User:Slowking4/Image Rescue Squadron

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Sitrep

Images that add to the quality of wikipedia are being deleted daily.

Back in 2004 to 2008, many people uploaded their photos to en:wikipedia; being young and inexperienced, many tags were wrong.

In 2009, these were migrated to commons, and the tags were not fixed.

The images were incorporated into articles.

Copyright law is arcane and widely misunderstood; many new editors add images with the wrong tags, or in commons, when they could stand in en:wikipedia with a fair use rationale.

The file upload process is inherently flawed and doesn't offer enough options to properly tag images. <Buffs (talk) 19:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)>

Now, these images are being deleted for a variety of licensing issues.

The prevailing attitude is: delete it, it's not my job to fix it.

Philosophy

Images are a key quality factor adding to wikipedia. Deleting images that add to the quality, because they have a wrong tag, but could be repaired is wrong. Therefore, we must fix, migrate, and restore the images.

Policy

Examples

here is a good faith attempt to secure copyright and upload images, deleted because copyright is doubted.[1]
[2] logo nominated for deletion with right tag, but no rationale; added rationale.
[3] here was a logo uploaded to commons ready to be deleted. [4] uploaded to en:wikipedia
[5] here's a book cover uploaded to commons ready to be deleted. [6] uploaded to en:wikipedia, subsequently deleted as "replaceable because it is likely that there is a PD version".
[7] here's a statue, migrated to commons. [8] migrate copy to en:wikipedia, put non free 3D art tag, subsequently deleted as "orphan". commons kept as "PD-US-no notice", no copyright notice
[9] college logo commons deletion, move to en:wikipedia [10] non free logo tag
[11] iwo jima memorial picture, move to en:wikipedia [12] put non-free 3D tag. subsequently deleted per NFCC "we must reduce our coverage to a single image".
interesting court case Korean_War_Veterans_Memorial#United_States_postage_stamp_court_case starts Korean War memorial commons mass deletion; upload flikr image [13] with non free 3D art tag with rationale.
The Three Soldiers deletion, upload flikr image [14] with non free 3 D art.

Action plan

cruise Wikipedia:Files for deletion. add tags as required
cruise Commons:Deletion requests. migrate non free to en:wikipedia.
proactively search artists (less than 70 years dead) articles, looking for images. fix as necessary.
proactively search venerable uploaders old images. fix as necessary.
look at past deletions. find images, upload with proper tags

Participants

Slowking4: 7@1|x 21:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
SarahStierch (talk) 18:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Buffs (talk) 18:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)