making a post on this talk page and changing dozens of articles and a infobox template willy nilly on the same day. And this isn't an issue on whether or not you are correct--you quite possibly are. But by changing a common practice exercised by hundreds of editors on your own after no discussion will make people feel like you're stepping on their toes. And guess what? Most people don't like that, and will oppose you regardless of whether or not your point is valid. Next time, have some patience and allow enough time for your argument to spread before you decide to make a major change in policy for a particular project. Thanks CH52584 (talk) 02:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed. Hammer shouldn't be surprised with the reaction he has garnered. Does he have a point? Sure. Non-free usage has gotten to be a bit excessive. But, rashly removing these images without consensus was a terrible plan. I shudder to think if all affairs were conducted in this manner. Mastrchf (/c) 02:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- His methods were bad, but so was his premise.
- The usual argument for excluding non-free materials is that it might deter someone from making a free version. For instance, celebrities have offered to give us great "head shots" and permission to use them. We have refused because we feel that the professional looking headshot would deter someone from uploading their own picture of that person. We generally take the postion we would rather have the free photo, even though it is probably of lesser quality.
- That argument does not apply to logos, however. A user cannot make a free alternative to a logo. Therefore, the logo is not in anyway detering someone from uploading free content. Case-in-point: The very "test case" mentioned originally by Hammersmith is 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game. The logos have not detered people from adding relevant free-use photos to that article.
- Simply put, Hammersmith is wrong both in methods and in idealogy on this one. There are occasisons of improper fair use in Misplaced Pages surely. This is not such an example. Force10 (talk) 03:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Oh good grief. People WAKE UP. You're accusing me of things I never did. I never touched the INFOBOX!!! Neither did I edit hundreds of articles. If you're going to accuse me of something, at least get your bare, basic facts right.
- Not to mention this isn't about my actions. It's about POLICY. Stop attempting to derail the issue by accusing me of wrongdoing and address the issues at hand. If you think I did something so grossly wrong, then by all means block the living *(#)$()#$ out of me. Otherwise, kindly keep your comments reserved to the policy discussion we are having. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Someone changed the infobox. Maybe it wasn't you. And I didn't accuse you of changing hundreds of articles, but changing dozens of articles with the ultimate goal of changing all college football articles without the agreement of the hundreds of editors that edit those articles without discussing it with those individuals first. Even if it is about policy and not consensus, it's still nice to allow people to understand and accept said policy before you try to enforce it. CH52584 (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- We could keep going in circles here, but I don't think this has been answered -- why do you need the logo in the first place? Of course noone can make a free alternative to a logo, but that's not even the issue here. How does having the logo in these articles enhance them beyond looking good? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- As I posted above:
- From WP:LOGO: "The encyclopedic rationale for including a logo is similar to the rationale for including portraits of a famous actor: most users feel that portraits provide valuable information about the person that is difficult to describe solely with text. Logos should be regarded as portraits for a given entity. Unlike people, however, where it is often possible to take a free photograph of that person, logos are typically protected by copyright and trademark law and so cannot be replaced by a completely free alternative."
- The logo at The University of Texas Longhorn Band and 2007 USC Trojans football team is just as valid as the logo at Pepsi or Black Panther Party or Republic Party. The clear consensus on the Misplaced Pages project is to allow fair-use images when no free alternative is possible. That applies to logos 100%. Johntex\ 03:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- No, non-free images are used when images are necessary and no free alternative is possible. That is not yet shown (the marching band may be a more difficult case). From what you quote "Logos should be regarded as portraits for a given entity", but "2007 USC Trojans" is not an entity, it is one season of a college football program - it is thus not an entity and has no logo. --MASEM 03:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- You are mistaken. The 2007 Trojans is certainly an "entity" since a definition of "entity" is "an organization (as a business or governmental unit) that has an identity separate from those of its members". The article is about the team. The team has a logo. The logo is used in the article and represents the team.
- The logos are 100% allowable by policy, and no one has given a good reason what they hurt or why they should be removed. As I showed above, they are not detering anyone from adding free content. Arguing for the removal of these logos is just taking away time we could be using to build the encyclopedia. Johntex\ 03:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Non-free content must be shown to have a reason to be included, not why its removal must be demonstrated. That's what the resolution and the NFC policy is all about; we need to keep use to a minimum. As for the specific year of a team, that is not a separate entity from the team itself, it is only a snapshot of the entity. The logo is perfectly fine in USC Trojans football (and likely the other main USC teams), but not on a specific year of that team. --MASEM 04:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I can assure you that the 2008 Michigan Wolverines football team is a very different entity than the 2004 Michigan Wolverines football team. Each team is its own entity.
- Regarding "minimum use" of fair content: Everyone's idea of "minimun" fair-use content is going to be different. If we truly want the minimum, we could have zero. That would truly be a minimum. We don't want that, clearly.
- Having agreed that we will have fair use, it is now proper to look at individual cases and see whether they interfere with the mission. Since this content does not interfere with the mission, there is no reason to remove it.
- On the other hand, the reason to keep it remains - the serve to "identify the object or entity in question".Johntex\ 04:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, your premise is faulty. The USC Trojans have a logo. The 2008 USC Trojans football team also has a logo, which happens to be the same. If we had an article for the 1950 USC Trojans football team and the logo for that team was different, it'd be reasonable to expect that logo to be there. The fact that ten incarnations of a team have the same logo is immaterial; each of them has the given logo as the way they're represented and therefore each is allowed to display it per WP:LOGO. Oren0 (talk) 04:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Excellent point, Oren0. Force10 (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please note that WP:LOGO is not policy. please also review the non-free content criteria, that all non-free content must meet. A logo is used for identifying the primary subject only, it should not be used in any article relating to the subject. one item that needs review by you a little closer is WP:NFCC#8. how is the removal hurting the understanding of a particular teams single year performance? other than visual identification which is achieved on the primary article? β 04:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- A single year of a sports team is its own entity. It is made up of its own individuals and has its own history. It also has its own logo. If each year's team had a different logo, likely each logo would be its own file and included in only one article. The fact that teams use the same logo for several seasons is incidental. File:Usc_football_logo.gif is the logo of the 2008 USC football team. It was also the logo of the 2007 team. If USC changes the logo next season, the 2008 team will still have this as its logo whereas the 2009 team would have a new logo. That's the misunderstanding here. I'm not saying that USC's logo belongs on every USC-related page. I'm saying that each team should be identified by its logo. The "how does removal hurt?" argument could be made about any logo except for those where the logo itself is notable (Coca-Cola, McDonalds, etc.). How would removing Google or Bank of America's logos detract from the understanding of those pages? Unless you're advocating a wholesale removal of thousands of logos, that argument doesn't hold much weight. Also, "it's a guideline not a policy" is a weak argument as well. WP:LOGO is a community consensus document whatever you call it and represents common practice. Oren0 (talk) 08:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I will make a technical argument against "is a community consensus": It was a community consensus at the time it was ratified. Has that consensus changed? Are the people arguing over it different? I would say the answer to both is yes; your opinion may differ. In other words, it does not represent common practice, but represented common practice as documented at the time of ratification. Which was in 2005.
That's 3.5 years ago. Further. The first section states in italics that it is supplemental but does not in any way shape or form override WP:NFC. It goes on to state that each logo needs a detailed non-free use rationale which requires that "A separate, specific rationale must be provided each time the image is used in an article. The name of the article the image is used in must be included in the rationale." Every time. For every article. Quite plainly, these logos fail that requirement. I have no opinion as to how that part is fixed, but that is the necessary part to fix: Either every image page will need to say "This is our fair use rationale for this image for this article" 18 times, or it will be necessary to remove the image from the pages in general. I would daresay that removal of the image is both easier and more prudent in light of the mission of Wikimedia, and would thus advocate that as the way to proceed. --Izno (talk) 08:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)- I think that most people would not mind having (or editing in) a "This is our fair use rationale for this image for this article" (aka FUR) on the image page for each instance the image is used. If that is the requirement, I am not sure why there is even a conversation taking place on this since that was (in my understanding) already what was required. Either have a rationale for an article or remove it from that article; Seems like there isn't much disagreement here between the two sides if I understand the argument correctly. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 11:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I will make a technical argument against "is a community consensus": It was a community consensus at the time it was ratified. Has that consensus changed? Are the people arguing over it different? I would say the answer to both is yes; your opinion may differ. In other words, it does not represent common practice, but represented common practice as documented at the time of ratification. Which was in 2005.
