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.
1) GIF is an accepted file format here and there are also other vector cartoons here that people use for sure with proper attribution, so I don't think a GIF cartoon is out of scope
2) High filesize - agreed. Unfortunately, there is no other way to optimize this for file size even better and we thought it's best to provide a high res, high FPS version that people can downscale later as needed
3) Web host - I don't understand the point of this comment, as we're obviously not hosting these GIFs here for storage. We are freely contributing with these high-quality assets that we have worked very hard to create and want to share with others [User:VideoPlasty]]
Scope - see Commons:Project scope - note Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose..
High filesize - no one can see the animation on the file page, without taking the time to show the largeest image, the file is too big for the wiki software to animate - all the pages say Note: Due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated.
(P.S. standard procedure on conversations is to bottom post)
I'm trying to understand this system and how it works, sorry about that.
"Useful for an educational purpose" - I think it covers it. GIF files can be used in so many ways to visually show your idea, so I don't think this is an issue. Just see how much it's used in messaging, I see no reason for them not to be useful for an educational purpose, in articles, presentations, etc.
Filesize - okay, I can try and make them smaller in filesize. Would that be okay? Maybe with a lower resolution and smaller frames per second, but I should be able to pull it off. I'm open if you have any guidelines or technical limitations for GIF (I'll search myself too)
Hello, I agree, these can be used for educational purposes. It is very difficult to find stock photos for free. That said, you will need to prove to Commons:OTRS that you are indeed the founder of VideoPlasty. The other thing to consider is.. you sell this stock photos online? Why would you want to allow someone to download them for free? You lose all profit. I am happy to keep this DR if you can provide permission through COM:OTRS proving you own the website and want to share these files on Commons under the depicted license. ~riley(talk)01:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late reply, I still don't know exactly how this works (ie: don't get any notifications). I have sent two separate emails on different occasions as requested to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, last one on the 1st of March. To prove ownership of VideoPlasty.com, I sent it from my eduardvideoplasty· com address (please edit/delete after so it's not crawled) and I created a quick page on the site specifically for this: https://videoplasty.com/wikimedia-commons/
I don't sell them as GIF files on my store, but as higher quality MOV files. I'm giving some away for free as we are a new company and there are plenty more in the works anyway, so it's not a big deal for us.
You can delete these files completely please, as I will upload smaller resolution / filesize, that are easier to use. I just want to remove the warning from my account so I can upload other files
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.
Umm...So somebody tried to use Commons as a ploy for SEO and it backfired, and even though these all seem to be pretty good quality images, and certainly usable as icons for project pages even if they may not be appropriate for articles, and many/most of them seem to have already been copied on other websites IAW their license, and they were apparently happy to use up the time of our OTRS volunteers in validating these licenses, they now want them all courtesy deleted because they figured out they're not making any money by giving away images? Am I missing something? In what way is the moral of this story not "don't try to exploit commons for SEO, and don't license your images for free if you don't want people using them freely"? GMGtalk14:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, so your argument is we should keep them out of spite because they wasted our time? Lots of things waste our time, get over it. FWIW, both Creative Commons and WMF encourage users to donate images to Commons as a SEO tactic. It isn't exploitation. The hope is it is mutually beneficial. But they aren't benefiting us and they certainly aren't benefiting them. Videoplasty made a mistake and let's not rub their nose in it. -- Colin (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, my argument is shaping up to be very much that they're appropriately licensed and within scope. Also, courtesy deleting a few images because someone clicked the wrong button on Flickr (which I've supported before to be sure) is one thing, but deleting 520 images that have already been verified through OTRS is not a precedent that I would really like to see set. GMGtalk14:55, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think they had a premedated plan where though giving away free images they will make money. I think they had a business, essentially tried to advertise, and through that made a series of mistakes. I don't think these are files we would normally keep. I've yet to see where many/most of them seem to have already been copied on other websites under these licenses other then a few. I have a lot of sympathy for the argument of not setting a precedent but I think this can be done as a courtesy. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 15:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Picking one at random, it looks like this one has already been copied about a dozen times, meaning it's just as likely to end up back here under an appropriate license. That's what happens when you upload images and then take months to say anything about it. And we certainly keep all kinds of icons, may thousands of them in fact. I mean, again, courtesy deletion is one thing, but deleting hundreds of good quality files where no replacement has been identified, or may in fact exist on Commons, after they've all been OTRS verified, and after they've been available here for months...that's something entirely different. That looks like precedent that could endanger thousands of donated images, notwithstanding removing the evidence that those who are reusing the files already are doing so under the appropriate license. GMGtalk15:14, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It would be up to the uploader to deal with the washout from this backfired mistake. We have deleted images in the past when the uploader hasn't fully understood the licensing, with it anyone who had re-used the works prior to the courtesy deletion would still be licensed as under a Creative Commons license. This isn't a precedent, since we've done courtesy deletions in the past but this one has been dragged out for quite sometime. Bidgee (talk) 15:51, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but this isn't someone who doesn't understand the license. This is someone going to great lengths to appropriately license and verify their content so they can try to exploit Commons to promote their business. And then when their scheme doesn't work out, they want to take all the volunteer time that went into sorting and verifying the images, and which they were happy to exploit when they thought they could make a few bucks, and then throw it all away. I don't think we should be in the business of deleting good quality in-scope images en masse because it doesn't fit with the business model of a person who knew exactly what they were doing when they licensed them. GMGtalk16:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
GreenMeansGo, courtesy deletion is nothing to do with "in scope and appropriately licensed". That's an invalid reason to keep for such. "In scope" is a binary judgement for regular deletion discussions and involves people weighing the educational value of the images and seeing if it meets a very low threshold. The fact that someone could perhaps seen a limited educational use for a few (certainly not all) of these images doesn't mean the educational value is high. They don't illustrate anything (like how a gear works) not do they provide a valuable visual description of a real world object like a photograph would. It is just corporate eyecandy clipart. So the minimal loss to this project is one argument that helps the case for courtesy deletion. The other sites you link are just scraping sites that link back to Commons - I don't suppose many of them meets the reliability standards for someone here to upload content again. Likely they are full of copyvio "found on the web". The fact that we have thousands of icons, covering many of the subjects above, is actually an argument for courtesy deletion, not against. It shoes that these files are easily replaceable.
