User talk:JWilz12345

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Freedom of Panaroma

Hi JWilz,

While I appreciate (what I want to assume is a) drive for correctness with regards to the Freedom of Panorama rules applied world wide, your approach now comes across as rather aggressive. In your interpretations of the FOP rules, you often seem unaware of the spirit of the law in the countries in question, relying mainly on the literal text of the law but referencing other concepts or documents when convenient. Interpretations by national lawyers about those texts are then very much left out of the equation, and it is up to those whose photo is nominated for removal to show, within the 7-day removal nomination, that your personal interpretation is unjustified. That may still be okay for seasoned Wikipedians, but not for casual contributors to Commons: this is way over their heads.

I would therefore ask you to slow down a bit, and be a bit more careful in your general approach to this topic. What I would rather see is an approach where the outcome of your discussion and DR's does not depend on an individual (often inexperienced) user. We're not all seasoned Commoners here, and surely we aren't all use to fighting battles about legal stuff, and people panic slightly when they suddenly see your nomination for deletion: they don't understand what they're wrong and don't engage. Why not start a Commons:Wikiproject for instance, to get more clarity on the intepretation of rules for COM:FOP by country, working with interested users from those countries, before tackling this big project? You seem to be fighting ghosts almost at random now: I see a discussion about a mosque in Morocco in one place, and then one about a mural in Belgium in another. Surely there should be a more structured and better way to approach this? Wasn't this the whole intention when you started mapping the world's FOP on Meta? Ciell (talk) 11:13, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell here are responses to your concerns (which I will embrace):

The deletion requests I conduct are valid and not breaching Commons rules on deletion requests: I don't give very short reasons like "FoP abolished in Nigeria since 2023" which is totally ambiguous. In fact, majority of my nominations are already focused on public artworks of no-FoP countries since it is essentially risky to host recent public art from those countries, considering the legal reality of the clash with U.S. law, which does not provide FoP for public art. Wikimedia's servers are hosted in the U.S., and in theory there is no legal basis to host all post-1928 (that is per a minority view of users here, I think you are aware of that). If there is no FoP for public art in the U.S. in the first place, it is legally risky to host most post-1928 public art from around 110 no-FoP countries.
This doesn't mean I endorse the minority view of users here of totally shifting Wikimedia Commons to only follow U.S. FoP, since I still support the status quo of accepting FoP for monuments of 70+ countries, as I hate seeing Singapore's Merlion, The Netherlands' Nationaal Monument, Brazil's Statue of Christ the Redeemer, or U.K.'s Angel of the North and London Paddington Bear being deleted from Commons en masse (it's a big slap to Wikimedians in 70+ yes-FoP countries). However, with intermittent yet perennial discussions on FoP policy here erupting again from time to time, one can't ignore the possibility of that shift to U.S. FoP only policy identical to English Wikipedia approach, even if I oppose (and will still oppose, preferring the status quo of having Commons accept post-1928 monuments of 70+ yes-FoP countries).
I tend to respect the existing interpretations of lawyers from no-FoP countries, like Argentina, regarding some "de facto" exception; I never, ever nominated a single modern building from Argentina for deletion, as long as the lawyer's opinion still holds water and is not overturned by an Argentine court (but even if that court throws the lawyer's opinions in the wastebasket, I will instead leave the Argentine architectural FoP matter to other users). I also visited many past archives of FoP discussions, such as those relating to the legal commentaries on Japanese FoP regarding inadmissibility of commercial use of images of copyrighted Japanese monuments in the first Archive of Commons talk:Freedom of panorama. For most of other jurisdictions, there are no evidences of legal opinions. Even in our country, the w:en:Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines said in a February 2021 Zoom meeting between several Filipino Wikipedians and IPOPHL, that as long as there is no FoP provision in a copyright law, legal opinions do not hold water, as copyright laws are statutory rights and a legal privilege like FoP cannot be magically made existing through legal opinions only (at least this is the case for the Philippines).
I started the FoP page on Meta in hopes of many other Wikimedians going to continue furthering that advocacy, like trying to make steps to lobby for FoP introductions in their countries. It seems it only gained a few traction: only our country (the Philippines), South Africa, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Georgia, Sudan, and Zambia have some form of FoP advocacy or movement. Of these, only South Africa is nearing the FoP goal, albeit awaiting their President's signature. The rest, the Philippines included, still at discussion and advocacy stages. This reduces my enthusiasm in FoP advocacy, considering the intermittent yet perennial discussions here regarding the current status quo FoP policy's possible clash with U.S. FoP law (not covering public art).
Regarding a potential WikiProject on FoP, that is something that is best left to more experienced users who have the ability to create a massive page with organized formatting, creative banners/headers/dividers, and coherent sentences. I cannot do this all alone; more users who can further the FoP advocacy are needed. "Who are those users" &ndash is something that I don't know, as I don't feel the enthusiasm or interest in furthering the FoP advocacy.

