Commons:Requests for comment/OTRS 2012

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

If there is a general theme emerging from this discussion, it is to encourage more documentation and collaboration internally within OTRS, and as far as possible (without breaking email confidences) to clarify publicly what claim(s) a given OTRS ticket supports. Rd232 (talk) 12:43, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

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This Request for Comment concerns the OTRS system, especially in regards to the verification of license permissions sent to OTRS. Recent discussion at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Is_OTRS_really_"fit_for_purpose"? suggests clarity and consistency of verification standards is lacking. This RFC is to discuss these issues further and to consider next steps for possible improvements. Rd232 (talk) 18:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I'd like to start this off by saying that I think that the OTRS flag should be given on Wikimedia Commons to anybody who is an OTRS agent and has access to permissions queues. In an ideal world, we should have a situation where everyone handling the permissions queues is perfect. When there are users who fail to handle OTRS permissions tickets correctly, ideally the correct recourse is to contact OTRS admins and bring that to their attention. They can then check to see if there is an issue and potentially remove permissions access for that person. If someone has a poor grasp of copyright, they shouldn't be handling permissions tickets at all, not just having their Commons user flag revoked. Indeed, if their handling of copyright issues stinks enough for it to be an issue on Commons, the OTRS admins should definitely be looking at whether they should be handling the copyvio queue for English Wikipedia as well as handling Commons permissions. If Commons considers OTRS permissions handling a problem, that may be a good reason for OTRS to look into improving the documentation on our internal wiki for newbies to better teach them, possibly with examples, about image permissions. Or, indeed, it might be cause for institution of mentoring. Removing the OTRS flag from people on Commons seems like it wouldn't solve the claimed problem.

Personally, I handled a few Commons OTRS tickets when I first started and asked for the OTRS flag to be granted. I found that I was primarily interested in handling non-Commons tickets, although it is still useful to keep it as sometimes I might deal with a ticket that deals with cross-wiki issues (say, a celebrity with a BLP issue on enwp who then also wants to supply better images for Commons). —Tom Morris (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Standardized Processing vs. Public Documentation

I pleaded for moving towards a standardisation of OTRS ticket processing:

I agree that we need a more thorough writeup of good OTRS practice. This was also one of my suggestions above. My main point is that OTRS is not an activity which can work independently from the community at Commons. It is important that those interested who are not themselves OTRS members get an idea how OTRS tickets are processed and how reliable they are. It is similarly important to see how processes can be improved and which expectations the community has in regard to rigour in OTRS cases. And as OTRS members from a wide range of countries are fortunately working for Commons, it would also be helpful to collaborate more intensively in establishing good standards. As Pill and others have pointed out, some chapters are organizing meetings, trainings and channels of communication. However, OTRS members from other areas fall short of this kind of support. At Commons we have the greatest need for standardisation in regard to permission tickets and hence we should do this in our own interest.

Rd232 responded to it:

Totally agree - and these guidelines should be public. Actually, I'm not really clear why OTRS tickets can't be at least semi-public. For instance, why couldn't {{PermissionOTRS}} give some details of the ticket? Name of the OTRS submitter, the organisation they're acting for (if any) and domain of the email address would ordinarily be OK, and helpful especially for those without OTRS access (but also those with, in giving an at-a-glance understanding of the ticket). Optional "details" would also help. Of course, this would be more work, and OTRS is backlogged anyway, but in principle, wouldn't it be good?

I would like to add that while some abstract aspects of an OTRS ticket can be published (like, for example, "the author himself stated explicitly that he owns the copyright of the book cover"), the publication of the email address or its domain is a no-go. Likewise, personal information cannot be disclosed in many cases as this would breach the trust given from outside to the OTRS process. If just the domainname of an email address is known, most addresses can be guessed by trying some combinations of "firstname.lastname@domain.org", "lastname@domain.org", "firstnamelastname@domain.org", "nickname@domain.org" etc. At times even the photographer and copyright holder chose to stay anonymous for various reasons. This kind of privacy makes the donation of some of our treasures possible and would be impossible otherwise. If a ticket in a particular case raises questions, I suggest to ask the OTRS member who has processed it or to ask COM:ON to inspect a ticket and to provide abstract information about it. However, a check of an email address for authenticity or a check of the email headers in regard to possible forgery belong to those points which require access to non-public data which can be done by OTRS members only. --AFBorchert (talk) 22:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hm, well, I'm not suggesting publishing anything without the agreement of the OTRS ticket submitter; I suppose I was imagining a boiler-plate notice "you agree that details X, Y and Z will be published on the file description page unless you tell us otherwise". Rd232 (talk) 00:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You cannot do this. One of the reasons to introduce the OTRS process was the necessity to keep private things private. If you want to have all this in the open, you do not need an OTRS process. If you want people to ask if they want to give up their privacy voluntarily, you give these correspondences an unfortunate turn. If you correspond by email you expect privacy. This "unless you tell us otherwise" sounds nasty like some nasty smallprint and will end up in painful surprises for the people we are in contact with. I expect that you wouldn't do this in your private correspondence as well. I personally would surely not work for such a system where this is required. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