Your main argument seems to be they knew what they were doing and wasted our time, and so we're going to punish them for the time wasting by keeping the images out of spite, or because you've fallen for the sunk cost fallacy. The time spent by others on these images is not your concern, it's gone, and we just look forward. We have lots of images where people have categorised, described in multiple languages, included on Wikipedia, and then get found to be copyvios and deleted. As Bidgee explains, courtesy deletion is an ad hoc per-case discussion with the community making a humane choice, rather than following rules. It isn't a slipperly slope nor does it endanger any reusers by "removing the evidence" that's sad old myth some make: The "evidence" is easily recovered by any admin and Vidoeplasty would have to lie in court to try to sue anyone over them. So just FUD spreading here. -- Colin (talk) 17:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It has nothing to do with punishing anyone. It has to do with not rewarding someone for attempting to abuse the system and its volunteers for personal gain. Deleting these images so someone can charge money for images that are free is entirely against the purpose all of these volunteers are volunteering for in the first place. That's silly, and there's not a bit of sunk cost involved until we decide to take all that volunteer time and throw it away so someone can make money off free content, because their scheme to funnel traffic to their website didn't work as intended. GMGtalk18:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"nor does it endanger any reusers by "removing the evidence" that's sad old myth some make: The "evidence" is easily recovered by any admin"
Except such cases rarely make it to any court. The usual practice (I'm not saying Videoplasty will, but they certainly could) is to send a scary letter and the case will usually be settled out of court. The re-user may never even think of asking an admin or looking on archive.org. When a re-user does, such cases are typically dropped. - Alexis Jazzping plz21:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Is anything you wrote based on any actual facts regarding Commons images? I suggest you just made it up. Even the link you gave is utterly irrelevant. You really think any party is going to involve lawyers over a $5 clip art image? -- Colin (talk) 12:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Bidgee: The uploader very clearly understood the license - see the previous DR on this very page, and also the OTRS ticket. They possibly misunderstood the consequences of the license--at least that appears to be the salient claim. Storkk (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per discussion on AN. Very little value to us. We don't exist to supply "icons for project pages" (GMG above): that isn't our educational purpose. While users on the projects might find a very few of these icons useful to jazz up a project page, they certainly aren't irreplaceable for that purpose and hardly unique. Most of them could not be used for any Wikiproject. Corporate clip art is not really our thing. These icons were uploaded by mistake and are killing Videoplasty's business. It would be nice of us if we courtesy deleted them. Videoplasty appears to understand all the implications/limitations, apologises and promises not to sue anyone, etc, etc. -- Colin (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per the ANI discussion and per Colins replies and !vote - Being honest there's not really any images in that list that could be used, Also as I said on the ANI report I can't watch people lose their jobs and business over a silly mistake like this, Courtesy delete. –Davey2010Talk16:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All but File:Man Reading Newspaper.jpg and any similarly water marked images, although I haven't found others. These are appropriate images, with appropriate licenses, uploaded with full knowledge of the licensing, already being used on multiple projects, that have been uploaded for months. We ought not be in the business of rewarding people who openly abuse volunteer time in a scheme to make money, by allowing them to throw away all that volunteer time so that they can charge money for free content. I have little sympathy for the "turns out I can't make money off you guys, so may I please have my pictures back" line of argument. That's abusive and ought not be rewarded, especially not in a way that actively makes the project worse by deleting hundreds of files. GMGtalk18:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Are they educational? Yes. This kind of stock animation is a basis for all kinds of educational videos. Hospitals, for example, often use this kind of material to create a video that explains what a conversation with a doctor will be like to prepare the patient for that. Any kind of social situation could be explained in video form and if that's not educational I don't know what is.
Was Videoplasty blissfully unaware? User:~riley said this in the closed DR above this one: "That said, you will need to prove to Commons:OTRS that you are indeed the founder of VideoPlasty. The other thing to consider is.. you sell this stock photos online? Why would you want to allow someone to download them for free? You lose all profit.". Their response was to send permission to OTRS!