Nevertheless, I am open to some criticism from other users who may complain that my deletion requests are "sudden" and undetailed. My talk page is always open for such comments and criticisms (as long as constructive). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 12:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell: I have decided to stop opening more non-Philippine FoP deletion requests, inclusive of copyrighted artworks, for a week (7 days). This will hopefully provide ample time for uploaders to post questions or concerns here on my talk page about why their images of public artworks were suddenly nominated for deletion. I am not closing doors for a possible WikiProject FoP, but I need to fix my physical health and some of my personal problems for the meantime (still, I can entertain questions and concerns from "shocked" uploaders). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 12:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this extensive response JWilz, and for pausing your nominations for now.

In your #1 you mention that you deem the US national limitations in Freedom of Panorama to be applicable to the rest of the world: this is incorrect. Also, as mentioned in the thought document by WMF Legal I shared with you previously, the physical location of the servers has nothing to do with the determination of legal jurisdiction. We have 6 or 7 servers around the world, they switch often. This really is not of influence on the kind of content we can host.

About FOP advocacy: this is a long and often traveled road. I remember when we redesigned the EU copyright laws (2017-present, so still ongoing) they tried to introduce FOP as a general rule for all countries in the EU. This was dropped again in later versions of the new draft. If you are interested in lobby in general, there is a mailing list managed by the WMF Advocacy Team to receive updates and engage in discussions on the broader topics. It could be a place for you to find more interested people maybe? Ciell (talk) 15:47, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell seems it is a good thing that Wikimedia has 6 more servers in other countries. I have read somewhere in Meta that Singapore hosts a caching server of Wikimedia (and Singapore does provide adequate FoP for all 3D works up to monuments, which they still retained even in their revamped 2021 copyright law). Speaking of the advocacy, I may think of that after the FoP attempt here in the Philippines. It seems not appropriate to promote FoP advocacies in other countries if our country doesn't have FoP in the first place. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 22:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But Freedom of Panorama is a local law, applied to a certain jurisdiction. The USA cannot enforce this local law to be applied to objects in other countries, this is beyond their jurisdiction.

More about the WMF servers is here, but again: where the servers situated are does not determine how we should manage copyrights. If anything, we would fall under Florida law because the WMF is registered there, but also this can heavily be disputed when it comes to managing our projects and their content. Ciell (talk) 13:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell a curious question: how about the local practice on English Wikipedia permitting images of copyrighted buildings of 100 no-FoP countries (including architecture)? The w:en:lex loci protectionis was frequently invoked in this case, in the theory that US judges nay use US FoP law for reproductions of images of French modern buildings, for instance. Note that this question and the resulting responses will be for my reference in understanding more about nuances of FoP in international stage, and doesn't necessarily mean possible proposal to change or abolish that local enwiki practice. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 14:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of a "WikiProject:Freedom of panorama", is it OK for this WikiProject to be hosted by Commons or some other wiki (like Meta-wiki)? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 02:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Info I reset the archive clock for this discussion thread to 30 more days, for more insights, comments, and inputs. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 08:09, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:SM J Mall facade October 2024.jpg

