Template talk:No source/archive1

This is an archive page of previous discussion.

Old discussions

many of these images do have information on their source. what they don't have is information on their license or copyright status. anthony (see warning)

Others do have information on their license or copyright status, but do it in another way than a tag. I find it quite insulting to be told I should add the source and licensing information when I have already done so. - Andre Engels 00:12, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suggest renaming this to Template:No source. Any objections? --Ellmist 01:59, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. BesigedB ^(talk) 10:54, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apparently, I can't move this template because it is protected. --Ellmist 04:17, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested moves --BesigedB ^(talk) 07:44, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Replacement?

It seems to me that en is fairly rampant with unverified images, many of which are probably not supposed to be here. Maybe the template should make it more clear to people that these images do not belong here with a more threatening looking message? This is based on the one currently being used on de:

This image does not have information on its source.
It may be usable under fair use but this has yet to be verified. It might be public domain or under a licence compatible with the GNU FDL. To the uploader: Please provide source information as soon as possible. Images without this information may be deleted in the future. If you want to publish the image as fair use, read Wikipedia:Fair use.

Thoughts? Sarge Baldy 20:44, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not good enough. The main message to be conveyed is that copuright-lessness is forbidden, verbotten, banned, etc. We have a huge trouble fighting off the influx of nonlicensed pics here. This liberalism "dunno, may be it is fair use or whatelse" is misleading. The images without copyrights are to be deleted, to save trouble. The rest is a lengthy babble that only obscures the main must. mikka (t) 18:37, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's too radical a change to be implemented without some previous discussion. I'd recommend reverting back to the previous format until more people have had the opportunity to participate and consensus can be reached (remember: this is a highly visible template, such radical change is bound to attract some attention). I, for one, do favor a change to convey a more direct message, but this new format implemented by mikkalai seems too... aggressive. Sorry. Regards, Redux 04:26, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the link to point to IUP

As this template is protected, rather than just editing the link to point to WP:IUP#cite_sources, I am asking about it here. If no objections are made within a day, I'll make the change. If any objections are later raised, I'd be happy to revert the change until consensus is reached. JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:22, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Requested change

The new deletion criterion says seven days after it is marked as having no source, not seven days after uploading. The wording should be changed to reflect this. --SPUI (talk) 19:35, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. JYolkowski // talk 21:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tagged since

As the CSD for Images states that there's a 7-day waiting period, might it be an idea that this template also contains the date it was tagged, by means of a parameter? This could be then called easily with something like:

{{no source|~~~~~}}

Where the five tildes (~) will insert the (then-current) date/time in UTC format. I can imagine this will save checking the image page history, and thus speed up our processes for getting rid of problematic images.

Thoughts and feedback welcome, although if some admin wants to make the change, go ahead. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 21:16, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My personal feeling is that it might be better to create a new template, rather than breaking all existing uses of this template. Alternately, we can wait and see if the usage of this template goes way down and, if so, add it then. JYolkowski // talk 21:51, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Created a new template, based on this one. See Template:No source since for further details. Rob Church ^Talk 17:47, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification

Many, many albumcovers/dvdcovers have no source linked from them that show where they were found (or if scanned by the user). Does this mean they are candidates for this tag? gren グレン 09:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My gut feeling says, "yes", although I can see the massive backlog this is going to produce. If an album cover or similar doesn't have any source or licencing info, then it ought to get this tag (or do we have one that covers missing source and licence info at the same time?), but if the image has the licence info, then my instinct might be to contact the person who uploaded it and just ask them to submit a brief sentence on where they took the image from.

We could also make an educated guess about a possible source; e.g. Amazon has many album covers; if the image is identical (irrespective of formats) then we could say it came from there (and probably, it would have) but again, there may be all hell to pay if we do do that. Rob Church ^Talk 00:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just google image my album covers so... it would be difficult for me to find the exact source... interesting. I guess we'll see what happens with this. gren グレン 01:04, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The source for an album cover is the publisher of the album itself. It doesn't matter who scanned or photographed the cover. So no, album covers shouldn't be tagged "no source" unless you can't determine what album the cover is from. dbenbenn | talk 18:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Change wording

It says the image WILL be deleted but not always. It should say it SHOULD instead. Anyone want to change it? -- Thorpe ^talk 22:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. By request. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 15:44, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Nsd

I have created this template as an alternative version of 'no source'. It places images into categories by day, for example Category:Images with unknown source: December 5. It does not put those images in the larger category. This will ease cleanup of CAT:NS, because editors won't have to wade through all the images that can't be deleted yet. To add nsd to an image, use {{nsd|<monthname> <day number>}} (example: {{nsd|December 5}}). Ingoolemo ^talk 17:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I added Category:Images with unknown source to the template (before noticing your comments here). My idea is that if someone makes a typo with Nsd, for example uses {{Nsd|Decmber 11}}, the image gets lost because it isn't in any categories. dbenbenn | talk 19:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New feature - optional parameters