- A single year of a sports team is its own entity. It is made up of its own individuals and has its own history. It also has its own logo. If each year's team had a different logo, likely each logo would be its own file and included in only one article. The fact that teams use the same logo for several seasons is incidental. File:Usc_football_logo.gif is the logo of the 2008 USC football team. It was also the logo of the 2007 team. If USC changes the logo next season, the 2008 team will still have this as its logo whereas the 2009 team would have a new logo. That's the misunderstanding here. I'm not saying that USC's logo belongs on every USC-related page. I'm saying that each team should be identified by its logo. The "how does removal hurt?" argument could be made about any logo except for those where the logo itself is notable (Coca-Cola, McDonalds, etc.). How would removing Google or Bank of America's logos detract from the understanding of those pages? Unless you're advocating a wholesale removal of thousands of logos, that argument doesn't hold much weight. Also, "it's a guideline not a policy" is a weak argument as well. WP:LOGO is a community consensus document whatever you call it and represents common practice. Oren0 (talk) 08:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please note that WP:LOGO is not policy. please also review the non-free content criteria, that all non-free content must meet. A logo is used for identifying the primary subject only, it should not be used in any article relating to the subject. one item that needs review by you a little closer is WP:NFCC#8. how is the removal hurting the understanding of a particular teams single year performance? other than visual identification which is achieved on the primary article? β 04:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Excellent point, Oren0. Force10 (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, your premise is faulty. The USC Trojans have a logo. The 2008 USC Trojans football team also has a logo, which happens to be the same. If we had an article for the 1950 USC Trojans football team and the logo for that team was different, it'd be reasonable to expect that logo to be there. The fact that ten incarnations of a team have the same logo is immaterial; each of them has the given logo as the way they're represented and therefore each is allowed to display it per WP:LOGO. Oren0 (talk) 04:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Non-free content must be shown to have a reason to be included, not why its removal must be demonstrated. That's what the resolution and the NFC policy is all about; we need to keep use to a minimum. As for the specific year of a team, that is not a separate entity from the team itself, it is only a snapshot of the entity. The logo is perfectly fine in USC Trojans football (and likely the other main USC teams), but not on a specific year of that team. --MASEM 04:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- No, non-free images are used when images are necessary and no free alternative is possible. That is not yet shown (the marching band may be a more difficult case). From what you quote "Logos should be regarded as portraits for a given entity", but "2007 USC Trojans" is not an entity, it is one season of a college football program - it is thus not an entity and has no logo. --MASEM 03:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- As I posted above:
- We could keep going in circles here, but I don't think this has been answered -- why do you need the logo in the first place? Of course noone can make a free alternative to a logo, but that's not even the issue here. How does having the logo in these articles enhance them beyond looking good? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Someone changed the infobox. Maybe it wasn't you. And I didn't accuse you of changing hundreds of articles, but changing dozens of articles with the ultimate goal of changing all college football articles without the agreement of the hundreds of editors that edit those articles without discussing it with those individuals first. Even if it is about policy and not consensus, it's still nice to allow people to understand and accept said policy before you try to enforce it. CH52584 (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
<--To Cardsplayer4life, we don't accept all fair use imagery based solely on the criteria of whether there is a fair use rationale added to the image's description page. That is but one small part of the criteria for inclusion shown at WP:NFCC (specifically in this case, #10c). The argument isn't about rationales. That's not even a debate. There *must* be a rationale, else it can't be on the article, and if there is no rationale at all for seven days, it gets deleted. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- To Izno - please remember that WP:LOGO is not a static document from 3.5 years ago. It is easy to see it still represents the consensus of the community today. We have hundreds (maybe thousands?) of editors correctly adding logos into appropriate articles. We only have a few people arguing for their removal. If you canvass Misplaced Pages as a whole, you will definitely find broad support for this usage. This fact is borne out by every day operation. Johntex\ 15:39, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Somewhere, there's an essay on here on misapplication of supposed majority. You claim this majority supports. I claim a majority supports my position. Barring presentation of evidence, neither you nor I is correct. You claim since the use is as is, your position is supported by the majority. I claim since fair use usage has been deprecated across a broad range of similar uses, my position is supported by the majority. But let me remind you; fair use policy isn't a consensus issue. If a thousand people liberally spread fair use images all over the place, they are not right by way of brute force. Else, we'd have a huge number of templates and userpages with fair use images on them. And trust me, a vast majority of people would prefer there be fair use images on templates and userpages. A majority doesn't make you right, even if the majority does support you (which, again barring evidence, has not been proven). --Hammersoft (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- It still represents the consensus of the community which edits it. Today. But as mentioned below, the consensus in this case is not the true consensus. Consider the soccer, basketball, and other sports projects, as well as the random business project. Do they seem to allow logos in more than one position? No. Which means the consensus you see is but a sample which suffers from a lack of samples across the entirety of Misplaced Pages. Which means that if we canvassed Misplaced Pages as a whole, I am fairly certain you would find yourself in the wrong, especially when considering what NFC says with the points which do not support your arguments. All the requirements of NFC must be met, not any selected 3 or 4. --Izno (talk) 17:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
3rd Break - Deconstructing the problem
Ok, there seem to be three major points here that have to be considered:
- Repeated college logo images lack FURs for each use - This is a non-negotiable aspect of WP:NFC policy, but it is also fixable (outside the question of whether the rationale is acceptable to all). This is more a red herring, though those wishing to keep images must be aware that if an image is used on an article for more than 7 days without a rationale, its removal from that page is completely in line with policy. Thus, I think there's no further argument here.
- Is the sports team of a single year an entity of its own? - This is a significant point of debate. I myself have a hard time justifying this because the "ownership" of the team does not change significant year to year despite the fact that the roster may, and that in general the performance of a team in one year will factor into how the press believe the team will perform the next year - if it was a separate entity, this would not be the case. There "is" one college football team per school that plays year after year, and will have its logo (including possibly historical logos, but that's a previous debate shown with TV stations before). There's only one "New York Yankees" organization which lasts through the years, but we do snapshot their roster and performance for a given year.
- Is the rationale "to help the reader identify the team" appropriate on pages where the team is not the main topic? - Even if the above question is vague, this is point of contention - in an article in which the team is not the main topic but is covered in large detail (the team rivalry pages, the various bowl games), can this be a valid rationale to use an individual team logo? I don't see this as being the case, because we've already got (at least) one page with the team's logo that will be linked into from that page either in the infobox or the lead. Furthermore, WP is not set up to allow browsing of pages visually - it's a text-based search, so if one were to want to make sure the reader knew they were at the right page by checking on which team they were looking for, a well-written lead or a infobox will do just the same. If WP was page where you can flip the pages, I could understand the logo because that would be eye-catching there, but not in the case of an eletronic and mostly text based medium. Since we don't allow images for purely decorative purposes, team logos on these pages would not be appropriate.
I think its worthwhile to go back to the start of all this and as Hammersoft pointed out, none of the professional sports pages use team logos on pages outside of the team's page itself. I think from all this that the last two points I outline above are taken in the negative in regards to NFC use by the professional sports, and thus there's strong existing consensus this extends to all sports at all levels (and I just checked, and also seems to extend to international football (soccer) as well). Those that are insisting the college teams are to be treated different are going against that consensus. --MASEM 15:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Au contraire, Masem. See the 2002 NFL Expansion Draft, a Featured List, for an example of the use of a professional team's logo outside of the team page.--2008Olympian 15:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, you look at the wrong points so it is not surprising that you draw the wrong conclusions. These facts are:
- There is no free-use alternative to a logo.
- The logo is used to identify the entity which is the subject of the article.
- No one is advocating putting in the logo where-ever Team A is discussed briefly. For instance, if an article about Team B says that they finished their previous season against, we don't include Team A's logo. All of the usages are in logos substantially about the team they represent.
- The use of the logos on these pages does not deter anyone from adding other free-use images into the articles.
- The use of the logos is consistent with WP:LOGO
- There is strong consensus for the use of the logos in this fashion, as evidenced by the many editors using them in this fashion. What pro-sports seem to be doing is not our concern. Different levels of sport have different levels of coverage on Misplaced Pages. Just because someone else is not adding content they could be using, that does not imply any limitation on other articles. The fact that other stuff does not exist is not a reason why something else should not exist.
- In conclusion - the logos are not replaceable. They are on on articles substantially about the topics the logos represent. Hence, they are acceptable by policy. No one can explain any harm that they cause. They make the encyclopedia better, so they should clearly be used in this fashion. Thanks, Johntex\ 15:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- @Olympian - that is not the same as a team logo's use that's in question here. In that specific case, it is an example of a logo created specifically for the purposes of the expansion draft, and thus appropriate.