If we allow this to be courtesy deleted, regardless of whether or not Videoplasty made an "honest mistake", I expect other companies to upload their content to Commons to boost their Google ranking and get their content "out there". They can do so comforted by the knowledge they can still get their content deleted 5 months later.
Keep, first of all let me clarify this, I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs over Wikimedia, but these images should be kept for a whole lot of reasons. Let’s first look at the timeline, (1) the account “Videoplasty” got registered, this is already something amazing as this is a company account and there are admins that patrol new user names just to block ones that sound like they’re from an institution or more than one person uses it, Videoplasty is a company and although we have accounts like User:Swiss National Library which is a major contributor to Wikimedia Commons, most will simply get blocked on sight so even the fact that these files got uploaded was an unlikely event, (2) these media files then got deleted but were restored through OTRS permission confirmed to have come from Videoplasty, and (3) these files are now so widely shared that they have become a threat to the business model of Videoplasty. I’ve seen many educational images got deleted because they were “promotional” in fact I remember a user who wrote a book and then decided to donate images from his book to Wikimedia Commons, User:INeverCry banned him and all of his work was deleted, who benefited from this? Nobody, educational material was lost and a high quality photographer disallowed from contributing here, how is this relevant? Simple, because on Wikimedia projects there seems to be a contradictory culture regarding donations regardless if it’s from a for-profit or a non-profit entity and people cry COI left and right like Don Quijote, only rarely do companies even get to the point where their media gets donated and the media donated by Videoplasty is of high quality, yes people like Slowling4 gave bad advice saying to change the license, but why was it wrong 👎🏻? Simple, Creative Commons licenses are non revocable. Let’s look at more reasons one-by-one...
{{Keep|Reason 1}}, as I stated above this is long past the time window for “a courtesy deletion” to take place, if it were a week or so, sure but the files donated by Videoplasty have been donated some time ago, and as I said before, the people at Videoplasty had a very long time to think about donating their beautiful animations to Wikimedia Commons and counciously did so with every step, if it were after the first time, I’d still oppose deletion but I would understand why, but after so many chances, this is bonkers!
{{Keep|Reason 2}}, this would sent a message to “spammers” (using quotation marks here because the Wikimedia definition of “spam” seems to be very fluid and inconsistent, as donations from some are “spam” but from GLAM’s aren’t, but that’s a whole other discussion). All the “spam-fighters” on every Wikimedia project combined couldn't even dream of hurting “spammers” as much as Videoplasty just did, no matter how much effort they would put into fighting “spam” it would never ever be so effective as... And I mean no offense when I write this “Darwin award winning” effects of this donation by Videoplasty. This would basically send a message that “spammers” should be happy about “spam-fighters” because if their content remains up they’re going to be the losers. When you choose to donate your work to Wikimedia Commons you can’t make a profit, EVER, essentially by promoting your company you actually give everyone permission to “steal” your work, and there’s nothing you can ever do about it (see Reason 3), this essentially means that if spammers are “successful” and their work remains on Wikimedia (something that happens a lot more often than you think), their ability to make a profit disappears. External links on Wikimedia websites won't be followed by search engines while that same content is usually placed first on Wikimedia, this is what Videoplasty are complaining about and this is what will hurt “spammers” the most, “spam-fighters” were simply not smart enough to realise that the best way to fight “spammers” is by doing nothing and this will hurt them where they least expected it... Their wallet, if the headlines tomorrow read “start up gone bankrupt because of Wikimedia Commons” then this will do more to stop “spammers” than supposed “spam-fighters” ever will. ”Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, the marketing tool that will destroy your market value.”
{{Keep|Reason 3}}, I have stated that Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable before but will repeat it here, and please read Commons:License revocation so even if they want to change their mind, they can’t, let me quote “Deleting a work from Commons does not revoke its licenses. Anyone who has the work or gains access to it in future can continue to use it under the terms of those licenses.” So even if all of these media files will get deleted today they will still be accessible and usable and can be distributed for free and there is nothing Videoplasty can do about it, no court of law ⚖ will side with them unless an actual copyright infringement would occur. Also remember that we share our work here because we don't want to make money, I saw my own work appear in major international newssites like Yahoo! Finance and was delighted to see it, here you only have donors, no sales(wo)men and although courtesy deletions are a thing, these files have (often) been uploaded twice and the fact that they’re released with a Creative Commons license is confirmed with an OTRS ticket. If Videoplasty were from a poor country like Cambodia, Botswana, Etc. and were just trying to make a living I would've felt bad for them but Romania is basically as rich as it gets, and paying $ 5,- for an animation is ridiculously expensive, giving that animation away for $ 0,- is even more ridiculous but this was an error on Videoplasty’s marketing department, Eduard shouldn't lose his job over that.
All it takes is someone seeing this deletion request and then immediately caching the files in the Internet Archives and then pointing there whenever they use the files, Videoplasty loses anyway. I know that the company is looking for any excuse as to why they are not financially profitable at the moment but Wikimedia Commons is a scapegoat. Years after these files would be deleted here, any court will uphold the creative commons licenses they were uploaded here with.
