Commons:Deletion requests/File:Unidentified man. - NARA - 297698.jpg
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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.
the given license {{PD-USGov}} got removed by User:Hchc2009 with the reasoning: No evidence is given that a Federal employee took the photograph, and there is no suggestion of this in the NARA file description. I restored that license for now and converted this into a regular DR. JuTa 21:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Hm. These records were originally donated in 1961 to the National Archives and Records Service by the Wellcome Trust of London, England which was created by the will of Sir Henry S. Wellcome. The records were originally accumulated in Sir Henry S. Wellcome's Washington, DC office up to the time of its closing in 1936, shortly after Sir Henry's death. Looks like a photo from Wellcome's photo album. PD-USGov is technically not correct, though if copyright was transferred to the US Government then it is probably effectively pretty close. It may have been donated to the public domain as well. NARA would seem to think it has the rights to publish it one way or another, so I don't think there is a good case to delete it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- The photograph is from the Sir Henry Wellcome collection. Sir Henry was not a Federal employee (he was a Anglo-American businessman), and the photograph comes from between 1897 and 1901, when, according to the NARA files, "someone associated with Henry Wellcome or with William Duncan's (NB: an Anglican missionary) Metlakatla, Alaska Mission did some traveling and took some pictures"; some of the images in the file may have been taken by multiple unknown people, and in some other places entirely (one of the examples being this photograph, taken of an unknown man by his unknown son, probably not in Alaska). The collection was originally donated in 1961 to the National Archives and Records Service by the Wellcome Trust of London, when it was made available to the public. There is no evidence that that this is a "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government", but that doesn't mean that other licenses might not apply. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- That is basically my point. It was definitely not taken by a government employee. If the rights were given to NARA though the end result basically amounts to the same thing. If NARA believes it is PD then there is no reason to doubt that, I don't think -- they know the provenance and terms of the donation way more than us. Removing a PD tag without replacing it with another one is not the right thing to do -- that typically ends in speedy deletion which is absolutely the wrong path. These files were uploaded by NARA as part of a cooperation project; they used PD-USGov as the license on all of them since the vast majority of NARA's holdings are in fact that license, though there are bound to be some oddball collections like this which have different provenances, but they should all be files which NARA thought they had the rights to upload. So, by all means do research and figure out a better tag. Usually the only ones worthy of deletion are foreign files which are PD in the US but not the country of origin, or derivative works where NARA only had rights on the derivative part. This doesn't seem to be either of those cases though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was agreeing with you there - it wasn't taken by a Federal employee, so isn't covered by this tag. I'm not suggesting that we should delete the file (nor did I nominate this file for deletion), but the tag is definitely incorrect - as you say, it was not taken by a Federal employee. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:55, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Well, you deleted the license tag. That in turn gets a file auto-flagged as "no license", which is a backhanded way to get it speedy deleted. It takes an alert admin to notice that it should never have been in that state and restore the tag, and start a regular DR (which luckily happened here). All too often they are simply deleted straight away since a glance at the image page shows no license -- the admin needs to look at the page *history* to figure it out. There is no basis for speedy deletion of this file, so the correct options are 1) start a regular DR yourself to note the problem, or better if possible 2) research the right PD tag yourself and replace it. Never, ever, just remove a license tag unless there's another free license on the work :-) That is a far more aggressive way to get it deleted than a DR, or even a speedy tag. If it's a wrong tag and an obvious copyvio, there are other templates to add in lieu of removing the license to get it speedy deleted, or if not a candidate for speedy, then start a DR at most. In this case it's virtually certain to be PD, but the exact reason might depend on the specifics of the donation to NARA, which is information we don't have. It basically seems like it is PD-author, unless the works were PD-1923, PD-US-no_notice, or PD-US-not_renewed first. Wellcome was probably the copyright owner either as the photographer or as a work for hire, and his estate donated the works to NARA. Therefore it would seem as though NARA owns the rights if any still exist, and they say "Unrestricted" on the collection. Maybe the Trust dedicated the works to the public domain directly, or maybe they transferred rights to NARA who subsequently did that. It may be difficult to pinpoint a tag, but I'd probably go with PD-author and a link to the NARA collection page. We could create a specific tag for that if warranted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:26, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Where a tag is simply incorrect, it should be removed; it's part of maintaining the integrity of the Commons. Leaving a false tag on a file doesn't help anyone - quite the reverse. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Absolutely not, tags (even incorrect tags) should not be removed straight away. Start a DR, and let others look at the claimed tag and available evidence. Most preferable is to figure out the correct tag yourself and change it -- that improves things without involving others' time ;-) But removing a license is basically an attempt at speedy deletion with the absolute minimum of other people having a chance to look at it. That doesn't even post a note to people's talk pages -- it gets the file marked by bots as "no license" and usually ends up speedy deleted since only a single admin will be looking at it (among a mass of other obvious deletions they are processing). There is no way removing licenses conforms to policy. If a tag is not accurate, please either start a DR, or perhaps bring it up as a discussion on the village pump so others can figure a better license. If a works is almost certainly PD anyways, a Village Pump discussion is probably the best option -- otherwise we are deleting a PD work on an extreme technicality. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:54, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Where a tag is simply incorrect, it should be removed; it's part of maintaining the integrity of the Commons. Leaving a false tag on a file doesn't help anyone - quite the reverse. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Well, you deleted the license tag. That in turn gets a file auto-flagged as "no license", which is a backhanded way to get it speedy deleted. It takes an alert admin to notice that it should never have been in that state and restore the tag, and start a regular DR (which luckily happened here). All too often they are simply deleted straight away since a glance at the image page shows no license -- the admin needs to look at the page *history* to figure it out. There is no basis for speedy deletion of this file, so the correct options are 1) start a regular DR yourself to note the problem, or better if possible 2) research the right PD tag yourself and replace it. Never, ever, just remove a license tag unless there's another free license on the work :-) That is a far more aggressive way to get it deleted than a DR, or even a speedy tag. If it's a wrong tag and an obvious copyvio, there are other templates to add in lieu of removing the license to get it speedy deleted, or if not a candidate for speedy, then start a DR at most. In this case it's virtually certain to be PD, but the exact reason might depend on the specifics of the donation to NARA, which is information we don't have. It basically seems like it is PD-author, unless the works were PD-1923, PD-US-no_notice, or PD-US-not_renewed first. Wellcome was probably the copyright owner either as the photographer or as a work for hire, and his estate donated the works to NARA. Therefore it would seem as though NARA owns the rights if any still exist, and they say "Unrestricted" on the collection. Maybe the Trust dedicated the works to the public domain directly, or maybe they transferred rights to NARA who subsequently did that. It may be difficult to pinpoint a tag, but I'd probably go with PD-author and a link to the NARA collection page. We could create a specific tag for that if warranted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:26, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was agreeing with you there - it wasn't taken by a Federal employee, so isn't covered by this tag. I'm not suggesting that we should delete the file (nor did I nominate this file for deletion), but the tag is definitely incorrect - as you say, it was not taken by a Federal employee. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:55, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- That is basically my point. It was definitely not taken by a government employee. If the rights were given to NARA though the end result basically amounts to the same thing. If NARA believes it is PD then there is no reason to doubt that, I don't think -- they know the provenance and terms of the donation way more than us. Removing a PD tag without replacing it with another one is not the right thing to do -- that typically ends in speedy deletion which is absolutely the wrong path. These files were uploaded by NARA as part of a cooperation project; they used PD-USGov as the license on all of them since the vast majority of NARA's holdings are in fact that license, though there are bound to be some oddball collections like this which have different provenances, but they should all be files which NARA thought they had the rights to upload. So, by all means do research and figure out a better tag. Usually the only ones worthy of deletion are foreign files which are PD in the US but not the country of origin, or derivative works where NARA only had rights on the derivative part. This doesn't seem to be either of those cases though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- The photograph is from the Sir Henry Wellcome collection. Sir Henry was not a Federal employee (he was a Anglo-American businessman), and the photograph comes from between 1897 and 1901, when, according to the NARA files, "someone associated with Henry Wellcome or with William Duncan's (NB: an Anglican missionary) Metlakatla, Alaska Mission did some traveling and took some pictures"; some of the images in the file may have been taken by multiple unknown people, and in some other places entirely (one of the examples being this photograph, taken of an unknown man by his unknown son, probably not in Alaska). The collection was originally donated in 1961 to the National Archives and Records Service by the Wellcome Trust of London, when it was made available to the public. There is no evidence that that this is a "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government", but that doesn't mean that other licenses might not apply. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I disagree with you on the principle - but if you'd like to start a DR for the other affected files, I'd happily support you in trying to fix the rest. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- It's more about the realistic effect. I agree that incorrect tags should be fixed. However, the practical effect of removing a license is hard-core speedy deletion, and such edits are against deletion policy. Removing incorrect tags is not the correct solution to the original problem. It actually amounts to vandalism. Your principle is correct; your practice in how you deal with it is not, since it is far worse than a DR. Starting a DR is OK, *adding* the {{Disputed}} or {{Wrong license}} tags is OK. Removing a license is not. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:29, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Clindberg: Which license would you suggest? We have no year of creation, nor year of publication. It certainly looks old enough to be public domain. {{PD-anon-1923}}? thx, --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 04:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think it's a case of the copyright owner (either the Wellcome estate or, by transfer, NARA itself) putting the items into the public domain. So, I guess PD-author. But we do have tags for some specific NARA or Library of Congress collections like this, so it's possible a custom tag would be best, since it can point to the links on NARA's site. Some may be PD-1923 as well, though it's not certain all of these were published, or they may have been published in the 1960s without a copyright notice anyways, but it sure feels like they were placed in the public domain if any copyright remained. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Kept: per discussion above Ankry (talk) 07:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