That said, it is lacking a FUR for that page, which is a non-negotiable issue.I see what happened: the effective same image was being used at both the draft page and the team page but were two different images, so it looked like the one FUR wasn't there. Because we don't need both images, I've gone ahead, combined the FURs and licensing and used the better image (the one that doesn't crop the banners) and fixed the Draft page to use that image, deleting the duplicate. So the image is all good in terms of meeting FUR. --MASEM 16:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC) - @Johntex - The only consensus that these uses of logos is ok is among the college football editors - taking all of sports which are arranged in very similar fashions and to the same level of detail and coverage across the entire span of WP, this use is a minority. Plus, you're starting from a false assumption: that the page needs an image, which leads to "there are no non-free equivalents" and the like. Not every page needs an image (free or non-free), but we encourage the use of free images when they are relevant, and non-free images only when they are necessary. There has yet to be any evidence that most of these articles need the team logo to increase the reader's understanding. --MASEM 16:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Sure they do! See, if someone comes to the Florida–Tennessee rivalry, and doesn't see that Florida Gators logo, they're going to be utterly lost and confused about whether they've landed at the right article or not. Reading that one of the teams involved in the rivalry is "the University of Florida (the Gators)" isn't sufficient. You have to have the logo there, else our readers will be utterly confused and lost. We don't want them thinking they landed on the Harvard Yale rivalry page, now do we? Odd. The Game (Harvard-Yale) doesn't have any logos on it. Those Ivy Leaguers must be getting awfully confused when they come to that page. I wonder how long they spend searching around trying to make sure they landed on the right page? --Hammersoft (talk) 16:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- The sarcasm really does not help make a case. --Izno (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- It highlights two things; one, the absurdity of the position being demonstrated, and the intractability of those holding the position. I stand by it. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- The sarcasm really does not help make a case. --Izno (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- @Olympian - that is not the same as a team logo's use that's in question here. In that specific case, it is an example of a logo created specifically for the purposes of the expansion draft, and thus appropriate.
- Coming fresh to the debate, non-free logos should definitely not be used in lists of results, articles about leagues, etc., as it's a blatant violation of NFCC1 and 3a. Stifle (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- This is mainly about specific seasons (such as 2003 Florida Gators football team), specific games (such as 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game) and specific rivalries (such as Bedlam Series). Though, I think your points are valid still. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- For another example of how the pros do it, see Cowboys-Redskins rivalry. There just aren't as many of these type games in the pros as there are in colleges, but I think that they are proper use of the logos.--2008Olympian 16:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Or the 1960 NFL Expansion Draft, or 1961, et al...--2008Olympian 16:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Another WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument. That something exists doesn't mean it should exist. Please come up with another argument. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Hammerssoft, your statement here is very hypocritical. Your very first post tries to find other similar articles that don't have logos. You can't have it both ways. Either comparisons to other articles are useful to the discussion, or they are not. Johntex\ 00:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)But of course not on every NFL draft - only those that have the introduction of new teams; those exceptional cases I can reasonably argue as an appropriate use of the logo (since it is about the first creation of that team's roster); this is a very different case from having the logo on any average season of any team. --MASEM 17:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem, what about the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry? And Hammer, I was just addressing the statement above that, as "Hammersoft pointed out, none of the professional sports pages use team logos on pages outside of the team's page itself." I was just showing that was not a true representation of the consensus in the pro football area.--2008Olympian 17:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- (ec)But of course not on every NFL draft - only those that have the introduction of new teams; those exceptional cases I can reasonably argue as an appropriate use of the logo (since it is about the first creation of that team's roster); this is a very different case from having the logo on any average season of any team. --MASEM 17:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Also, see the articles at 49ers-Rams rivalry, Battle of Ohio (NFL), Bears-Packers rivalry, Bengals-Steelers rivalry, Browns-Steelers rivalry, Chiefs–Colts rivalry, Chiefs–Raiders rivalry, Colts–Patriots rivalry, Cowboys-Redskins rivalry, Eagles-Giants rivalry, Jets-Patriots rivalry.--2008Olympian 17:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- First, there is the problem of no FURs for those articles (using spot checks). Technically all those images should be removed from the pages, but that is a fixable issue. However, on the issue of whether the logo helps or not, I can't argue this case here. Team rivalries happen all the time, and thus there's nothing special, unlike the creation of an expansion team, that needs an image. The logos are only being used for decoration to identify the teams despite that information being there at least twice (maybe three times) before the meat of the article: lead, infobox, and article name.
- Another point to consider in all this. Those logos are only recognizable by a small fraction of the readers of WP, those that follow those sports, live in those cities, etc. The rationale "to help the reader identify the team" is not valid here since it only applies to a small group and not to the general reader. --MASEM 17:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- What does the fact that only a small fraction of readers recognizes a logo (or any other image) have to do with anything? I come here to learn, not to have stuff that I already know regurgitated at me. The b.s. that anti-image (or anti-anything) people will with come up with to support their narrow view of the rules just repeatedly astounds me. Whether you have seen a logo or not before in your life doesn't invalidate its presence. Wiggy! (talk) 18:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- You guys made WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS relevant when you said "none of the professional sports pages use team logos on pages outside of the team's page itself...Those that are insisting the college teams are to be treated different are going against that consensus." We've shown via the NFL that this point isn't true. Not to mention that WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST links to the same place. As for the "small percentage" argument, it's both inaccurate (these logos are recognized by millions of people; likely more than the vast majority of corporate logos on WP) and irrelevant. The crux of this seems to go back to the "is each year its own entity" argument. I think an interesting example is the Super Bowl. Each one (Super Bowl 42) has its own logo, but again that seems incidental. Each year's incarnation includes a logo. If the logos were the same each year, would that itself make them be excluded based on WP:NFC, WP:LOGO, or other considerations? Oren0 (talk) 18:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- What does the fact that only a small fraction of readers recognizes a logo (or any other image) have to do with anything? I come here to learn, not to have stuff that I already know regurgitated at me. The b.s. that anti-image (or anti-anything) people will with come up with to support their narrow view of the rules just repeatedly astounds me. Whether you have seen a logo or not before in your life doesn't invalidate its presence. Wiggy! (talk) 18:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Also, see the articles at 49ers-Rams rivalry, Battle of Ohio (NFL), Bears-Packers rivalry, Bengals-Steelers rivalry, Browns-Steelers rivalry, Chiefs–Colts rivalry, Chiefs–Raiders rivalry, Colts–Patriots rivalry, Cowboys-Redskins rivalry, Eagles-Giants rivalry, Jets-Patriots rivalry.--2008Olympian 17:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
(not entirely sure where to put this comment, so near the bottom will have to do) Coming as this from the perspective of being an editor of articles about a different football there seem to be elements of a different editing culture to what I am used to. Part of this is the mild balkanisation of different sports on Misplaced Pages, but thats by the by. For example I'm highly surprised that team logos are routinely being used in articles about specific matches. The logos do not identify that match, and do not help understanding of it. To me this is like putting the logo on the article about their home stadium, or an article about a player well known for playing for that team. Seasons I'm also surprised by, it sails very close to the wind in terms of MOS:LOGO, with some parallels to the issues surrounding flags too. Were such an article to come up at FAC, I'd certainly raise it as an issue when reviewing. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm glad you mention FAC. You are actually mistaken about the logos being a problem there. Please see 2005 Texas Longhorns football team and 2007 USC Trojans football team. Both of these are Featured Articles and both use the logo. They achieved FA status more than a year apart, so there is a long running consensus at FAC that this use of the logo is perfectly acceptable. Johntex\ 16:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- FAC generally only looks at the one use of that image in that article. In a vacuum, the use of a logo seems appropriate on both pages (and I note that the person that reviewed images on the 2007 USC article does know what he's doing). The issue is that the image is duplicated across numerous pages - that is the concern here, and the acceptance at FAC/FLC is not a strong point of indication of wide-spread use. --MASEM 16:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't mean to imply that FAC is fool-proof. Certainly even Featured Articles are not perfect. However, I disagree with you that they tend to look only at usage on that page in a narrow sense. My experience in getting 2 FAs approved and through general contributions to the FAC process is that the process is typically far-reaching. If the experienced editors there think that *any* image was in *any* way inappropriate, they tend to make their concerns known. Therefore, I do think this is strong evidence of the community feeling about these logos. The FAC editors have said these articles are examplars of the best work on Misplaced Pages. Johntex\ 23:14, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I guess the point I'm trying to say is a FAC reviewer only considers the image use on that page and on no other pages on WP - as long as it has an appropriate FUR and is necessary for the understanding of the article, it is usually passed. In the void of any other per-season team articles, the logo seems fine from the FAC stance. But, besides minimal use per page of NFC content, NFC content should be used minimally on WP, and this is not addressed at FAC. This is the bulk of the argument: an non-free image being used more than a couple of times in a very repetitive nature raises a lot of warning flags and, when encountered in the past (the Trinity Network logo, for example) its use is quelled down. In other words, while this affects articles, we're looking at a large grouping of articles and how they are affected by the NFC use. --MASEM 04:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't mean to imply that FAC is fool-proof. Certainly even Featured Articles are not perfect. However, I disagree with you that they tend to look only at usage on that page in a narrow sense. My experience in getting 2 FAs approved and through general contributions to the FAC process is that the process is typically far-reaching. If the experienced editors there think that *any* image was in *any* way inappropriate, they tend to make their concerns known. Therefore, I do think this is strong evidence of the community feeling about these logos. The FAC editors have said these articles are examplars of the best work on Misplaced Pages. Johntex\ 23:14, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- FAC generally only looks at the one use of that image in that article. In a vacuum, the use of a logo seems appropriate on both pages (and I note that the person that reviewed images on the 2007 USC article does know what he's doing). The issue is that the image is duplicated across numerous pages - that is the concern here, and the acceptance at FAC/FLC is not a strong point of indication of wide-spread use. --MASEM 16:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Going in circles, solving nothing
It's obvious from all the discussion above that we are going in circles. I don't have a particular solution in mind to halt this situation. But, the status quo obviously can't remain for two reasons:
- Fair use imagery has to surpass a number of hurdles to get on to Misplaced Pages. There's no consensus that this use is permissible. The opposite opinion is there's no consensus to deprecate the use. But the DEFAULT case here with respect to fair use is that lacking consensus to use means we don't use.