"the necessity to keep private things private" - well yes, but not everything that goes to OTRS needs to be private. "nasty smallprint... painful surprises" would be very bad, obviously. I rather assumed that it would be possible to make it clear enough. "If you correspond by email you expect privacy" - sparks a thought: would it be possible to move some of the process out of email somehow? Perhaps sometimes at least there are alternatives that could be used? (I'm struggling to think what, but I think it's a flag worth waving in case someone has a bright idea...) Rd232 (talk) 06:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there exists an alternative that can be used: People can work directly on-wiki. But we are not talking about that here, we are talking about OTRS and the whole point of OTRS is to have correspondences which are not public. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

One problem which makes "clear enough" into "nasty smallprint" is that much correspondence is in English with people with limited knowledge of the language. They may ignore things they do not understand and which seem to be marginal boilerplate. --LPfi (talk) 16:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. Alright, I guess this is a dead end. Rd232 (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Make permissions visible

OTRS secrecy is fine when it is someone complaining about a matter. However, license permissions dealing with releases should probably be public record and checked by everyone. There is no really legitimate claim to say someone has the right to privacy while simultaneously making a legal declaration regarding copyright. Copyright claims like licensing as CC-BY-Whatever have to be public knowledge before we can even deem it true, so hiding such releases would be wrong in many ways. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Ottava Rima, you have uploaded File:Union Bridge MD.JPG. To let us all feel better in regard to your CC-BY-SA-3.0 license declaration, are you willing to reveal at the file description your real life identity, your email address, your private phone number, your residential address, and a scan of your signature? --AFBorchert (talk) 06:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you will have to take this up at Ottava's user page if you want an answer. --Fæ (talk) 18:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that exact principle point is crucially important, no matter who's involved, and should not be tossed aside like that. It should be taken seriously and discuessed as such.

People or organizations who own the rights to images, and then can donate them to public domain, obviously must identify themselves properly and convince OTRS agents that their rights to all the images are legitimate. Regular old fashioned mail with original signatures is probably a good idea, even certified affidavits.

That's a far cry from outing everyone who does not wish to be outed as donors and/or users. The priviledge of making anonymous donations is recognized worldwide. And what do we do with those already granted privacy? Just out them, or have an unfair system where only new donors get outed? SergeWoodzing (talk) 21:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

More specific No permission template

I feel that the {{No permission since}} template should give options to specific cite the source that the permission needs to come from. While in most cases the source is clearly given in the information template it becomes less clear for derivative works and in cases where the author is only given in the EXIF tags of the photo. Also, if the author is known to have a personal website or work for a certain organization this should be given in the tag. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 03:15, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Teamwork

One of the ways to address inconsistency would be to make more use of teamwork. I understand there's an OTRS wiki for discussion, but I've no idea how much this is used - perhaps only for more complex cases, and not routinely? Perhaps then there could be some effort for all but the simplest tickets to be handled by two agents, with one proposing what to do, and the other actioning it if they agree. (With discretion left to agents if they want to process a ticket alone, but brief guidelines on when they should and shouldn't.)

This would cause a slight delay in responses to requesters, but with the backlog so long anyway, it wouldn't make much difference, perhaps. Of course, this approach is obviously extra work - but it is also extra learning through seeing what others do, and besides increasing consistency, it may increase speed of handling tickets, if agents become surer of how different situations should be handled. The Guidelines suggested above would also help. Rd232 (talk) 06:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

OTRS is teamwork. Take, for example, the permission associated with File:Wladimir Klitschko 2008 02 05.jpg. Thirteen emails were exchanged for this with six emails coming from four different OTRS team members and one notice attached to it. Communication happens mainly through mailing lists, through notices attached to the individual cases, and occasionally also through the otrs wiki. However, a requirement to process each ticket by at least two people does not work. The backlogs would get even longer as we have them now. And communication takes place in many languages and some of these less used languages have very few active OTRS members working on them. This could have the effect of a standstill on some of the queues. --AFBorchert (talk) 07:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Drafts and peer review

I'm creating a sub-section as this topic was discussed at the UK workshop but with a slightly different perspective.

One of the features requested for OTRS was the ability to hold draft emails and the means to ask for peer review or feedback on drafts before being sent. Although on OTRS one can see who is logged in and one can use the IRC channel to ask questions (thought this invariably means using one to one private messaging rather than discussing current confidential material in an open channel), in practice not that many people are immediately available. The ability to take a day or two writing a complex response and gain feedback from others with either specialized or wider experience would be incredibly valuable and increase the overall quality of response from OTRS.

Peer review would enable OTRS volunteers to request feedback on their work more generally and it would be handy to have a way of logging such performance feedback as part of being able to demonstrate competence or improvement in certain areas. This would be a great mechanism for identifying volunteers who may have the right skills to help with queues that require, say, an unusually good understanding of international copyright, the ability to identify when a matter ought to be sent to legal or the written skill to reply positively to sensitive issues of personal rights.

I would be concerned if generic knowledge is held on the closed OTRS-wiki by default. Closed wikis should be the necessary exception and the main body of material such as good (anonymized) case studies, template improvement and guidelines for OTRS volunteers ought to be held on :meta (or :commons if specific to this project) so that non-OTRS folks can contribute to improvement.