{{Keep|Reason 4}}, but even if the first 3 (three) reasons were to be accepted the main question is “are these files educational?” yes, yes they are. To compare File:Kirchner - arugula-and-his-dog.jpg could theoretically only be used in a Wikipedia article about Kirchner or maybe just this particular style of painting but File:Corporate Woman Talking on the Phone GIF Animation Loop.gif shows a good depiction how a person looks when they are having a conversation on a mobile telephone, this could be used to illustrate that fact. “Educational value” contrary to what many people here seem to think does not mean “could be used on Wikipedia” which is a very narrow definition, it just means “could be used to educate someone”, a .gif of an alarm ⏰ shows how an alarm goes off, a still photo can never convey that properly, if a picture tells a thousand words an animation tells a million. Contrary to using real people, using these animations would actually help with maintaining a neutral point of view as it doesn't give any undue value to the importance of a particular human being over the other for doing a certain act. Does have an educational value? Yes, it does too.
Also, are y’all telling me that uneducational files got deleted by sysops, then uneducational files got restored and then these uneducational files remained here for half a year? I highly doubt so, you can send OTRS permission for your selfie where you pose with your Chihuahua in your little pink handbag and pruned lips in front of your bathroom mirror but no one will restore that image. If there was anything wrong with the educational value of these files they wouldn't have ever been restored.
{{Keep|Reason 5}}, the only real precedent deleting these files would say is “At Wikimedia Commons we don't take Creative Commons licenses serious” because CC licenses are irrevocable and are to promote free culture, deletion of these files spits in the face of that.
To close it off, my advice to Videoplasty would be to change the required attribution on their license to something people don't want to see, something that really disrupts like those messages at free trials like say “This animation was provided to you by Videoplasty.com, to use this animation without paying a fee this message should be prominently displayed at 600% the size of the animation below or besides it, if you want to stop seeing this message then please go to m.videoplast.com/NAME OF THE SHOP”, the license would still be free, but anyone using it is required to attribute you in that way, it doesn't invalidate any prior license but neither will (needless) deletion. In case this suggestion is disruptive then inform me, I don’t want anyone to be annoyed by such a long message but this simply seems like a better solution than pretending like the images were never here. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 21:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please change your {{Keep}} templates above - it appears deceptive. Your last point is also deceptive, or at least unhelpful. CC-By SA 4.0 specifically allows attribution "in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context". Storkk (talk) 09:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon about the suggestion, I forgot to strike it after Alexis Jazz 🎺 mentioned it on my talk page. Also I am not sure how anyone could see Reason1 as "deceptive" as it's "a reason to keep" and deletion requests aren't a vote so even if someone couldn't read and only looked at the logo's (which should probably disqualify them from adminship as they would then clearly not understand how deletion requests work) the text besides them didn't read "Keep". Anyhow I nowiki'd the templates and struck the bad advice, I am still reading that entire Creative Commons FAQ, it would probably be best to link that somewhere in the UploadWizard. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:53, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see the arguments on both sides here, but would lean Weak keep mostly per GreenMeansGo and Alexis Jazz. I also think that deleting these after having kept these other files, where the arguments for deletion seem to me to be similar but significantly stronger, would be a little absurd. However, while consistency in our decisions is desirable, precedents should not take precedence to making good decisions (apologies for that pun). Storkk (talk) 10:35, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Storkk, this is nothing like the Wellcome DR. As the proposed policy Commons:Courtesy deletions says, one factor is "Is the file something we have lots of, or something that is pretty much irreplaceable? ". The Wellcome images are irreplaceable educational content in themselves. These clip arts are absolutely not, despite claims that some educational video could re-use them, they don't in themselves provided educational content, and that's a difference. These icons are trivially replaceable by numerous alternatives. So I don't see the comparison or contradiction in lettings these go. I didn't read Donald's rationale, because life is too short, but I am very disappointed by the rationales given by GMG and Alexis, which are full of made-up-stories about how Videoplasty might send angry letters to re-users (they have very much promised not to) and are frankly vindictive based on bad-faith accusations of exploitation. This isn't some huge organisation, like Wellcome, who have lawyers and experts on hand, but a sole trader who made a bad business decision and is being directly financially harmed as a result.