- Fair use policy isn't a consensus issue. The Foundation's resolution makes that clear.
I suggest that those that want to include these types of uses being discussed come up with a well reasoned approach as to why this use is acceptable under guideline, policy and resolution. So far the arguments have been WP:ILIKEIT, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, WP:NOHARM, WP:PRETTY and it passes WP:NFCC because it does. If this isn't done, you should expect to find this use deprecated soon. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please see Misplaced Pages:Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument. Both sides can post plenty of blue links. For instance, WP:LOGO, which spells out exactly why using a fair use logo is not the same as other cases, such as a fair-use image a celebrity. A Wikipedian can make a replacement for the photo of a celebrity. There is no replacement for a logo. Johntex\ 00:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- As long as were enumerating our points:
- Please don't make threats. "If you guys don't satisfy me, I'm going to remove these images" is inappropriate.
- Please don't use strawmen. The arguments you list above are completely unrepresentative of what the pro-inclusion camp is arguing, to the point where maintaining WP:AGF is difficult with you (maybe your reading comprehension is just bad?).
- The arguments of the pro-inclusion camp are based on guideline and policy, specifically WP:LOGO and WP:NFCC, and even the same Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy you link above (which specifically allows logos and gives no indication their use should be curtailed). We argue, for example, that the 2004 Florida Gators football team has the same logo as Florida Gators and therefore can permissibly display that logo per policy. Some have also argued that other instances, such as rivalry games, apply the same logic. These are legitimate questions where good-faith editors can disagree. But to say that this argument is clearly against policy or is just WP:ILIKEIT, etc. is disingenuous.
- I do believe that most of the other anti-inclusionists are addressing the merits of these points, but it's clear from your summary Hammersoft that you do not wish to address our points. Please do so rather than offering distractions. Oren0 (talk) 18:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- <beavis>I didn't threaten you. Please don't attempt to interpret things as threats</beavis>. It is better if you just assume bad faith. You'll find processing of my posts considerably easier. If that fails, read my homepage. Now, with the personal attacks out of the way and allowing us to return to actual discussion....
- What I was attempting to highlight was something that has happened before. Huge (and I mean huge) numbers of people have opposed removals of fair use images before, and were trumped by a small cadre of administrators operating in support of Foundation policy. THAT is what I meant by my comments on the point of breaking the circle of discussion, or having it done for you. That's why I'm suggesting the pro-inclusionist come up with well reasoned arguments why these images should be included as desired by them. Else, disappointment will result. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- WP:FUEXPLAIN was written after the last major sweep of removals, reading it may help those who think they can abuse non-free content. also wikilinks can serve the same purpose as an image if it links to the article with the logo. β 20:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please note that the link Betacommand posts is simply a link to an essay in his own userspace. Linking to his opinion doesn't make his opinion any more correct. Please see Misplaced Pages:Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument. In this case, he is not even linking to a policy or a guideline, just an essay. Johntex\ 00:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree with the opening statement of this section: "the status quo obviously can't remain". On the contrary, most editors seem to regard the status quo regarding team logos on team pages as just fine. That is: not violating any copyright laws, not violating either the letter or the spirit of any wikipedia guideline or rule or mission or anything else, and useful for readers of the articles in question.
- Frankly, this is exactly the kind of argument over nothing that causes many an editor to give up on this project. Zeng8r (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
God, this is so incredibly tedious. Nobody is ever going to get anywhere, because there's a basic difference in world view. On the one side, you have normal people, who think "gee, it's nice to have the logo , and there's absolutely no chance we'll ever possibly get in any kind of legal trouble for using it, so why not? What harm does it do?" On the other side, you have people who are obsessed with "free content" and who thus want to remove any kind of copyrighted context under any pretext that can be devised under the rules. The basic issue is that one side things the images are a good thing, and that we should use them if we can, and the other side thinks they are a bad thing, and that we should only use them if we absolutely have to. The second position has for some time seemed completely insane to me, but it appears to be the one supported by the Foundation, and I have no doubt that, soon enough, virtually all instances of team logos will be removed from Misplaced Pages. It's best not to get too worked up about it. On this issue the crazies have already won, and it's just a matter of time as they slowly force the removal of all copyrighted images. john k (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Actually I think you'll find that is not the case. The Foundation resolution is comparatively liberal - it's closely based on the norms of US fair use law, and (apart from the important point that we certainly must not use non-free media when alternative free media could reasonably be available) basically reflects no more than the constraints needed for US commercial reuse. The most misrepresented word is probably "minimal", which actually comes straight from U.S. law, where it means "no more than needed to achieve the purpose identified". Importantly, the motivation for the resolution was not that we need to drive down existing levels of fair use - Kat Walsh, who was on the board at the time when the resolution was created, has been very clear on this point. This was not an issue. Instead en-wiki, with a codified WP:NFC, interpreted as it was being interpreted at the time, was seen as exemplifying best practice, and the intention was to encourage other projects to adopt similar formal policies. It is noticeable that since that time people who misunderstand the Foundation position have often begged the Foundation to lay down the law and more drastically restrict fair use. The Foundation has systematically refused to do so, leaving it as a matter for the projects to work out for themselves. Jheald (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- HAhahahahaahahahah! Ok, so the pro-inclusionists are "normal" people. Thanks for the insult! I'm abnormal now, and obsessed with free content. Actually, I'll take that as a compliment, since this is A FREE CONTENT ENCYCLOPEDIA it is hardly surprising that there would be people here who are (gosh gee willikers) interested in free content. I mean, the horror! Someone on a free content project interested in free content??? Say it ain't so!!!! We can't let those abnormal pervy types in here! BAN! I SAY! BAN THE FREE CONTENT LOVERS NOW!
- I simply can't believe this. We've got people claiming that free content is a SECONDARY mission of the project, and that people who are interested in free content are "obsessed" and (by inference) "abnormal". Unreal, surreal. Truth stranger than fiction. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fundamental goal of this project is m:vision. The document m:mission is secondary - it describes our priorities in how to get there. The recent Signpost article describes how the two can conflict, and how WP:NFC represents a balance between them. Jheald (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Furthermore, there are two distinct viewpoints in how NFC affects m:mission. One, which I think is yours, is that any NFC on a page poisons it and makes it non-free. The other, for example expressed by ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC) above, is that the page still contains an enormous amount of free content, plus a non-free image; and that judicious and appropriate use of NFC may well encourage editors, so that they contribute even more free content.