Though OTRS does not currently have systems for drafts and review built-in, we could probably start off some interim working practices (such as good use of the internal-note facility) that later on can become systematized. --Fæ (talk) 08:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That explains much better what I was thinking of than I did :) Rd232 (talk) 17:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

OTRS are more liberal with accepting permissions than Commons

Another exemple: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Picasso 4382.jpg. I had nominated it for DR without knowing there was a ticket. Then the DR was closed as kept without telling us what the permission said or who had given it. Then a second DR was made, and it became clear that it was just the owner of the art object giving permission. Such contributions are routinely deleted on Commons, it hardly merits discussion, it is almost simple enough for speedy deletion as {{Copyvio}}. There is a double standard, and OTRS is a huge leak past the rigid and rigorous requirements of current standards on Commons. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 21:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. While I think that OTRS is essential to protect the e-mail address and other private information of the sender, the process should disclose to all of us who the sender is -- not by actual name, but by relationship to the work -- "owner", "author", "author's heir", etc. In cases where our file has already disclosed the name of the person sending the e-mail, then that name can also be disclosed.

I also think that we make a serious mistake in allowing uploaders to forward permissions to OTRS -- that is an invitation to forge a permission. We use OTRS when assuming good faith is not good enough, yet we assume good faith when we accept a forwarded permission. Similarly, we should look with great suspicion on any permission that comes from an anonymous account -- gmail and its competitors. Whenever possible, the OTRS volunteer should be able to trace the incoming e-mail back to a web site or address that belongs to the relevant person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 12:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the whole approach of "forwarding" permissions seems a bit problematic. If someone has confirmed permission to User X, they should be able to cc the OTRS in a reply to User X restating that (at the prompting of User X), instead of having User X forward the previous email. At least for the typical case of permission by email, that would be quite easy and better. Rd232 (talk) 02:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

As good practice, if someone forwards an email into OTRS as evidence of a release, I normally copy the OTRS reply to the verifiable person or organization who is the named copyright holder. If the situation looks odd (for any number of reasons), I have sometimes separately emailed the original person or claimed copyright holder to double check they are aware of the release before giving final confirmation to the person acting as their (often informal) agent. The level to which one assumes good faith is always a judgement call, for example someone who is documented to be officially working with a institution like NARA should only need to confirm they are acting in that capacity once before we can safely assume good faith for later releases.

I have verified emails for original old photographs from people writing on behalf of their elderly relatives who were in no position to read a computer screen, let alone write their own email. My starting position for such a person asking for our help will always be to assume as much good faith as possible and attempt to apply as much common sense as possible (such as quietly checking the email domain via whois, and running the image through TinEye). The alternative is just to apologize and tell the majority of new up-loaders to try Flickr as a better tool for the job rather than attempting to meet our complex requirements. --Fæ (talk) 23:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you're very wrong here, Pieter. The so-called "rigid and rigorous requirements of current standards on Commons" (which by the way, you do not seem to be a great supporter of anyway, given your voting behavior in deletion requests) become a purely hypothetical construct as soon as third party content is included, so in fact there is no double-standard because there is no standard at all on Commons. If someone writes on Commons that he is the owner of a painting and releases it into CC-by-sa, that won't be accepted. By permissions-de's standards, it won't be accepted there either. If someone copies an image from a popular website and specifies the origin on Commons, this might not be accepted on Commons, too (given the enormous quantity of such material on Commons, "might" is probably the right word) and he will be told to, well, send an email to permissions. So Commons just doesn't deal with the issus ... you can't claim there's a double standard if the standard of one side is to refer to the other. Which brings us to: The problems that occur in OTRS are different from those that arise on Commons. Let's say A uploads material from somanynicepics.com (yes, that's a made-up name, don't hold me accountable if it's a porn site) to Commons and claims he is the author. Pieter finds the image on Commons and adds some scary deletion warnings to it. A, then, sends an email to permissions and claims to be the author. Standard procedure in permissions-de is to check the email address used against the one specified on somanynicepics.com, and if they match, the email will be accepted. Of course we have no clue if that person is really the author of the image. But where's the double standard here if Commons just refers to permissions? When we discuss problems of the permissions procedure, they are entirely separate from those on Commons. —Pill (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC) (Ah, and regarding your example: I have no idea what was going on there, and in particular cannot make sense of Trixt's comments; plus, although the permission email seems to be fine, OTRS volunteers should always, if in doubt, specificy what component of an image the release refers to.) (One more "Ah": Forwarded emails should not be accepted as a general rule, as (judging from discussion on workshops and mailinglists) is consensous within the German-language team.)