I have added optional parameters to this template to make it more useful. There are 4 optional parameters: time, day, month and year. If day and month, or day, month and year, are added then it adds the image to a category of the form [[Category:Images of unknown source as of {{day}} {{month}} {{year}}]]. THis makes it easier to identify the images which are over 7 days old and thus should be deleted. I have ensured backwards compatability so that if no parameters are used and that date is added in the traditional way it just adds it to the generic category: [[Category:Images with unknown source]]. --Oldak Quill 07:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like this idea, but I added readded Category:Images with unknown source. My concern is that if you accidentally mess up the "month" and "day" parameter values, the image shouldn't be totally lost. dbenbenn | talk 19:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point of the feature is to find those images which should be deleted. If all have the general category tag, then images added without the parameters will be lost. Unless someone trawls though the images at the end of every day to find those which aren't in the daily categories to delete them, they will be lost. This presents us with liability for the copyright infringements as the template states that the images will be deleted. A better way to deal with lost images is to get a computer to list the categories added to all images with the Template:No source tag. Those which we identify as wrong can be changed. If this is done once a week then we will stay within the legal limit. --Oldak Quill 19:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I changed it so that if you specify "month" and "day", the image is put in Category:Images with unknown source by tag date. That way the image doesn't get lost if you make a typo in the parameter value, and images with out any tag date given won't be hidden in Category:Images with unknown source. Make sense? dbenbenn | talk 21:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template busted -- displays }} in output when used as directed. Brianhe 03:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Example? Anyway, I changed the template so that the month and day parameters are no longer optional. If the parameters aren't given, the image goes to Category:Images with unknown source as of unknown date 2006. One benefit of the change is that the template no longer uses Template:Qif. Another is that hopefully it will encourage people to use the date tagging system, which makes deletion much easier. dbenbenn | talk 01:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki link to vi:

Please add an interwiki link to the Vietnamese version of this template:

<noinclude>[[vi:Tiêu bản:Unverified]]</noinclude>

Thanks.

– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 23:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done gren グレン ^? 23:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When not to use this tag

There are some cases when this tag should not be used. An album cover image, correctly tagged {{Albumcover}}, already has a "built-in" source: its source is the album cover. If one were to provide a link to, for instance, an Amazon.com page that sells the album, that doesn't add any legitimate source information -- Amazon is simply a re-user of the original source, not a source in itself. Other fair use specific tags (like {{Bookcover}} and {{Tv-screenshot}}) are similar.

Another case where this tag should not be used is on photographs which were obviously and unambiguously taken before 1923 (if the image is tagged {{PD-US}}). An example would be Image:Horsley.jpg, a photograph of Victor Horsley, who died in 1916. The copyright status can be determined without a source, and adding a link to a re-user's website would not add any copyright information. More importantly, we should not be deleting validly Public Domain images, simply because the source isn't known. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. How can a photo be "obviously and unambiguously" from before 1923 without a source? See, for example, Image:William Cranch.jpg, a copyrighted photo from 1850. The copyright comes from the fact that the photo was dramatically retouched recently. When there's no source, we have no way to really be sure that an old photo hasn't been retouched in the same way.

Also, I just want to point out that sometimes the "built-in" source really isn't known. I've come across images tagged with {{film-screenshot}}, where I was unable to determine what film the screenshot was from. So I tagged with "no source". dbenbenn | talk 02:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For that matter, there have been album covers that are low-resolution enough that I couldn't figure out what album they were of. About the only thing that's self-sourcing is the Mona Lisa. --Carnildo 04:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, usually you can tell because it is linked by another page (the band in question). If it's not linked anywhere, then the fair use image shouldn't even exist. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 18:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the time, the "sources" that people provide are a link to a website that is also a re-user. Very few images were first published on the web, so a link is almost never the image's true source. The actual "source" (e.g. first published in "Annals of Arizona Medicine", Feb 1895, p.34) is usually very difficult to determine, and would be prohibitively difficult to come up with for most images. Even if someone provides a link, or a "source", there's no guarrantee that that is accurate - a website may show an image and declare it PD, but this could be in error. Eventually you have to go with the fact that all evidence points to an image being in the public domain. If an image is just tagged PD with no evidence, then sure, it should be tagged no-source. But if the image is a photo of someone who died in 1900, then it is possible that the image is copyrighted, but extremely unlikely, and no "source" is likely to further clarify the issue. Just use common sense, avoid copyright paranoia, and act in good faith and it should be fine. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for removal