Our Courtesy Deletion practice is an opportunity to something we don't need to but choose to because of what sort of people we are, not to sit in judgement about what sort of person someone else is. Are we kind, generous and forgiving, or mean spirited and judgemental and grudge bearing? -- Colin (talk) 11:39, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well I apologize if I came off as vindictive. I don't mean to assume any bad faith other than that we were explicitly told, that this was done as a way to entice people to go to their website and buy images. The community did everything in their power to be completely transparent about the process and the consequences, and the response was there are plenty more in the works anyway, so it's not a big deal for us. That strongly implies that one side in this discussion was being less than honest, and based on that, the community invested a non-trivial amount of time in complying with the request. To delete the images then as a courtesy looks very much like being doubly complicit, first in giving our blessing to using up volunteer time as a marketing ploy disguised as altruism, and second into deceiving our audience into paying for free media, which is entirely antithetical to the goals of the project. GMGtalk12:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with your characterization of GMG's and Alexis's comments. I would also note that Commons:Courtesy deletions is a proposed guideline that has not been accepted, and in any case appears to be descriptive rather than prescriptive: it says we are "more likely to delete" easily replaced files. Even stipulating the proposed guideline, I'm not sure how "easily" replaced these are. Storkk (talk) 16:18, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"exploit commons for SEO", "less than honest", "marketing ploy disguised as altruism", "deceiving our audience into paying for free media", "like precedent that could endanger thousands of donated images", "It has to do with not rewarding someone for attempting to abuse the system and its volunteers for personal gain", "openly abuse volunteer time in a scheme to make money", "abusive and ought not be rewarded". I fail to see how any of those statements can be interpreted in any way other than an extremely negative judgemental view of Videoplasty justifying a vindictive vote to keep the images out of spite. I'm well aware courtesy deletion is proposed policy. This is a fine example of Commons curators attacking content producers, and inventing arguments to keep content just because it is free and just because we can. I'm rather tired of that, especially by people who don't themselves create content for a living or for Commons. There's a team of graphic artists in Romania who might once have considered creating some educational content for Commons or Wikipedia, and telling their creative friends about it, but now will instead be spreading scare stories about how mean the folk on Commons are and how to not touch it with a barge pole. And for what? Some office clip art. Yay, way to go Commons. -- Colin (talk) 12:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"There's a team of graphic artists in Romania who might once have considered creating some educational content for Commons or Wikipedia"
I don't believe in fairytales.
"and telling their creative friends about it, but now will instead be spreading scare stories about how mean the folk on Commons are and how to not touch it with a barge pole."
That would be perfect! We don't need more companies uploading their content to boost their Google ranking, only to try and have it deleted 4-5 months later. Please, please let them tell their friends about this experience so they will understand Creative Commons is irrevocable and Commons is not just a tool to boost their rankings! - Alexis Jazzping plz23:59, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Things may have been different if they had requested deletion within 2 weeks or so. And if they hadn't been properly informed, but ~riley was very clear. - Alexis Jazzping plz18:56, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, free images like these are difficult to find. They may not be educational on their own (similar to most content on commons), but can be used as eye-catchers especially to illustrate educational content that is otherwise difficult to illustrate. --Schlurcher (talk) 05:32, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well according to this tool (search by username "Videoplasty", can't link to search results because the url includes "[]") 25 files are currently being used 82 times across projects, including two uses so far in main spaces here and here, although the lion's share of all current uses appears to be on de.wiki in various templates. GMGtalk13:57, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Only mainspace counts, which is two usages. The first is supposed to demonstrate muscle contraction to cause movement, but the animation used does not actually show any muscles. It is no more useful than an animation of a car to demonstrate how an internal combustion engine works. So, not actually educational. Easily replaced with e.g., File:Quadricep-animation.gif which is superior and show muscles. The second is just eye-candy for the section "I check my knowledge" / "Final evaluation" in an article on the Solar System, and again there are countless icons that could be used for that, if icons are needed at all. Not very convincing. GMG, you keep talking about "not rewarding someone". Have you considered that these images were created by Videoplasty as part of their job, to earn a living. They are all owned by Videoplasty, not us. By deleting them we don't "reward" anyone, as we have nothing to give: we can only take. You didn't create any artistic content here, representing hours of creative talent. You are just someone who edits a community wiki. All you can do at this point, is to decide whether the educational value of these images is so important, that you'd like this guy to earn less from their job. You can only take. And because this guy made a poor business decision a few months ago, you want to take. I think your glamorous search rather emphasizes my argument. They are eye candy and not educational. Earning money from artwork you have created isn't evil and isn't against all that Commons stands for. Artwork and photography are fairly immature at present wrt commercial vs freely licensed, whereas software has matured and we see open source and commercial usage are best friends. -- Colin (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Has anyone notified the uploader by other means?"
They uploaded it here, they have an account, they requested deletion multiple times, if they can't be bothered to respond it's their loss. - Alexis Jazzping plz22:43, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Question, can't someone theoretically re-upload all of these files claiming a free license after they're deleted? Because they were all irrevocably released with a free license, I'm not advocating for anyone to do that as it's. Stupid but deleting these files won't invalidate the license and at present other websites have copied these animations from Wikimedia Commons so all it would do is make these images less likely to be used on Wikimedia projects, not outside and as GreenMesnsGo already noted some usage statistics I wonder what we would gain from deleting these images donated with a free license. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 19:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Donald, the decision to host or not to host the files is a community decision. While re-uploading the images after deletion would be legally permitted per the licence, it would not be permissible at a community level. The gain to deleting them is that commercial users, companies, businesses, etc, who are quite willing to spend $5 for some clip art for their business power point presentation, are currently finding them on Commons via Google, and so taking them for free. If removed from Commons, then it is far less likely that revenue will be lost. -- Colin (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's a low move Alexis. Create a new version of a perfectly OK tutorial page deliberately using images in a deletion discussion. That's like someone who is trying to prevent "out of scope" images being deleted going over to Wikipedia to stuff them into articles that already had perfectly good images already. I'm disgusted with the insults and accusations made by you and GMG towards someone who donated images in good faith and the hope of mutual benefit. Both of your purpose here has been entirely driven by spiteful ill will towards creative talent. Unwatching. -- Colin (talk) 10:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm impressed by the new files from Alexis Jazz. This shows that it is apparently very easy to derive additional content from the SVGs to make them fit to various contents. --Schlurcher (talk) 22:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
---
Hello everyone! This is Eduard, founder of VideoPlasty and uploader of all the images. I was actively involved in the discussions previously, in another page that I was watching, I see things moved here and I missed it, sorry! I appreciate everyone jumping in and providing their honest opinion and I value debating both sides of the argument, but I have to say that I have no idea how to react to this as I'm quite shocked by some of the things I read here, as some users here have turned this into a very personal vendetta against me, making up weird arguments or coming up with extremely low moves, as we see here with the derivative work.