When I tell somebody to forward an e-mail to OTRS I always also tell them to include the full headers (especially the "Received:" lines). If somebody is going to fake the headers (skillfully), then nothing short of independent checks will do. --LPfi (talk) 10:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with PK I recently had a problem with an OTRS ticket that was added to show permission, but upon further questioning, the emailer obviously did not have actual authority to make the release. I'd like to see some OTRS summary of the permission so that non-OTRS users can evaluate the quality of the permission release.--GrapedApe (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Another example: Commons:Deletion requests/File:AKAspacebanner.jpg - the correspondence only mentioned permission for Wikipedia. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 06:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

OTRS ticket should include basic data

Example: Commons:Deletion requests/File:BEL-500f-rev.jpg - I ignored OTRS because I was unable to guess content of ticket #2011052510005785 Bulwersator (talk) 14:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's the purpose of a nun-public system. —Pill (talk) 17:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

The confidential information in a permission ticket usually consists of just the email address and the sender's real name, there is no reason to hide the name of the organization granting permission. It would be useful if there are options to add the organization granting permission to the the OTRSpermission template. Also when permission tickets are in an info queue instead of one of the permissions queues, there should be an option on the template to list what queue the ticket is in. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 18:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

In an earlier discussion (#Standardized Processing vs. Public Documentation) it was noted that it is important not to disclose information the permission giver supposed would stay secret. Usually the organization giving permission has no reason to avoid publicity, but assuming it never has might be problematic. --LPfi (talk) 10:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think that DR shows that ignoring an OTRS ticket just because you suspect the image isn't free is a very silly thing to do. The sensible thing to do, if you have reason to believe that the permission may be wrong, is to ask an OTRS agent to look at the ticket, either by a personal request or at the OTRS noticeboard (that's what it's there for, after all). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Speedier response to deletion requests from OTRS agents

At Rd232's suggestion on AN, I'm bringing this over here (cf. COM:AN#What does a guy have to do to get a blatant copyvio deleted around here?). I started the AN thread out of sympathy for the frustration of one my OTRS "customers", who was unhappy with the time it was taking for a copyright violation to be deleted. As I said at AN, I fully understand that there are often dozens or hundreds of copyvios tagged for deletion, and that admins are volunteers doing a job that is less than glamorous. However, an "outsider" (someone who is not a Wikimedian) wouldn't understand this, and wouldn't understand what was taking so long.

So, now that the image that prompted my post on AN has been deleted, it would be nice to discuss the wider issue of speedy deletions based on an OTRS ticket. Handling complaints about copyright violations is probably the most common task on OTRS that relates to Commons after handling permissions tickets, and the majority of OTRS-based speedy deletions are for copyright violations, though I have dealt with a small number of personality rights issues. One suggestion was a new speedy deletion template for the use of OTRS agents (which could be tracked by the existing edit filter that tracks the use of {{PermissionOTRS}} etc), which would place nominated pages into a separate category which hopefully admins would keep an eye on. Does anyone have any other suggestions for expediting deletions based on OTRS tickets? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think there is any real need for this. Requests by e-mail are not any better than requests via standard regular procedure. And if the copyright holder really needs such urgency he or she always can send a DMCA request to get response within several hours. Trycatch (talk) 01:10, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I hope to never see a volunteer OTRS agent advising a complainant to issue a DMCA request. Not only are volunteers obliged not to give legal advice of any kind, I firmly believe it would be poor advice when in the vast majority of cases the matter can be resolved without legal processes, may be inappropriate when there are privacy issues involved or the requester may simply misunderstand some aspect of applicable copyright which just needs careful explanation rather than encouraging the last resort of legal action for which the complainant may risk unnecessary financial loss. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:08, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree with Fæ—a DMCA takedown notice should be the last resort, and if we can resolve it quickly and relatively informally through OTRS, it gives the complainant a better impression of us (besides which, there's no guarantee that sending a DMCA notice to Legal is any faster, especially if it's sent outside normal San Francisco working hours). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Well, if the regular copyvio queue is already faster than DMCA requests then the system works very well already. Trycatch (talk) 11:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
        • You conflate being better than something else with being adequate. That it's quicker to ask nicely than to jump through all the legal hoops and threaten to sue the WMF doesn't mean it's fast, and delayed removal of copyvios after they're brought to our attention does the project's reputation no favours. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
          • Well, your proposal will just change the priorities in the copyvio queue. Some copyvios will be deleted faster, some copyvios will be deleted slower. And I don't quite understand why a copyright holder who used the standard tool to report copyvio should wait longer than a copyright holder who used OTRS system. Trycatch (talk) 12:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
            • Maybe it's better to just add "I'm the copyright holder" checkbox to the "Report copyvio" dialog, so _any_ copyright holder (no matter if they use OTRS or the integrated tool) will be first served. Trycatch (talk) 12:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
              • It's not my proposal. Copyvios about which the copyright holder is actively complaining should be addressed quicker than those that aren't (yet) the subject of complaints, regardless of the process they used to complain. That seems like common sense to me (and to that end, we could rename the template and category if we wanted to broaden their scope beyond OTRS agents). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Someone created {{CopyvioOTRS}}, which categorises into Category:Copyright violations (OTRS). That may help get swifter attention. Beyond that, we could have some kind of a bot which updates a permanent section on COM:AN when there are backlogs of urgent things like that category. Rd232 (talk) 08:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Bad template. So an OTRS agent can remove any picture just citing some obscure OTRS ticket? Such lack of transparency is not nice. Trycatch (talk) 11:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
    • How is it any less transparent than the current process? Or than an admin deleting it without it having been tagged? Or office actions resulting from a DMCA notice? OTRS agents are as transparent as they can be, but we are obliged to keep the contents of tickets (aside from abstract details about the nature of requests) confidential. There's nothing to stop you asking for more details—if there's anything more I can tell you about a ticket that for some reason I haven't already, I will—or picking a different OTRS agent at random and asking them to check the ticket, or even applying for OTRS access yourself. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
      • 1) Well, DMCA takedowns are quite transparent, thanks to amazing work by w:User:Philippe (WMF), see Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices and https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA. You have the name of the copyright holder, copyrighted work, infringing work, what else you could ask for? Anyway, DMCA takedowns are necessary evil, WMF _must_ follow them by law. 2) " Or than an admin deleting it without it having been tagged? " This practice is better to be avoided. Many admins (most of them?) do not delete untagged copyvio themselves, but just tag it letting other admin to make a decision. So you have two pair of eyes. Moreover, it's a good practice to give the reason for deletion in the deletion description, so it's possible even for a non-admin to review the deletion (e.g. file deleted as copied from some site, but in fact the site itself copied the picture from Commons without attribution). And even if there was a mistake of some sort, even if the reason for deletion was not listed, any Commons admin (there are over 250 them) could check the reason for deletion looking into deleted edits. So there is quite a bit transparency (especially if you are an admin). But in case of OTRS-initiated deletions all you have is the number of ticket, because OTRS-members often don't bother to provide any information about nature of the ticket even in general terms. Trycatch (talk) 11:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
    • In any specific case you can always ask for another OTRS member to review the case. More broadly, if we didn't have such backlogs, we could try and have some sort of system that required two OTRS members to explicitly endorse deletion onwiki; but we don't have the manpower for that. Rd232 (talk) 15:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
      • OTRS members at the very least could provide a reasonable explanation for deletion request in broad terms. But that template don't even has a field for such thing. Trycatch (talk) 11:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
        • I agree with you, and whenever I make an action based on an OTRS ticket, I give as much information as I can without violating the confidentiality of the client. That said, there are occasions (they're quite rare, but they come up once in a while), where, for privacy reasons, I can give very little information beyond a ticket number. If you come across a situation where you think an OTRS agent should give more information, you can ask them about it, ask me about it, ask another OTRS agent of your choice about it, or ask about it at the OTRS Noticeboard. If we're going to use that template, then it should be modified to include a reason parameter (and we can even make it a mandatory parameter if you want), but it is brand new. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
          • Currently it has a URL parameter. We could add a "reason" parameter, but I'm not sure what sort of information that could normally include. Rd232 (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Made a few improvements to the template it now has copyright holder and additional information fields. Also the documentation was amended to require the OTRS member to justify withholding the source or copyright holder. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 20:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
• As a temporary emergency measure, the OTRS agent (or anybody) can upload File:Deleted photo.jpg, File:Deleted photo.png or this language-neutral graphic on top of the image that is to be deleted, with a clear explanation in the edit summary and/or on the talk page. Or OTRS could devise their own graphic for this purpose. It would show the complaining party that action was taken. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 08:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • This is worth considering, but still leaves the problematic image one click away in the file history. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
    • But it's removed from categories, galleries and global usage (barring caching issues). Rd232 (talk) 10:37, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