Please remove {{commons|Template:no source}} from Template:No source. User:Bastique had placed it before the page was fully protected. adnghiem501 04:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 08:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Commons tag covers the right side of "no source" tag. It's not necessary to go to the page, because we don't have a similar one added to Template:No license which is still fully protected. The user who added this tag is probably not an admin in the English Wikipedia, but in the Commons. That's why the page was unprotected, so he did this on purpose. adnghiem501 08:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure he did it on purpose, but it seems like useful information. I separated the sections so they're not overlapping. Does that help? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've used {{-}} on several pages to separate an image from another section, when the image added is in one individual section. By the way, in addition, did you already add {{commons|Template:No license}} to Template:No license? adnghiem501 07:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User notification on separate line?

Would an admin be so kind as to move the string used for user notification back to a separate line (as originally done in this edit)? I'd sure appreciate it as it makes it much easier to copy-n-paste. (When it's on a separate line, I can just triple-click on the line to highlight it (at least in Firefox) instead of manually selecting the text to be copied. THANKS! ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 20:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any objections? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 20:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

None here. It shouldn't affect OrphanBot's recognition of the template. --Carnildo 04:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm definitely in favor of that. I made that change a while ago but it was removed somewhere in the recent renovations. Superm401 - Talk 04:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

interlang ja

Please add interlang to ja:Template:No source. Thank you. --Tietew 05:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. dbenbenn | talk 05:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New parametres

I have added {{{1}}} and {{{2}}} as alternatives to {{{day}}} and {{{month}}}. Because of the scheme I used to implement this, both parametres should still function completely. If I have made any errors, please let me know and I will attempt to rectify them. Ingoolemo ^talk 00:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank $DEITY. The damn parameters have been driving me nuts. -Splash^talk 00:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shoot. That means I'll have to re-write OrphanBot's template-recognition code. --Carnildo 06:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just fixed a minor issue: where before I had {{{month|{{{2}}}|unknown date}}}, now I have {{{month|{{{2|unknown date}}}}}}. This will resolve any residual technical issues in my original updates. Ingoolemo ^talk 21:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful when editing this template

OrphanBot, a bot which removes no-source and no-license images from articles, depends on certain minor features of this template in order to operate correctly. In particular:

It looks for the phrase "Unless the copyright status is provided" in order to tell if an image has this template applied to it.
It looks for the parenthesis around the date on the template to distinguish it from any other date in the image description page.
It looks for the exact string "( 2006)" to decide that the person applying the template didn't provide a date.

Thanks. --Carnildo 21:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notification - should it necessarily be done with a template?

On this talk page, as well as in the template itself, it says one shold contact the uploader by placing a template on his or her talk page. Personally, I much prefer to write something myself than templating talk pages. I suggest the text in the template be changed to Also, make sure to notify the uploader, for instance with {{subst:image source|Image:No source}} ~~~~ // Habj 03:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Outrageous instruction

On April 2nd, Natalinasmpf changed the template to advise users that they could use {{gfdl-presumed}}. The category mostly exists for images with text like "I took this picture" uploaded during spans of time when our upload page failed to point out that if you are the copyright holder you agree to release it under the GFDL at a minimum. We can not generally just 'presume GFDL' because copyright is an automatically reserved right, the copyright holder can only release content under the GFDL through intentional action. Because it was understood that self-owned material submitted to Wikipedia was GFDL, but not always explicitly stated on the upload page, we do have one of those rare situations where "GFDL presumed" makes sense, but only for a fairly small number of image. Thus, it should be fairly infrequent that we see new images introduced to this category. Currently the category is one of the worst on Wikipedia from a copyright perspective, it is laden with images which were clearly taken from commercial sources. Instructing people on the no source template to GFDL presume images is about the worst thing we could have done. The number of GFDL-presumed images added the week after the change was 3.5x the number during the prior week. Thus far a random sampling of these images shows that the vast majority are entirely incorrect. Please do not make such changes without discussion. --Gmaxwell 02:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PD-USGov Images