- Policy, I believe, takes a balanced position and considers practical reusability. We don't use NFC that could not be used by a verbatim US commercial reuser - so they can use automated methods to redistribute our content. But where re-use would inevitably be manual, we best empower our readers and our reusers by including legally permissible content if it helps inform the article, and letting them decide. Jheald (talk) 23:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Jheald, just to clarify; someone earlier claimed that our secondary mission is free content. The vision and mission might at times be at odds, but our primary (and only) mission is to provide a free content encyclopedia. There is no secondary mission. That's what my post was referring to. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:12, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- hammersoft one thing that those images cannot meet is WP:NFCC#8 ... its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. the usage does not meet the requirements, they have no option but to follow policy. policy requires minimal usage and importance. mass usage of NFC will be reverted every single time I see it. its a clear violation. they can wine and complain and spout WP:ILIKEIT and NOT FAIR. please note that this is not the fair use policy, this is the non-free content policy. there must be a unique reason for including each usage. if a rationale (both on the image and its usage) does not pass muster it will be removed. β 21:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Unique reason? But the images DO have 'unique' reasons; "Identification and critical commentary in the NNNNN article, a subject of public interest. The logo confirms to readers they have reached the correct article, and illustrates the intended branding message." That's the unique reason, repeated 18 times over on images like File:Texas Longhorn logo.svg. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't really know what the issue is here, but since people are mentioning the Foundation's name, I thought I'd throw in Mike Godwin's most recent comment at if it would help in anyway. MBisanz 22:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- This issue is basically a debate on how to judge "significance", WP:FUC rule #8, regarding the inclusion of sports logos on various sports articles — something that has not been fully resolved in more than two years, unfortunately. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:03, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Fair use in The Game (Harvard-Yale)
After mentioning The Game (Harvard-Yale) here earlier today, fair use inclusionists are now striving to push Harvard and Yale sports logos onto this article, despite there being a perfectly good free license image previously present on the article, despite this article existing for four years without the fair use sports logos. See article history. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:19, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Please see Army-Navy, Alabama-Auburn, Duke-North Carolina, UCLA-USC, and Cal-Stanford fir examples of existing consensus. No one is trying to tell you not to change consensus, but you do that with a RfC, not by just taking matters into your own hands.--2008Olympian 02:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't taken matters into my own hands. Upon hearing of the logos not being on that article, YOU took matters into your own hands to push the logos onto an article where no logos had existed for four years, breaking the status quo on that article. Now, User:Geologik is ignoring WP:BRD and edit warring to push his preferred version. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I made it conform to current consensus as illustrated in the above-mentioned articles. I wasn't going to permit one outlier to be used, as you did above, as a reason to remove the logos from all the other rivalry pages.--2008Olympian 02:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- So you own the article then? You're not going to permit it? You're going to force fair use content onto an article that for four years did not have fair use content? Note that this particular rivalry page is far from being the only rivalry page absent logos. You're on thin ice here 2008Olympian. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Until the issue is decided differently than what the current standard is (preferably through a vote or something since this conversation seems to be bogging down heavily), the logos in the article seem to be in place, as with any rivalry game. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Unless I missed something, it was highly inappropriate for any editors to add the image in question to the page in question, specifically for the reason "well, it was an outlier, and now it's not". That was a completely uncalled for decision. I think an RfC for LOGOS may be in order (whether here or at that talk page matters not to me), as it seems to me that the Logos guideline is being misused. --Izno (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- So, basically no team logo images can be either added or removed from articles? It seems like that is a bit of an unsustainable stalemate. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 05:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- For the moment, I think that would be preferable either way. I personally lie on the side of "those images should be removed per the mission and NFCC", but I think it silly that people are trying to force their side, so a 'cease-fire' in such a manner seems suitable until people have come to a conclusion here. --Izno (talk) 06:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Perfectly acceptable for me personally. Unfortunately some are not convinced of the need for a temporary stalemate. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 06:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Quite correct. Nonfree images are always presumed unacceptable unless clearly shown to pass these policies, the WMF resolution, and clear consensus. All three are required. Here, we may say at the very least there is the absence of consensus, in itself rendering reinsertion unacceptable. Seraphimblade 07:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- So you go about it by doing what Hammersoft did to start this whole mess by taking matters into your own hands before it is even decided? That isn't very constructive. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 08:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- It already is decided. We don't use nonfree images when free ones are available or when text alone is sufficient. That was decided by the Foundation and by this policy. Seraphimblade 09:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Obviously there are a lot of people in the above conversations that disagree. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 10:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- That doesn't matter. We don't use nonfree content when we have free. That is not negotiable or subject to discussion, we don't do it. Seraphimblade 19:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Obviously there are a lot of people in the above conversations that disagree. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 10:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- It already is decided. We don't use nonfree images when free ones are available or when text alone is sufficient. That was decided by the Foundation and by this policy. Seraphimblade 09:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- So you go about it by doing what Hammersoft did to start this whole mess by taking matters into your own hands before it is even decided? That isn't very constructive. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 08:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Quite correct. Nonfree images are always presumed unacceptable unless clearly shown to pass these policies, the WMF resolution, and clear consensus. All three are required. Here, we may say at the very least there is the absence of consensus, in itself rendering reinsertion unacceptable. Seraphimblade 07:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Perfectly acceptable for me personally. Unfortunately some are not convinced of the need for a temporary stalemate. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 06:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- For the moment, I think that would be preferable either way. I personally lie on the side of "those images should be removed per the mission and NFCC", but I think it silly that people are trying to force their side, so a 'cease-fire' in such a manner seems suitable until people have come to a conclusion here. --Izno (talk) 06:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- So, basically no team logo images can be either added or removed from articles? It seems like that is a bit of an unsustainable stalemate. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 05:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- By all means, as the removal of unique logos, which was discussed above and agreed would be in compliance, is also being pushed onto 2002 NFL Expansion Draft, see :.
- That is not by any means unique, it is also used in a gallery at Houston Texans. Though, that article suffers seriously from nonfree overuse, so it indeed might be better in that case to have the draft logo in the draft article alone, and then trim out the massive numbers of nonfree images there. Seraphimblade 06:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- "...YOU took matters into your own hands to push the logos onto an article where no logos had existed for four years, breaking the status quo on that article." Hammer, you have no room to even mention "breaking the status quo". Let's at least own up to our own actions. -- Mastrchf (/c) 06:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- That is not by any means unique, it is also used in a gallery at Houston Texans. Though, that article suffers seriously from nonfree overuse, so it indeed might be better in that case to have the draft logo in the draft article alone, and then trim out the massive numbers of nonfree images there. Seraphimblade 06:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Unless I missed something, it was highly inappropriate for any editors to add the image in question to the page in question, specifically for the reason "well, it was an outlier, and now it's not". That was a completely uncalled for decision. I think an RfC for LOGOS may be in order (whether here or at that talk page matters not to me), as it seems to me that the Logos guideline is being misused. --Izno (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Such articles don't even have the potential to talk about the logos thus there is no reason to include them.Geni 13:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Clearly any article has the potential to discuss anything in the article, including images. Johntex\ 16:12, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Not really. When you are writeing about a team it is not that unusal to talk about the logo. When you are writeing about a game it is very unusal to talk about the logos. Of course if the article does include a discusion on the logos we can consider includeing them but that would be uncommon.Geni 17:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Geni is right here, that article has no potential right now to include discussion of the logos. When someone finds a source discussing the logos on the context of "The Game", it will be then when you can add the logos, together with the discussion. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The real reason is forcing people to find non-free content
WP:NFCC keeps fair-use images out of articles. People want the articles to have pretty photos, so, since they can't rip off prophesional quality photographies out of the internet, they are forced to go out to make their own photos or find people who has photos with free licenses, and so wikipedia gains free-use content.
See? It's easy. If there are already logos on the infobox, then nobody will bother finding a representative free photo of a match that can go on the infobox so it will look pretty with an image. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Thats only part of it. Another element is that we want wikipedia to be as free as posible. Useing material under fair use conflicts with this so we try and keep such use as minimal as posible.17:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, very right, it also serves that purpose. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's not clear that the presence of a logo will discourage people from adding a photo to a page if a relevant one can be found. Also, the principal types of pages being argued about here (pages such as 2007-08 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team which use Template:NCAATeamSeason) can't really display any type of image other than a logo. This is why we allow non-free content when there is no possible replacement. Oren0 (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm quite sure there are free photos of games played by the team during that season, perhaps even a group shot of the team. If none are available now, we could always ask someone who took such a photo to release it under a free license. There are many free alternatives to the logo to illustrate the subject. Seraphimblade 20:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's not clear that the presence of a logo will discourage people from adding a photo to a page if a relevant one can be found. Also, the principal types of pages being argued about here (pages such as 2007-08 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team which use Template:NCAATeamSeason) can't really display any type of image other than a logo. This is why we allow non-free content when there is no possible replacement. Oren0 (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, very right, it also serves that purpose. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- (sarcasm alert!) There are also many free alternatives to corporate logos. A photo of the local McDonald's would suffice to represent the whole chain, no? And, along the same lines, a shot of an old IBM typewriter would do to represent that company. Of course, the golden arches on the sign in front of the restaurant and the IBM logo on the typewriter would have to be blurred out, as they are non-free content and, thusly, evil incarnate. (end sarcasm)
- There's really no intellectual distance at all between the statements above (not my sarcasm; the real ones) to a ban on all fair use images. Fortunately, I still haven't seen any actual wikipolicy (an essay which carries no official weight doesn't count) that agrees with the radical anti-fair use crowd.