uhm, don't see a need for this, to be honest. one day we're talking about our queues lagging behind 50 days, the other we're concerned about files tagged as {speedydelete} for too long (what are we talking about here? a day?). if there is a case of real urgency and the normal deletion process takes too long, i'd just poke everyone i can find on irc or i'd check the recent changes for an active admin and post to her talk page or something similar. also, why should administrators be quicker in dealing with this new category than with the general one? if it takes 12 hours to delete obvious nonsense, why should "OTRS requests" be dealt with considerably faster? the delay in processing the current speedydelete category apparently isn't due to the complexity of the cases involved. cheers, —Pill (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

(i) most OTRS tickets aren't about requesting deletions (ii) most speedydelete requests don't involve the copyright holder. These are special cases and they merit handling as quickly as possible. Rd232 (talk) 22:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

i'm not sure what this has to do with what i've written above. —Pill (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It is a succinct answer to your question why should "OTRS requests" [for speedy deletion] be dealt with considerably faster. Point (i) is there because you mentioned the lengthy OTRS queues. Rd232 (talk) 01:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Still, speedy deletion requests don't lie around for so long because of their complexity, but because nobody feels like looking at them right now. I don't see how introducing yet another speedy-speedy deletion queue is going to change that. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 11:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) permissions-commons might be handled differently, but as far as permissions-de is concerned, i often find removal requests which are several days old (in times of a long queue). this makes sense to me because i doubt that every email is read immediately on arrival. as far as (ii) is concerned, my question referred to the process on Commons. i wonder if, with a new category, these cases will really be dealt with as quickly as you'd like them to be dealt with. given that there are other speedydelete cases which are very easy to process, i'm not sure why administrators will react immediately to additions to the new otrs category -- in particular: why would they react faster than if contacted individually (irc, talk page ...)? cheers, —Pill (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Gullibility