I have run into a number of images that were tagged wtih PD-USGov-Military-Air Force being flagged with the no source template and removed by OrphanBot. As such I am forced to wonder if PD-USGov images should also be exclued from the requirement for sources. Does anyone have anything that they wish to say about this? -- Darkstar949 22:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The image needs to have a source indicated, so that we can verify that the tag is correct. The only images that are exempt from sourcing requirements are those where the tag includes source information (such {{wikipedia-screenshot}} and {{PD-self}}), or those where the source is self-evident from the image (such as video game cover scans or movie posters). --Carnildo 23:15, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the images that I a have been having problems with are the stock public domain images that are some common that there is no one source - for example anything in the Badges of the United States Air Force page. Perhaps a PD-USGov-Stock tag should be created for stock image sources? -- Darkstar949 05:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a datapoint, I've personally found dozens of stock images uploaded as PD-USGov-* ... government websites often use stock photos. It would be good if uploaders actually checked, but even if they usually did... we'd still need the information to help us verify. --Gmaxwell 23:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given that this tag more often than not results in the image being deleted (possibly irretrievably), could we err on the side of presuming that images tagged as public domain actually are public domain unless there is some evidence that they are not? Perhaps a different tag, something akin to {{fairusedisputed}} should be created to dispute the claimed public domain status of an image. Something on which a human being (and not an admin who batch-processes hundreds of images possibly without even looking at them, which IMO is no different than a bot) would have to make an educated disposition. DHowell 23:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Almost nothing outside of the world of copyright expired works is "public domain". Claims of "public domain" without justification are almost always incorrect. Furthermore, many people think 'public domain' is a perfect title for "an image I got off a public website". :( For images which are claimed to be, or really appear to be old enough, we already avoid deleting them... I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that anyone is batch deleting hundreds of images without looking at them, if you have evidence of this please point it out, because no one should be doing that. Please understand that the nature of copyright leaves us in a position where we need to assume works are unfree without evidence that they are free. --Gmaxwell 00:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Logos

Can we exempt logos from the source requirement? By its very nature, a logo generally identifies its own source. I believe that images tagged with {{logo}} and {{no source}} should not be deleted, rather, one of the two tags should be removed, depending on the actual image (i.e. a photograph incorrectly tagged as {{logo}} should have that tag removed, but a clear logo which identifies the company that created it should have the {{no source}} removed). DHowell 23:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usually a logo is self identifying, or if it is used the use should identify the copyright holder. There is no need to 'exempt logos', we can just fulfill the requirement with almost no effort. As far as I know people usually just convert logos tagged nosource to {{logo}} and write the name of the company in the image description page. So I'm not sure what change in behavior you expect. --Gmaxwell 00:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that some people have taken it on themselves to put the {{no source}} tag on any image which doesn't specify exactly which website the uploader got it from, or whatever other method they obtained the image. I just think, as apparently you do as well, that it is sufficient to tag as {{logo}} and identify the original copyright holder, i.e. the company which owns the logo. I just would like some policy to point to that says that identifying the source does not necessarily mean that the uploader has to say "I downloaded this from http://www.example.org" or "I scanned this in from an ad in XYZZY magazine" when it's pretty clear what the image is and who owns it. If I see a logo I recognize, I'll know who it belongs to, but I might have no clue where the uploader got that particular image of it—and I don't think it should matter. DHowell 09:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably better to have a source though, and image tagging people can often add it themselves, but there are certainly a lot of logos that you can't recognize, that still might be usable under fair use. I agree many of them are obvious, but a blanket statement that logos are exempt from sourcing probably isn't a good idea either. - cohesion 07:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this is an example of the absurdity that is going on. I've had to restore the logos on WKSS which someone tagged as {{no source}} and {{no license}} (even though they were already tagged as {{radiologo}} and the logos were clearly recognizable). OrphanBot removed them from the WKSS page, and an admin deleted one of them. What kind of policy can be proposed to stop this needless destruction of images which are clearly fairly being used in Wikipedia? I'm worried that there are historical logos that are being deleted and might not be as easy to restore as current logos are. DHowell 07:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If OrphanBot removed it from a page, it's almost certain that the bot kept a copy in case of accidents. --Carnildo 07:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do appreciate that, I just wish these "accidents" weren't happening so often. So far I've managed to restore most images that I've noticed were deleted, but this is not always the case. (I'd ask for these ther images to be restored, but I don't have the time right now to go back and figure out what images were lost).

Perhaps it might be better if OrphanBot, in addition to removing the image, replaced it with an infobox on the article saying something like "An image was removed from this page due to lack of copyright source and/or license information. Please click here to provide a source and license, if known." This would at least potentially alert more people to the problem. As it is, the only people who know that the image is gone are people who check the article edit history, or remember the image being there, or happen to find it in the orphaned image categories. So I believe images are quite frequently being deleted without anyone (other than the {{no source}} tagger and the admin who deleted the image) ever even knowing there was an issue. (And arguably, it's those rare images that few people know about that potentially could be the most valuable to Wikipedia as an encyclopedic resource.)

That would be a self-reference. Stifle (talk) 00:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps another thing is that could be done (which would probably require changes in the MediaWiki software) is to make it more difficult (if not impossible) to upload images that don't provide proper source and license information. At least if the uploader is warned at the time of uploading that there is a problem, it is more likely that it will be resolved. DHowell 19:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]