- And let me repeat: endless wikilawyering = less contributing editors. Zeng8r (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- We allow the IBM logo in the IBM article, just as we allow the team logo in the main article on the team. On the other hand, this is indeed similar to an article on a specific model of IBM typewriter, in which case a shot of the typewriter would indeed be sufficient. We do not allow the IBM or McDonald's logo in every article which concerns IBM or McDonald's, and we do not allow the team logo in every article which concerns the team. There is no dissonance there. Seraphimblade 20:25, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- IBM logo is ineligible, so overuse of it doesn't actually matter, but you have a point somewhat. ViperSnake151 22:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- We allow the IBM logo in the IBM article, just as we allow the team logo in the main article on the team. On the other hand, this is indeed similar to an article on a specific model of IBM typewriter, in which case a shot of the typewriter would indeed be sufficient. We do not allow the IBM or McDonald's logo in every article which concerns IBM or McDonald's, and we do not allow the team logo in every article which concerns the team. There is no dissonance there. Seraphimblade 20:25, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- And let me repeat: endless wikilawyering = less contributing editors. Zeng8r (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is no reason to remove the logos to promote free content. Look at 2005 Texas Longhorn football team and 2007 USC Trojans football team. Both are Featured Articles. Both use the team logos. Both have lots of free-use images also. Johntex\ 20:26, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fact that a lot of cleanup is needed shouldn't stop us from doing it. There's cleanup needed on those as well, but we've got to start somewhere. Seraphimblade 20:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- The only "group photo" of a team that you'll find (with all the players and coaches) will be the official team photo, which is also copyrighted by the school. Again, there is no free alternative to headline a team's season page. Oren0 (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I would argue that this is a more appropriate non-free image to use to represent a team from a single year than the general logo for the school, sports program, or team. In the case of past college years, there would be no free equivalent of that entire collection (as opposed to the current year) and thus is allowable. --MASEM 20:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- The only "group photo" of a team that you'll find (with all the players and coaches) will be the official team photo, which is also copyrighted by the school. Again, there is no free alternative to headline a team's season page. Oren0 (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fact that a lot of cleanup is needed shouldn't stop us from doing it. There's cleanup needed on those as well, but we've got to start somewhere. Seraphimblade 20:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Seraphimblade, what cleanup are referring to? My post is pointing out that the inclusion of logos on these 2 FA has not been any sort of deterrent to people providing free content. Or were you replying to someone else's post in the thread? Johntex\ 20:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is overuse of nonfree content on the two articles you pointed out as well, in addition to the unnecessary logos, so they need cleanup. They actually probably have more overuse than the other articles we've discussed here. Seraphimblade 20:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem's idea is interesting. Where available, would people oppose including a non-free photo of the team on, for example, 2008-09 Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team instead of the logo? Oren0 (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- absolutely. Attend some games take some pics then fire up your copy of GIMP and start building a composite.Geni 22:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is no reason to replace the logo with free photos. The free photos are found throughout the article. Please take a look at the Featured Articles I mentioned above. Or at 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game. This is one of the articles Hammersmith originally complained about. It has appropriate free images despite also including the team logos. Again, the logos do not keep people from adding free images. Johntex\ 23:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is every reason to replace logos with free photos where we can. We are a free content encyclopedia. In fact, WP:NFCC #1 requires us to replace non-free content with free content where such exists or could be created. The issue of encouraging free content is a minor issue here; whether there's free content or not on the article doesn't play into whether a logo should be allowed on the article. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Masem's idea is interesting. Where available, would people oppose including a non-free photo of the team on, for example, 2008-09 Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team instead of the logo? Oren0 (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is overuse of nonfree content on the two articles you pointed out as well, in addition to the unnecessary logos, so they need cleanup. They actually probably have more overuse than the other articles we've discussed here. Seraphimblade 20:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- And here are some more good examples: 2007 Holiday Bowl, 2007 Hawai'i Bowl, and 2008 Orange Bowl. All use logos and still have free images also. The 2008 Orange Bowl is another Featured Article, so yet again this proves that even in the stringent FAC process that this use of logos has not been seen to be problematic. The logical conclusion is that the logos are not deterring people from adding free images. Johntex\ 23:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Those are specific cases, since those events ACTUALLY HAVE LOGOS. Unless its like a championship season or something, most specific seasons of a team will not have their own logo. ViperSnake151 23:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- But the logos are not specific to the year in question. Therefore, it is exactly analogous to the question of a team season. My point is that the existence of the logos has not prevented people from finding and adding free content. The section heading of this discussion assumes that removing the logos forced people to add free content. I am pointing out that this is not necessary. The logos are not preventing anyone from adding free content. Johntex\ 00:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- The individual game logos have the same problem as the teams. Whatever is decided for teams should work for the bowl series game within a given year.
- Going back to the team pictures, the ones that, at least, I am thinking of, include every player, every coach, every aid, and the like - a shot that, unless you are there when they pose for it, is impossible to replicate via free content. It further does serve to identify every player and person involved with the team for that year. While this doesn't change the amount of NFC content, it does seem to be an appropriate replacement. --MASEM 04:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- But the logos are not specific to the year in question. Therefore, it is exactly analogous to the question of a team season. My point is that the existence of the logos has not prevented people from finding and adding free content. The section heading of this discussion assumes that removing the logos forced people to add free content. I am pointing out that this is not necessary. The logos are not preventing anyone from adding free content. Johntex\ 00:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Those are specific cases, since those events ACTUALLY HAVE LOGOS. Unless its like a championship season or something, most specific seasons of a team will not have their own logo. ViperSnake151 23:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposed compromise
Let me suggest a compromise that might work from now on:
- 1. Prohibit the use of logos on annual season articles. This seems to make up the bulk of the non-free overuse that has been described above, and with the potential of adding an image for each year in perpetuity, it could become extreme.
(Although I would point out that Hammersoft started out this discussion claiming that Image:Ohio State buckeyes logo.png was used 102 times, yet I can find no version of it with more than 9 article namespace links to it.)(Thanks Beta)
- 2. Permit the use in specific rivalry articles and individual games or series that are notable enough to warrant a separate article. The number of rivalries that are notable enough to have their own articles are limited. In the NFL, for example, there are 32 teams giving 1024 possible opponent combinations, but there are only 14 total rivalry articles. And the number of individual games each season that are notable enough to have an article is similarly small.
- This recognizes that the head-to-head juxtaposition of logos or helmets between two opposing teams has reached a level in our society to become an expression in and of itself. Just see the myriad of individual Bowl logos that feature both teams' helmets or any episode of ESPN Gameday to see how much this juxtaposition has reached into the consciousness of our society so that it conveys a meaning that fulfills what is asked of by NFCC#8.--2008Olympian 05:24, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Not getting into the merits of part two see where I removed it from 93 articles. β 05:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Question on 1: What would be the acceptable way to represent (identify) an individual season article if not by a logo? It seems that the fact that the logo of the season's team is the same as the overall team is incidental. For instance, the logo of the 1950 version of a team would likely be different than the 2008 logo of that team, and therefore require a different logo, but the fact that the 2008 logo is the same as the team seems like it should be acceptable use insofar as the justification has been presented in the above conversations. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 06:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is no acceptable way from what I can see, unless by chance it happens to be a year where the logo changes I think, in which case the article can discuss "This year, the logo changed from x to y, because this person/organization thought it should". The logos need to be discussed if they aren't being used for the purpose of identifying the main article (ie, Seattle Seahawks would be the main article of a set of articles on each teams' season). --Izno (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- One suggestion has been to use the team group photo from that season. That seems like a pretty good idea actually.--2008Olympian 11:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- There is no acceptable way from what I can see, unless by chance it happens to be a year where the logo changes I think, in which case the article can discuss "This year, the logo changed from x to y, because this person/organization thought it should". The logos need to be discussed if they aren't being used for the purpose of identifying the main article (ie, Seattle Seahawks would be the main article of a set of articles on each teams' season). --Izno (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Question on 1: What would be the acceptable way to represent (identify) an individual season article if not by a logo? It seems that the fact that the logo of the season's team is the same as the overall team is incidental. For instance, the logo of the 1950 version of a team would likely be different than the 2008 logo of that team, and therefore require a different logo, but the fact that the 2008 logo is the same as the team seems like it should be acceptable use insofar as the justification has been presented in the above conversations. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 06:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I think the second half of #2 moves closer to to where we should be talking, but isn't quite yet there, as while the images for a specific rivalry-game may increase understanding that this is what the article is about, it does not detriment the content so significantly that its use is required. Take for example The Game (Harvard-Yale): Were we to use such an image of "X vs X", the image still needs discussion about it to satisfy NFCC#8, at which point, it is likely you could spin out the article to a "Logo of <this game>", and in which case you should only be using the logo on the second page rather than the first (though, if you can fit it into the text of the article, than it is definitely appropriate). Explaining that "reached into the consciousness of our society" needs to happen in the article, about the logos, and it needs to be sourced, else you run into original research. Also, I don't think using the individual logos in this case would be appropriate; I definitely think using the "head-to-head" logo would be able to illustrate it better. That should also reduce the number of fair use rationales that have to be written, which is the goal. --Izno (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, but the question should not be whether "its use is required," but whether its use is to be prohibited.