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Joseph Stalin.jpg shows how gullible the system is. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear... I guess we need more capacity to scrutinise tickets more slowly and carefully, since the mother/father mistake was identifiable from the OTRS email plus the original DR. PS Did you know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?... old joke, sorry. :) Rd232 (talk) 00:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

The ticket appears to be an unfortunate mistake, however this is not particularly representative of the quality of tickets issued by OTRS volunteers (or even the particular volunteer involved in this ticket, especially considering this example is from more than two years ago, there is no external complainant or evidence of loss as a result of an incorrect copyright statement and the volunteer has an first class track record of contributions). If there is a recommendation here, it might be to ask that an assessment of ticket withdrawals or redactions over a more recent period, such as the last six months, might be a valuable exercise. Though no system that relies on unpaid volunteers can ever be expected to be without error, many of these types of failure might virtually disappear if there were a better system for mentoring new OTRS volunteers and offering peer review for more complex cases, in fact the sort of system improvement being discussed above. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the agent's desire to oblige in personal correspondence combined with its secrecy. It is built into the system. This image was under scrutiny in a DR, and still the bogus permission was accepted. The risk of error is much larger for all those permissions that are given at upload. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 10:11, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I was proposing some verifiable analysis of what the "risk of error" for OTRS tickets used on Commons is, based on recent data, rather than relying on your personal estimates. Is your response a rejection of that proposal, or are you only prepared to discuss closing down OTRS as a confidential volunteer response system because you can find a couple of historic examples where it failed to work well? --Fæ (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

A serious analysis of OTRS errors would surely be very valuable, but not a trivial exercise. It's potentially something that the WMF might spring for, they do have funds for some things - see eg m:Wikimedia Fellowships. Rd232 (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Verifying permissions

Users commenting here may be interested in Commons:Verifying permissions, a proposed guideline on how Commons verifies permissions. Rd232 (talk) 17:23, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Village_pump#Commons:Verifying_permissions. Rd232 (talk) 17:22, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Workability, maintainability of uploads based on old OTRS ticket, 4 years on

See my comments at Commons:Deletion requests/All files in Category:Files from Bollywood Hungama. I was not aware there was a general request for comments about the OTRS. I might transform my deletion request into an appendix to the present request for comments. I think when the ticket was accepted, 4 years ago, the OTRS volunteers could not realize all the problems that could rise. 4 years later, I think it is time to review the contents and make a decision on whether we can go on with this kind of ticket, or if we decide to stop. Teofilo (talk) 23:25, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to say I withdrew the above request to allow more time to think about it as part of the present request for comment. Teofilo (talk) 09:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

In reply to This comment : I think File:South Indian actress Kamna Jethmalani's photo-shoot (4).jpg may eventually need to be deleted because 1) the attribution to "Pic: Viral Bhayani" at http://photogallery.indiatimes.com/celebs/indian-stars/Kamna-Jethmalani/articleshow/7914197.cms is enough to cast doubt and 2) we might conclude that this picture is the kind of "promotion posters" that are out of the scope of the OTRS ticket. Also, the difference with Flickr is that on Flickr, a free license tag was at least present once in the past. This is never the case with Bollyood Hungama, where "all rights reserved" was written on their pages from start. In that case, there is a contradiction with CC-BY-SA's legal code that says to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information. Teofilo (talk) 09:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Fundamental questions

Here are parts of an E-mail I sent on the fundation mailing list in February 2011 when there was a talk about the WMF wanting more tight identification policies to identify OTRS volunteers:

Sometimes I think the pictures currently tagged with http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:OTRS cannot realistically be reused by reusers (because the reusers are not allowed to see the terms of the permission (1) and to know the identity of the E-mail sender). This absence of conditions where the pictures are realistically reusable by anybody apart from the Wikimedia Foundation itself (which can read the E-mails) make these pictures objectively unfree (even if from a legal perspective they are licensed under a free license), not belonging to the kind of free works mentioned on http://freedomdefined.org/Definition . The reusers must be in a position to check by themselves that the work is free. I.E. know the phone number of the person who reportedly issued the license and phone there to check that it is true.

With the OTRS picture permission system, we are reinventing something that is hardly different for the non-Wikimedia reusers than the "Wikipedia only" permissions that had been banned by Jimbo Wales in May 2005 (2).

(...)

I think we should go back to the community self-reliance motto expressed by Jimbo Wales in his New Statesman interview (3). And try to do most of the communication between uploaders and the Commons community on the wiki talk pages rather than on a Foundation-owned private E-mail system nobody can read.

(...)

(1) While the licensing terms are often clear, the extent of the permission (number of pictures, a whole website or not, whether the permission applies to pictures made available in the future, what happens if a discrepancy occurs in the future - not to say at present! - between the agreed terms and the mentioned website's terms of use) is not always so clear. The quality of the person (the boss of the company or corporation, or a person with a low rank in the hierarchy, a technical webmaster not usually having authority to engage the company's assets, or even a volunteer not hired as a salaryman by the licencing party, as was one envisaged hypothesis when dealing with Commons:Deletion requests/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum photographs and texts) is never clear.