As for the SEO argument, let's make it clear that it doesn't work that way. SEO 101 makes it quite obvious that if the files are deleted from here, all the pages linking back (backlinks) will disappear overnight, so that's 400-500 backlinks gone, from a very prestigious domain, which will be a massive red flag for Google. Rankings will certainly go down, not stay up. So the argument that I tried to exploit the system and then remove the files, like the rankings would still remain the same, is not just flawed, but blatantly vindictive. I'm willing to take a major Google blow, that's how important this deletion is for me.
As a quick recap of the entire situation and how we ended up here. Our main business model was supposed to be selling stock animations in MOV format. I never thought people would care too much about GIFs, being a more limited file format for animation. GIFs were recently introduced and I thought uploading low res/quality versions here would be a win-win situation. Some people get to use them for free and discover us that way (plus provide a link back to us as attribution), we get some backlinks and new clients. Unbeknownst to us, people were waaay more interested in the GIF versions, rather than the MOVs, as they're more user-friendly (so wider audience). What ended up happening is people don't ever buy the high res versions from us, they even email us saying "can we really just use them for free from Wikimedia instead of paying for them on your store?". Also, some use them without attribution directly and it's hard to hunt those down and I'm not in the business to sue people over this. Another unforeseen consequence of that was that most of our traffic comes from SEO and of course, for long tail keywords like "Man Waving Hand GIF Animation", the free version here will always rank #1, no matter what we do with the "premium" ones. As for the SVG uploads, we never intended to sell those, so I figured it's a really good donation, again, for a win-win situation. We're in the process of adding those to the store as well to sell and the exact same thing will happen.
I do appreciate the volunteer work you do here and I apologize for having wasted any of your time with this. But please keep in mind, we've spent 12 months and $10k creating all those assets, so it's basically a massive amount of time and money for Romania.
Here's how I feel at this point, in a small metaphor, if I may. Flawed, but sums it up:
“Poor man loses a bag of money in a land where the rules are "if you find any money, it's yours for the taking". Some find it and are willing to give it back, being understanding of the poor man's situation, on a human level, nevermind the "rules". The others, however, say "oh, look at all this beautiful money, let's keep it for ourselves, it's too beautiful to ever give it back, stupid to have lost such beauty it the first place" and then use it to buy new fancy clothes and go rub it in his face, saying how stupid he was to lose it in the first place. But hey, look at those fancy clothes, aren't they nice, you stupid poor man?”
I'm open for any other questions if we can keep this civilized and not turn into a personal attack. I have uploaded the files in good faith and made a major mistake, not fully understanding the license, which YES, is my own fault. But that is why I'm am here in front of you politely asking you for a courtesy deletion, as it would mean the world to us. I have absolutely no intention in suing anyone for copyright infringement, I would just like the files deleted from here. I also completely understand that other sites might have them, but in all honesty, this one right here is the only one that matters.
Ideally, I would like all uploads deleted, but I would also walk away a happy man even with just half of them deleted (the GIF animations, as animation is our main business, not vectors). Clearly, the animations don't have any educational value other than looking good, that's a non-debatable fact, period. As for the SVGs, I'm willing to take that loss for the stupid mistake that I made and call it a day, maybe we can reach an agreement this way. Also, some users here get to have their fun being vindictive and rubbing it in my face, so everyone wins.
I don't think any of you has anything to win or lose in either situation, whether or not the files get kept or deleted, and I understand you're defending the values of Wikimedia Commons and what CC stands for, but it would mean the world to us if they do get deleted. We're a very small startup and very passionate about animation, but we haven't made a profit yet in over 18 months, so every little sale we can get is very important for us to stay in business, that's why this is crucial for us. It's not exploiting the system, it's simply putting bread on the table. I understand this entire thing was my fault completely and I take full responsibility for getting myself involved in something I didn't completely understand, but given the current situation, I am here in front of you begging you at this point, to please think about this from a human level and please consider the courtesy deletion of all my uploads.
--- Videoplasty (talk) 09:24, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ed, thanks for your input. Please do not take comments here personally, it is more infighting over principles, rather than you.--BevinKacon (talk) 09:57, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Videoplasty: Your poor man story isn't entirely accurate. Here is a more accurate version:
A poor man takes his savings and goes to a charity. He says "I want to donate all my savings". The charity, let's call them The ~riley Foundation, asks the man "you sell this stock photos online? Why would you want to allow someone to download them for free? You lose all profit. you want to give us your entire savings? Why would you want us to have that when you may need the money yourself?" The man responds: "I'm giving some away for free as we are a new company and there are plenty more in the works anyway, so it's not a big deal for us. I'm giving away some money as I'm going to earn plenty more, so it's not a big deal for me."