--2008Olympian 11:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- That's backwards. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Not getting into the merits of part two see where I removed it from 93 articles. β 05:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I think I made my opinion clear in my writings in the discussion above, but just for the sake of clarity, I do not see the current usage (on season & rivalry articles) as "overuse" and do not see a need for new policy or standard. Do not see in anyway that it is violating NFCC policy/guidelines and therefor don't think a total overhaul of our current system is needed. Rtr10 (talk) 08:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Of course, you're right. Most of the arguments against this usage come down to Wikilawyering that is entirely insensitive to our essential questions here when it comes to the use of non-free images: (1a) Could it be replaced by equivalently informative free content? (1b) Does it deter us from pursuing free content of similar or greater informative value? (2) Does it expose us to legal jeopardy? (3) Does it enhance readers' understanding? (For those who may be new to this topic and don't know where these essential questions are coming from, please familiarize yourself with the fundamental rationale of our non-free content policy.) You're doing well, my friend. Keep up the good work and remain strong in the face of the zealotry and condescension that you've unfortunately had to face.—DCGeist (talk) 09:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- You're right, apart from the fact that it doesn't really increase the reader's understanding. If the pretty little picture is so essential, how come there is nothing in the prose (and probably nothing in relation to that particular season in decent sources) that discusses it? The person who cut the grass is discussed about as much, but there's no great desire to slam a non-free image of them at the top. Just because others overuse the logo, doesn't mean that we should- we're not aiming to use just too few non-free images to be sued, we're aiming to use the minimum that we could get away with and still produce a decent encyclopedia. J Milburn (talk) 09:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- A perfectly valid perspective, if unnecessarily snarky (yes, I know, glass houses...stones...), except for one
littleBIG thing: not "decent" encyclopedia, my friend. No. Excellent encyclopedia. Superb encyclopedia. The best. As we pursue the free content we love, we must never forget that.—DCGeist (talk) 10:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)- Actually, in terms of free content, if we can have a decent article with no nonfree content, that is sufficient. In the case of these articles here, very little if anything is lost from not having the logos. Someone interested specifically in the logo is likely visiting the team article, not a season article, and it is there. Someone interested in the season or game and seeking that article likely already knows at least one team involved, and other teams will be mentioned in the article, likely the lead. There is little to no benefit from use of the logos, so going on about "superb" or whatever aside, they're not needed and they need to go. A "superb" article on a game, season, what have you, can be written without those logos. Seraphimblade 10:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, "decent" may be "sufficient" for you personally, but that's not the consensus view here. The fact that you bracket "superb" with "whatever" is indicative of your indifference to quality which, I'm afraid I must point out, puts you and your idiosyncratic perspective outside of the Misplaced Pages mainstream.—DCGeist (talk) 10:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Can we please focus on what is being said and the arguments being made, rather than extrapolating from them that other respected users should, for whatever reason, have their views discounted? You are being unecessarily confrontational here. J Milburn (talk) 10:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- (EC) Please do not misrepresent me. I want high-quality articles as much as anyone. But our mission, as a project, is to produce high-quality free content. Free content is a part of our core mission. Indeed, as part of that, we have disallowed nonfree images of living persons, despite the fact that this means some living person articles are temporarily of slightly lower quality. Indeed, the differential there is far greater than game articles, where little to nothing is lost by excluding the logos. The name of a team readily identifies it without the need for a logo. There is little to no quality loss from excluding the logos, so that's really not a major consideration here. We do sometimes decide that an image is of such necessity that it is worth making an exception to nonfree requirements. In this case, however, the harm done to the free content part of our mission by widespread use of nonfree logos would far outweigh the minimal gain, if any, in quality of the articles. Seraphimblade 10:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- "little to nothing is lost by excluding the logos...There is little to no quality loss from excluding the logos, so that's really not a major consideration here" - That's your opinion, and apparently is an opinion many here disagree with. Don't state it as if it's fact. Oren0 (talk) 11:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly. Seraphimblade, as ever, you refuse to recognize that the analogy you have wedded yourself to is a false one. We disallow nonfree images for the purpose of identifying most, though not all, living persons because we may plausibly endeavor to acquire free images of them (as we plausibly can in most, though not all, cases) and because those free images (in the case of most, though not all, living persons) will have substantially the same informative content as the available nonfree images. There is simply no rational comparison to the case of a visual team logo, which has an informative value substantively different from and beyond that of a verbal team name. It's regrettable that you cannot recognize the essential difference between the two matters.—DCGeist (talk) 11:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- I can see that argument in the main article, and that's why we allow logos in the main article. However, I fail to see it for subsidiary articles. In the case of, let us say, 2009 Foo Bars season, the team we are talking about is identified right in the article title. Whether or not we include the logo has no bearing, anyone visiting that article may readily tell it is about the Foo Bars. The same is true of major games and the like, who inevitably name the team(s) involved in the lead section. In subarticles the logos are often replaceable as well, by photos for example of games played during that season, or in an article on a specific game by a photo of that game being played. Can you please clarify for me what benefit the logos serve in subsidiary articles that's so major it overrides our free content restrictions? Please keep in mind the onus in nonfree content is for those who want to include it, to show beyond doubt it is acceptable, not for those who wish to remove to show beyond doubt it is unacceptable. I think more specificity would help here if you believe they're really that critical, I'm not seeing it. Seraphimblade 20:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly. Seraphimblade, as ever, you refuse to recognize that the analogy you have wedded yourself to is a false one. We disallow nonfree images for the purpose of identifying most, though not all, living persons because we may plausibly endeavor to acquire free images of them (as we plausibly can in most, though not all, cases) and because those free images (in the case of most, though not all, living persons) will have substantially the same informative content as the available nonfree images. There is simply no rational comparison to the case of a visual team logo, which has an informative value substantively different from and beyond that of a verbal team name. It's regrettable that you cannot recognize the essential difference between the two matters.—DCGeist (talk) 11:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- "little to nothing is lost by excluding the logos...There is little to no quality loss from excluding the logos, so that's really not a major consideration here" - That's your opinion, and apparently is an opinion many here disagree with. Don't state it as if it's fact. Oren0 (talk) 11:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, "decent" may be "sufficient" for you personally, but that's not the consensus view here. The fact that you bracket "superb" with "whatever" is indicative of your indifference to quality which, I'm afraid I must point out, puts you and your idiosyncratic perspective outside of the Misplaced Pages mainstream.—DCGeist (talk) 10:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, in terms of free content, if we can have a decent article with no nonfree content, that is sufficient. In the case of these articles here, very little if anything is lost from not having the logos. Someone interested specifically in the logo is likely visiting the team article, not a season article, and it is there. Someone interested in the season or game and seeking that article likely already knows at least one team involved, and other teams will be mentioned in the article, likely the lead. There is little to no benefit from use of the logos, so going on about "superb" or whatever aside, they're not needed and they need to go. A "superb" article on a game, season, what have you, can be written without those logos. Seraphimblade 10:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Let me give a scenario where it assists the reader. Setting unique bowl logos that encompass the team logos aside, those did not exist until recently, a reader could be looking for a particular bowl game, say he knows that Texas played in the Sugar Bowl at some point in the 80s. As he browses through the various Sugar Bowl listings, hitting the one that has a Longhorn logo in the infobox will assist him in identifying that he is one the correct page much quicker and more efficiently than having to scroll through all the prose to figure it out.--2008Olympian 11:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you have to scroll though the entire article about the game to figure out what teams played I'd say the article must be rater poorly written. Surely it will be stated in the first couple of sentences + the infobox what teams where involved. So the logo is hardly nessesary to understand the article. Saving a fraction of a second in identifying the teams involved was not a compelling ratoinale for inclution of non-free media last time I checked. That is pretty much exactly the same rationale argued for keeping non-free images in episode lists and discographies (people know the cover more than the name, faster to find the right one etc), and it was repeatedly shot down as not beeing a sufficient rationale for including non-free images. --Sherool (talk) 12:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly - the use of logos for this quick ID makes sense in a paper encyclopedia when you are flipping through it, but if the Sugar Bowl article does not have a readily available list of games, teams playing, and results, or if each Bowl does not say who the teams are at the infobox or first or second sentence of the lead, you are making it difficult for the reader. The searching scenario described is reasonable, but using logos to resolve it (and thus justifying the NFC use) is nuanced for a non-paper encyclopedia. --MASEM 13:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Also, I can tell you right now with a very quick glance that Texas did not play in the Sugar Bowl in the 1980s. How do I know this so quickly? Because of logos? No. Because I had a look at the Sugar Bowl article. It contains a list with, at a glance, what teams played, the year of the game, and the score. Free text, such as a well-designed table like that one, easily replaces nonfree images for "at a glance" overview information such as who played in what year, and in this case it works very well. Seraphimblade 23:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly - the use of logos for this quick ID makes sense in a paper encyclopedia when you are flipping through it, but if the Sugar Bowl article does not have a readily available list of games, teams playing, and results, or if each Bowl does not say who the teams are at the infobox or first or second sentence of the lead, you are making it difficult for the reader. The searching scenario described is reasonable, but using logos to resolve it (and thus justifying the NFC use) is nuanced for a non-paper encyclopedia. --MASEM 13:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you have to scroll though the entire article about the game to figure out what teams played I'd say the article must be rater poorly written. Surely it will be stated in the first couple of sentences + the infobox what teams where involved. So the logo is hardly nessesary to understand the article. Saving a fraction of a second in identifying the teams involved was not a compelling ratoinale for inclution of non-free media last time I checked. That is pretty much exactly the same rationale argued for keeping non-free images in episode lists and discographies (people know the cover more than the name, faster to find the right one etc), and it was repeatedly shot down as not beeing a sufficient rationale for including non-free images. --Sherool (talk) 12:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- A perfectly valid perspective, if unnecessarily snarky (yes, I know, glass houses...stones...), except for one