(2) http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html

(3) "thinking about community participation and involvement, a spirit of volunteerism, a spirit of helping out, a spirit of self-reliance" http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/01/jimmy-wales-wikipedia-vote

Teofilo (talk) 00:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"This absence of conditions [...] make these pictures objectively unfree". erm, well, that applies to almost every single image here. do you believe that kittylover2345 took the photo of the Eiffel tower as he claims? do you believe that crazyuser456 is the photographer of xy because he claims it is "own work"? apparently Commons does, and it's the downside of user-generated content in general. where is kittylover2345's phone number? where's his contact address? —Pill (talk) 01:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes you can check kittylover2345's online activity, and see if it is consistent with the claim of living in Paris or of making a trip to Paris at such a time in the year, etc. This is perhaps more reliable than an unverified claim stored in an OTRS system. Also, in most cases kittylover2345 has a talk page, and Special:EmailUser/kittylover2345. Teofilo (talk) 01:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

these are completely irrelevant technicalities. checking his online activity?!? come on ... talk pages? these are all not ways to comply with your "burden" as a reuser of making inquiries into the copyright status of an image as imposed by copyright law (at least in germany). also, the question is not whether there are possibilities to contact an uploader but if you delete image material as soon as an uploader does not react to users' requests for proof of his authorship or for whatever. you don't because it's not commons policy, and there's no point whatsoever in requiring permissions-approved files to follow a different set of criteria than other commons material. —Pill (talk) 10:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

What I mean by checking online activity is checking uploads' consistency like Commons:Deletion requests/Images from Emil Rensing on Flickr. In the case of Commons:Deletion requests/File:Loktak Lake view 1.jpg the uploader admitted that he was not the original creator, and the picture was deleted in application of the COM:FOP#India criteria. If he had not replied, all his uploads could have become doubtful and could have been deleted. At Commons:Deletion requests/Images of user:YukataNinja the last picture would have been deleted if the uploader had not replied, although that picture alone would not have been a cause of doubt. I was afraid the uploader had a pattern of picking up pictures from websites without permission, and that doubt was extended to the third picture. So the fact that an uploader replies or remains silent has consequences. I am not suggesting a different set of criteria for OTRS files. I am suggesting to think carefully whether we want to go on with an OTRS system and OTRS files. Find something new and better than OTRS. Or do without OTRS and OTRS files. Have Jimbo Wales make a statement saying "from now on, we don't want OTRS files any longer, cause they're cumbersome and not free enough". If the so-claiming heir of a famous painter says he can write a permission E-mail, we reply "no thank you, we can wait until 70 years after your father's death". If a famous painter says he wants to write a permission E-mail, we reply "no thank you. put the pictures on your own website with a Creative Commons tag instead". Simply do as we would do if there was no OTRS. Teofilo (talk) 17:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

In cases where the image is online on the owner's own site, it would be much better for reusers if that site gave a free license for the image. If otrs allows permissions when the source site still says "all rights reserved", then that in practice becomes a wikimedia-only permission. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 07:36, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Deutschland set a bad example (Commons:Bundesarchiv) by allowing Bundesarchiv to tell Wikimedia in private that the files are free, while Bundesarchiv maintains on her own website that the files are unfree. Without the previous written agreement of the Federal Archives, image materials must not be saved, reproduced, filed, duplicated, copied, amended or used in any other way (terms of use). Teofilo (talk) 09:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

It would be much better if the free licence was stated on the organisation's website, yes. But if it is removed later, we'd have the same problem, having to trust the verification. Being able to contact the rights' holders is not the solution, as they can deny having accepted a free licence.

Do we have experience about somebody suing reusers, and the reusers turning to WMF for evidence of the free licence having been granted? What is the evidence required in such a situation? What is the liability of the reuser, WMF and the employee confirming the licence? What is the risk of a company knowingly denying a free licence (or knowingly leaving the free licensing undocumented in their end)?

I feel we need real legal advice, beforehand.

--LPfi (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

A reuser must secure for himself a written record of the acceptance of the license by the copyright holder. For that purpose, the reuser must write to the copyright holder and ask: is it true that you licensed file A with license B ? Then either the copyright holder does not reply and the reuser decides to give up with using the file. Or the copyright owner replies "yes, it is true", and the reuser can keep this reply in his own archives. If the copyright holder later tries to change his mind, or complains in court, the reuser can take that reply from his own archives and show it to the court, and make his case. Teofilo (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by "must"? I have never asked for such written records for any free material I use. Should I ask all contributors before publishing a book based on Wikipedia articles (or an edition of Wikipedia itself)? For such projects the strategy is obviously mad. Or when making a derived work at Wikibooks? For individual images (or texts) such a strategy would be cumbersome and would defeat the purpose of both Commons and free media in general. What if the author is dead and never mentioned his Commons activity to this heirs? What if somebody does not want to answer a hundred requests for his featured image? And what about free licences being perpetual? --LPfi (talk) 12:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I forgot to reply to your previous statement about if it is removed later, we'd have the same problem. In the case of Flickr, we have found a solution to this problem by using the review process, usually done by a bot. a book based on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is public. Wikipedia is a website. Editing Wikipedia means uploading words on the Wikipedia website. In the case of Wikipedia each uploader is the author of his own words. This is different with uploading contents from a corporation ( a museum in the case of Commons:Deletion requests/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum photographs and texts) which claims copyright ownership on works not created by the uploader. I think we need help from lawyers to answer the questions you are asking. We need to ask lawyers not (or not only) how the Wikimedia Foundation can protect itself from copyright owners changing their minds, but how we can create a system where all reusers can easily protect themselves (and make their case in court if needed). The Wikimedia Foundation spends money on creating contents or on software, but it should also spend some money in legal advice. Or invite legal specialists at Wikimania and address those issues at Wikimania. For example we could ask a lawyer or a law specialist the question: how far can we go in court with the Flickr bot review ? Could someone make his case in court based on the Flickr bot review ? For example we could ask a legal specialist whether Bundesarchiv could sue a reuser based on its terms of use which says that a written agreement is requested for each reuse. Legal protection cannot be perfect. But it can be improved. I believe it could be managed in a more equalitarian way between the Wikimedia Foundation (the first reuser) and the subsequent reusers. If the Wikimedia Foundation shares the files only, but not the legal protection that goes with them, it is not really promoting free culture. Free culture is a framework where all reusers are equally protected. The protection of the OTRS volunteers is a concern too. I hope the Wikimedia Foundation is protecting them by subscribing an insurance. Teofilo (talk) 14:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Corporate copyright ownership claimants should be able to tell photographers' names