The ~riley Foundation said, "you will need to prove to Commons:OTRS that you are indeed the founder of VideoPlasty owner of the money and want to share these files on Commons give this money to our charity under the depicted license understanding you can't get it back." the man decided to proceed.
4-5 months later, the man knocked on the door of the charity. "yes, sorry, I made a mistake I guess. I thought I was gonna be rich, but I'm not. Can I have my money back?" The charity, somewhat confused by this, gave the man advice on how to earn some money. The man said "I appreciate you giving me advice on how to run my business, but I didn't ask for any. My problem is simple: I would like ALL my uploads deleted money back. Anything else on how I could potentially run my business is irrelevant."
The man told the charity employee: "Here's how I feel at this point, in a small metaphor, if I may. Flawed, but sums it up: “Poor man loses a bag of money.."
It gets repetitive after a while.
"Ideally, I would like all uploads deleted, but I would also walk away a happy man even with just half of them deleted (the GIF animations, as animation is our main business, not vectors). Clearly, the animations don't have any educational value other than looking good, that's a non-debatable fact, period. As for the SVGs, I'm willing to take that loss for the stupid mistake that I made and call it a day, maybe we can reach an agreement this way. Also, some users here get to have their fun being vindictive and rubbing it in my face, so everyone wins."
The animations can be used for educational videos, but that being said: I personally value the SVGs much more than the animations. If you hadn't called my derivate work an "extremely low move", my advice for you "irrelevant" and had requested deletion in, say, 6 weeks (which is still well over the usual period for courtesy deletion) I may very well have voted to delete the animations.
"We're a very small startup and very passionate about animation, but we haven't made a profit yet in over 18 months"
I actually would want to hear back from you in a few weeks or months if the files are deleted. I want to know if it'll actually increase your sales. It'll be useful information for future debates.
What I'm going to say now is not a proposal (I'm not in a position to make proposals). While I prefer to keep the files the way they are (but I don't make the call on that), what if the animations were reduced from, say, 400px to 100px? This would mostly remove fears that existing (off-wiki) users wouldn't be able to prove the files they used were properly licensed. I'm not talking about lawsuits, but anyone currently using these animations on their blog, school project, presentation, etc should be able to link to the source that shows the license so anyone can see they are in full compliance with it. - Alexis Jazzping plz11:21, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz: I apologize, I'm under a lot of pressure with this situation and I didn't mean to come across as rude or anything like that. If the files get deleted, you have my word I will get back to you with results and proof of increased sales, I'm 100% sure things would work better for us that way. Of course, there might be other factors involved and it's close to impossible to directly track the increase to the deletion here, but I will do my best to show proof of how sales come from SEO for example, which would mean our images rank high and people click on them rather than those ones here (Google Analytics screenshots, etc.).
Regarding the story - yes, that's a more accurate version of it, indeed. But even then, I think it would be a good idea to at least consider giving back (some of) the money donated or trying to find a solution and feeling compassionate for the man's mistake.
As for your proposal with 100px, it's not ideal, but it's still much better than having the files as they currently are, so if the community decides that's the best option available, to just resize the GIFs to 100px and keep the SVGs, I'll take whatever you decide. I thought the resolution I uploaded here was low, and it is compared to the full res we sell, but it's still high enough for people to use in most cases (again, my mistake and I take full responsibility) --Videoplasty (talk) 14:21, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all watermarked and unused files as out of scope. Keep all files constructively used in mainspaces before this nomination. I feel this is a suitable compromise.--BevinKacon (talk) 09:57, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@BevinKacon: That sounds reasonable and I completely agree with this compromise. There is just 1 watermarked image I think, but I imagine most of the other uploads were unused. I don't know how to check, but I read above (some users mentioned) that only a few were actually used.--Videoplasty (talk) 14:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
previously 150px, now 100px
Weak keep I am very worried, that the story from above ends as: and then he sued the shit out of everybody as this business model proved to be more lucrative. This is why I would strongly support replacing the gif files with a 150px version and keeping the svg files. I made an example of the 150px size and its small enough that it won’t be used in commercial products. Just to make this clear: I am not trying to rub anything in an I am very sympathetic to your case although I really, really doubt that your sales will increase. Your files are popular because they are free. Amada44talk to me16:19, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Amada44: I understand your point, but I promise you I have absolutely no intention to sue anyone over this. And besides, as some users pointed out above, that wouldn't be possible, as it would be easy for an admin to prove that the file existed in a deleted page (which I guess remains somewhere hidden). So that would mean I would lie in court. Again, I have absolutely zero interest in this.
150px height - again, far from ideal, but still much better than no deletion at all.