- You're right, apart from the fact that it doesn't really increase the reader's understanding. If the pretty little picture is so essential, how come there is nothing in the prose (and probably nothing in relation to that particular season in decent sources) that discusses it? The person who cut the grass is discussed about as much, but there's no great desire to slam a non-free image of them at the top. Just because others overuse the logo, doesn't mean that we should- we're not aiming to use just too few non-free images to be sued, we're aiming to use the minimum that we could get away with and still produce a decent encyclopedia. J Milburn (talk) 09:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Of course, you're right. Most of the arguments against this usage come down to Wikilawyering that is entirely insensitive to our essential questions here when it comes to the use of non-free images: (1a) Could it be replaced by equivalently informative free content? (1b) Does it deter us from pursuing free content of similar or greater informative value? (2) Does it expose us to legal jeopardy? (3) Does it enhance readers' understanding? (For those who may be new to this topic and don't know where these essential questions are coming from, please familiarize yourself with the fundamental rationale of our non-free content policy.) You're doing well, my friend. Keep up the good work and remain strong in the face of the zealotry and condescension that you've unfortunately had to face.—DCGeist (talk) 09:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
No interest in the proposed compromise. The proposals do not have a good grasp of the legal concept of overuse: simply having multiple articles that legitimately use the logo is not overuse. Its going to take another lawyer (other than myself, listed here) to convince me otherwise. --Bobak (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- The law is not part of this discussion. please review the non-free content policies and review the differences. just because its legal does not mean it meets our standards. β 17:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fact is, the cases most being referred to all through out this discussion are legitimately in place under Misplaced Pages policy. It is against the ideology of a few editors here that Misplaced Pages should not use Non free content, but that is NOT the policy of wikipedia, just the personal beliefs of these users. That is why all articles were reverted, because there was no violation in policy. Rtr10 (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- This isn't the first time you've implied there's a small minority in opposition to your view. I actually ran the raw numbers (not that numbers=consensus). There's 34 people in the discussion. Of those, 32 made their position clear. 16 were in favor of your stance (including you) and 16 in opposition. Fair use requires consensus for inclusion, not exclusion. Barring an emerging consensus to keep this usage as is, I think you can expect this use will be deprecated. And no, I'm not threatening you. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- I strongly suggest you read NFCC POLICY no where does it state there must be consensus among users as you seem to believe. I would also suggest you stop trying to make up your own Misplaced Pages policy instead of assuming others don't know it. Your little game is not going to work here. Rtr10 (talk) 07:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- you might actually want to read the policy your linking to. it clearly states that non-free images can only be used on pages where its absence harms the understanding of the subject. (note I said harms, not having a logo rarely harms a subject). β 07:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- I have read the policy a number of times. And by the way, NO WHERE in the policy is the word "harm" even used, so you may want to read it yourself, before misspeaking. The policy does state this... "(As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.)" The answer to the first question is obviously no in all of these cases and it is the answer to that second question which is being debated here. It is the opinion of myself and most other editors in the College Football project that can not adequately convey the message we are in these articles with out the images being used. You may interpret that differently, but we are not in violating the policy in our current system. Rtr10 (talk) 08:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- You might want to read WP:NFCC#8 Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. how does your usage pass that? it doesnt. thats where the "harm" phrase comes from. you cannot and will not mass use non-free content. β 08:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- If you have not read the numerous points above on how the logos significantly increase readers' understanding of the article, you should go back and read those. I really don't no what else to say, that already hasn't been said. It is pretty clear they significantly increase the reader's understanding of the article. It is not in violation of the policy. And by the way, you are not the ultimate authority on anything. You should not be throwing around threats and ultimatums to other users. You aren't even an admin, so I don't know where you are getting the Holier than thou attitude from. Rtr10 (talk) 09:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- you might actually want to read the policy your linking to. it clearly states that non-free images can only be used on pages where its absence harms the understanding of the subject. (note I said harms, not having a logo rarely harms a subject). β 07:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fact is, the cases most being referred to all through out this discussion are legitimately in place under Misplaced Pages policy. It is against the ideology of a few editors here that Misplaced Pages should not use Non free content, but that is NOT the policy of wikipedia, just the personal beliefs of these users. That is why all articles were reverted, because there was no violation in policy. Rtr10 (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Wrong, If I wanted to remove non-free material, my behavior would be completely different. I support the usage of non-free material in limited usage. Virgin killer and Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima are two perfect examples of why non-free material is needed. What both my position and that of the foundation is, we must have to cover some topics, but lets keep its usage to an absolute minimum. we dont need a single non-free image used 102 times. the policy is very clear about usage, from the license resolution All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above. there are limited exceptions that are allowed as the foundation knows that some topics cannot be covered properly without copyrighted material. that is not carte blanche for using copyrighted material. Please review both foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy and WP:NFCC. β 04:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Concur with Beta. Whether or not it is overuse as defined by law isn't relevant to the discussion. What is relevant are our policies, guidelines, resolutions, and overarching goals. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Check the record
I see Howcheng has been imposing a particular version of criterion 8, ignoring the results of the extensive debates that took place earlier this year: Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content/Archive 34#Criterion 8 and Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content/Archive 35#Criterion 8 objection. If you wish to dispute the current language of the criterion, you're absolutely free to do so, but you can't change it by personal fiat.—DCGeist (talk) 08:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- those discussions never reached a clear consensus so I reverted back before your attempts to hijack the meaning. β 14:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Exactly. As WP:SILENCE indicates, even though mine and BlackKite's and CBM's objections were late, they were still made; thus consensus for the change cannot be said to have existed in the first place. howcheng {chat} 04:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Question about File:Lenna.png on Lena Soderberg
Don't know if this is the right place to ask, but there's a slow motion edit war starting over the use of File:Lenna.png in Lena Soderberg. The image is a Playboy picture (although SFW) of Ms. Soderberg, but has achieved some fame (the photo itself I mean) because it is used as a standard test image on many image processing scientific publications. Nobody seems to dispute the use of this image on Standard test image, but I do have a problem with it being used as a biography illustration on Lena Soderberg. Some argue that the woman's celebrity derives from this image but I would contest this as well.
I'm commenting here to avoid getting into an edit war. I'm sorry if this is the wrong place. --Damiens.rf 16:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- I've commented in appropriate places, removed the image due to blatant violation of our policies, and requested page protection. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- If there is a better place for this discussion, please provide a link here. Dicklyon (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- For many of us, Lenna or Lena Soderberg is the only playmate known by name, certainly the only one to be an honored guest at an image processing conference, and it's because of this image. Her celebrity is in a different category from that of other playmates because of this image. It seem absurd to me to have an article on her and not show the basis for her fame. We can add a different image to identify her, but that does not detract from the need to comment on this image in her bio. The usual fear of the deletionists, that wikipedia may risk the wrath of the copyright holder, is also clearly not applicable to this case. Dicklyon (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fear isn't copyright wrath. The concern is upholding Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy and our m:mission. Also, there are quite a number of playboy models who are famous for more than being a centerfold. Pamela Anderson comes to mind, as does Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith. That for many of you Ms. Sonderberg is the only playmate recognizable by name is not a reason for including fair use imagery for depiction purposes. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes of course, I know those names, too, just didn't know they were playboy centerfolds. The point is, Lenna is the only one famous for a particular crop of her playboy centerfold, or at least the only one famous for such a use, even though she was not the first or only one to be used as such (the one that Larry Roberts used in his Master's thesis, with permission from Playboy, never became famous or standard). Dicklyon (talk) 17:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- This still isn't a reason for inclusion on her biography. Link the Lenna article on her biography instead. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- The reason to include the image on her bio is to talk about the image, the basis of her fame; it is not a replaceable image, being a standardized test image, and is a low-res crop of the original copyrighted image. There is nothing in policy against using it, as it satisfies the 10 fair-use criteria. Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- See WP:NFC#Unacceptable use images #5. When we already have an article on the image, we don't need to use it elsewhere. howcheng {chat} 06:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- OK, that's the first sensible thing anyone has pointed out, though it is just a guideline, not a policy. Dicklyon (talk) 07:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- See WP:NFC#Unacceptable use images #5. When we already have an article on the image, we don't need to use it elsewhere. howcheng {chat} 06:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)