Some people might think that the fact that we trust most of "own work" claims by single photographers implies that we should trust also copyright ownership claimants who are not photographers. I think there is a huge difference. First of all, with photographers, we can check EXIF and see if the EXIF is consistant with other claims (a photographer usually uses a limited number of cameras. An uploader using too many cameras might not have taken all the pictures by himself). I think the most simple way to check a little bit that a corporate ownership claimant tells the truth, is to see if he is able to tell the photographer's name. If he doesn't know the photographer's name, then there is no written "work for hire" contract. And if there is no "work for hire" contract, there is no corporate copyright ownership. Moreover, in most countries of continental Europe, there is a need to provide the photographer's name in order to comply with en:moral rights, so it is necessary for the worldwide reusability of the content. In France and other countries, publishing a picture without the photographer's name is not legal. So, in my opinion, OTRS volunteers should insist that corporate copyright ownership claimants provide photographers' names.

There are also instances where we don't trust photographers. For example, with Commons:Deletion requests/File:Białystok 1.jpg I did not trust the claim by someone who uploaded a collage. It could have been a derivative work of some postcard. I requested explanations as regards who took each single pictures in the collage. The answer was satisfactory, and the collage was kept. Teofilo (talk) 00:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

as i see it, your quote from AFBorchert does not imply what you say it does. —Pill (talk) 00:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

OK he did not imply this. So I remove the reference to the other talk between Herby and AFBorchert. Teofilo (talk) 01:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

well, as for permissions-de, i/we try to, (as for me) usually by writing something like "there is currently no author specified on the image page. please note that in principal, the creator of a work has the right to be properly attributed ... please inform us how he'd like to be attributed". mostly, we get the name, but i also accept if they answer "he does not want to be named", as that's in accordance with german copyright law and if we did not accept that statement, there'd be no proper way for a copyright owner to include such an image on wikimedia commons. —Pill (talk) 09:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) In Europe there is also the issue that workers who have made a work for hire may be the copyright holders of the said work. See for example Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Commemorative euro coins (The Netherlands) or the Swedish thumbnail case: a photographer took a number of photos, presumably as works for hire, and the company placed them on its website. Later on, the company designed a new website and placed some of the photos on that new website too, but that second website apparently violated the photographer's copyright. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course. The other day I came upon Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:États généraux du multilinguisme dans les outre-mer (a Wikimedia France sponsored upload - but no OTRS ticket, so this is an aside to the present talk) consisting mainly of videos, while French law explicitely removed the right to make derivative works, or to cut out excerpts, from the copyright that is transfered to the film producer. Teofilo (talk) 10:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

CC AR Presidency

For the people who did not follow the CC-Ar-Presidency saga, have a look at Template talk:CC-AR-Presidency-old. First the license was CC-BY 2.0 (with OTRS ticket) then it became CC-BY-NC-2.5es then it became CC-BY-SA (but it is still impossible if it is 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 or whatever) See Template talk:CC-AR-Presidency-old. So perhaps we should try to have a specific guideline for OTRS tickets that are related to contents on a website. For example, be aware from start, from the time the OTRS ticket is issued, of what might happen if the website is changed, or disappears, or is is transfered to a different owner, etc. Teofilo (talk) 09:14, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

National Archives UK

Please add your comments at Commons:Deletion requests/File:The National Archives UK - CO 1069-130-26.jpg. Teofilo (talk) 15:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

could you please use the otrs noticeboard for such questions? this is an unsuitable place for it, just as for several other threads you started here. thanks. —Pill (talk) 15:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I am going to start a new request for comments for other questions which you deem not suitable here. Please tell me which comments are not suitable here, and I will move them there. Teofilo (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

This was a simple OTRS verification issue, hardly a matter for a RFC and has already been resolved by advising our GLAM contact in TNA in a friendly and non-lawyerish way. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.