As for the increased sales, it's hard to prove, but it makes more sense. Let me explain my point. Someone searches for Man Waving Hand GIF Animation for example on Google Images or any of the ones we will manage to rank high enough to matter. The first result is here on Wikimedia Commons. It's free, no watermark and good enough resolution. Whereas our own premium version could rank similarly, but paid and with a watermark. In most cases, it's clear which one you'd end up using. We don't rank yet for any of those, as we started making watermarked GIF versions for this specific purpose and stopped when we figured out the GIFs here on Wikimedia Commons could be a problem, so now we're focusing on trying to get this problem solved somehow.Videoplasty (talk) 08:52, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just about that, we also wouldn't (for example) want to have a teacher give a scolding to a student for using an animation without permission. As for you, you could extract money from users without admins or courts ever entering the picture, so that argument isn't really valid beyond your word. I'm not saying I don't trust your word, but lying in court or admins proving the license is valid will never play any serious role.
Just in case: I made smaller versions of all the animations (I uploaded two as new files as an example) but I don't know how I could easily overwrite 265 files. UploadWizard won't let me do it so if we go this route we need to find an easier way. - Alexis Jazzping plz13:50, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz: I don't know exactly how that works, but I imagine you're right. However, I see some users here think that it's a very small risk and still voted for deletion, given my explanations and based on their gut feeling I imagine. I also understand your point of view of trying to make this 100% risk-free, so no hard feelings.
Thank you for the small res versions. So what happens now? Is this the final decision/solution? Does someone specific get to decide or how do we do this? --Videoplasty (talk) 16:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's actually a good question.. I should probably write an essay about all this that can be shown to other companies in the future to help them figure out how to get the best mutually benificial collaboration with Commons, but that'll be something to do afterwards.
Pinging @GreenMeansGo, Donald Trung, Storkk, and Schlurcher: who had voted keep. For me personally, I can accept this solution where we keep the SVG files (that I believe have greater educational potential for us) and scale down the GIF to ensure existing users have valid source links to credit. Would the four of you see it this way as well? - Alexis Jazzping plz18:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Amada44: I already have 100px versions for all animations (25% actually, I'm not sure 150px will look much better due to how scaling works), I just don't know how to overwrite easily. I'm not sure if it would help if I requested extended uploader. scratch that, just found out my animations don't loop, will have to create them again. scratch that, the original animation (like File:Black Man Playing Guitar Standing GIF Animation Loop.gif) doesn't loop either. They all should though.. so I better create them again anyway. But how to upload? - Alexis Jazzping plz20:33, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz: & @Amada44: It seems like this is the final solution and the best I can get and I don't want to drag this on forever, so I suppose I agree with this compromise of keeping 100px versions for the GIFs and the SVGs as they are. Regarding the loops, it might be the original files that don't all loop -- Videoplasty (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Amada44: I imagine there's an automatic way to do that faster? @Alexis Jazz: already automatically converted all of them to 100px, it's just a matter of deleting the higher resolution for each file I imagine? Any suggestions there? Or did you mean to completely delete those existing and for me to upload the 100px versions as new files? Is that the only way possible? It would be a massive amount of manual work -- Videoplasty (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm rendering the files again (with loop enabled) and have been given a suggestion for overwriting which I'll try once the rendering is done. - Alexis Jazzping plz15:42, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Glad we have reached some form of mutual agreement! Thank you @Alexis Jazz: for doing this massive task (hopefully in there was an automated way to do it)! However - @Amada44, Jeff G., and Alexis Jazz: - on a quick look, it seems I can still access the high res original uploads. This can be done both on my Uploads page (where you preview each GIF and access the file that way) OR if you access any individual file in the File History tab. I tried this from a different browser where I'm not logged in, so it's not because I am the original uploader. I also cleared my cache. This kinda defeats the purpose. Anything we can do about this? Or do we need to wait a while until the files get cleared from the server? Thoughts? --- Videoplasty (talk) 06:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Videoplasty: I was able to partially automate it by customizing an existing tool. Still had to press "yes" 265 times and had to wait 5-10 seconds between each "yes", but at least I didn't have to worry about selecting the right file. The revision deletion part has to be done by an administrator, who will hopefully visit this page soon. - Alexis Jazzping plz11:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
videoplasty · com address (please edit/delete after so it's not crawled) and I created a quick page on the site specifically for this: https://videoplasty.com/wikimedia-commons/
.svg){kind=link}
_Bag_Flat_Icon_Vector.svg){kind=link}
Delete I think I've heard enough about this. Delete as a courtesy to the uploader. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 14:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Keep All but File:Man Reading Newspaper.jpg and any similarly water marked images, although I haven't found others. These are appropriate images, with appropriate licenses, uploaded with full knowledge of the licensing, already being used on multiple projects, that have been uploaded for months. We ought not be in the business of rewarding people who openly abuse volunteer time in a scheme to make money, by allowing them to throw away all that volunteer time so that they can charge money for free content. I have little sympathy for the "turns out I can't make money off you guys, so may I please have my pictures back" line of argument. That's abusive and ought not be rewarded, especially not in a way that actively makes the project worse by deleting hundreds of files. GMGtalk 18:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
have an educational value? Yes, it does too.
Question has anyone notified the uploader by other means? YouTube, Facebook https://videoplasty.com/contact/. Their input would be useful here. Where are previous discussions showing other animations of this nature being in scope? All the in scope arguments are weak unless some precedence is shown.--BevinKacon (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Comment I'm rendering the files again (with loop enabled) and have been given a suggestion for overwriting which I'll try once the rendering is done. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:42, 2 September 2018 (UTC)