Hi JWilz12345. Would you mind taking a look at File:SM J Mall facade October 2024.jpg to see whether it's OK per COM:FOP Philippines since the mall seems have been built after 1972? There are similar images in Category:SM J Mall that might also need checking. The photos taken inside the mall, in particular, might need a closer assessment. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:31, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly the architectures of all malls under the helm of w:en:SM Supermalls are not OK here, since none of their malls were completed before 1972. The photos of façades need to go. As for the interiors, those that show elaborate interior architectures and designs need to go too. Unsure for the Christmas tree though. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 03:41, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking at this. Do you usually do one multi-file DR for this type of thing or do you do a DR for each individual file? -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:04, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly it's up to you if you want individual or mass nominations. For mass nominations, there is this tool to easily nominate two or more files of the same category or same uploader. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 13:38, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind starting the DR, but it would be a big help if you could perhaps provide me with a list of the files you think are clear violations of the Philippine's FOP because it might be possible to split them up into smaller groups per uploader, per mall, per interior photos, per exterior photos or per whatever. -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:07, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: here is a partial list. The three images in the main category that show the completed exteriors may need to go: the one you mentioned, plus this one and this one. I'll check the interior shots if I have free time off-wiki. Still, I'll ping one other user (@A1Cafel: ) to check which of the images at Category:Interior of SM J Mall are infringements to architectural copyrights. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:48, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Usually I won't nominate images showing interior of a building unless there is a distinctive architecture, though I still nominate one file as it shows a copyrighted sculpture. --A1Cafel (talk) 03:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JWilz12345: The photos showing the exterior of the mall might be OK on English Wikipedia under the license en:Template:FoP-USonly if they were photos taken by the uploader themselves and not photos taken by someone else. Is there a way to verify this? Is there a way, in such cases, to export a file from Commons to English Wikipedia or does it need to be re-uploaded locally to English Wikipedia and then deleted from Commons? -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly the discussion on enwiki's choice of only following U.S. laws and not following laws of other countries is this. For Commons to enwiki, it should be done manually, however. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 11:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

JWilz12345. I understand that English Wikipedia allows such content be hosted locally and I'm aware of the reasons why. I was only curious as to whether there's a "Export to English Wikipedia" feature for Commons because if there was, there would be no need to DR these files. However, since there isn't any such feature, these probably need, as you point out, to be uploaded locally to English Wikipedia. I'm not sure who's responsible for doing that. Is it left up to the uploader? Is the administrator who deletes the files from Commons expected to do so? Does it need to be done before the files are nominated for deletion on Commons or does it need to be discussed during the DR? I've asked IronGargoyle to take a look at this. IronGargoyle is an English Wikipedia and Commons admin who works with "Fop-USonly" files alot. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure what I have to add to this discussion. It would be great if there was an easier way to send images of buildings like this back to the projects that allow them, but I'm not really sure which projects those are beyond English Wikipedia. I think there are some, but they may or may not have articles about the building(s) in question. Even if I knew they allowed the files, having a language barrier with the other projects makes me reluctant to do something complex like file uploading on a non-English wiki. In any case, I'm going to keep transferring from the daily DR logs (and slowly work back through the historical record too). I can repair the damage on English Wikipedia if nowhere else. Hopefully others looking to improve non-English articles will check the interwiki links and see that en.wiki has a source of freely licensed building images they can use in their articles. IronGargoyle (talk) 17:12, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@IronGargoyle French Wikipedia had a bot in the past (as per COM:FOP France) that could only import few affected images (not all) to frwiki, but on some conditions stricter than enwiki's: the local copies on frwiki should not be easily searchable in wiki mirrors and aggregators, the local copies cannot be used in articles that are not about the buildings themselves, and that any architect can file a take down notice to frwiki if they oppose having their building exhibited in frwiki.

Speaking of non-English Wikipedias, it depends on the local wiki's image policies. Some Wikipedias have disabled local uploading altogether, like Dutch Wikipedia (nlwiki). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 01:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Subcat for withdrawn DRs

Hi JWilz -- I saw you move some withdrawn DRs to the main "kept" category. I would like to move them back to "withdrawn" because the distinction has been meaningful when people seeking to keep images on specious grounds have pointed to withdrawn requests as some kind of evidence that validates their point. The "withdrawn" subcat is not there for its own sake; it's there because it serves a purpose. I wanted to run that explanation past you instead of just reverting. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rlandmann in FoP categories, we don't categorize "withdrawn" requests under "/withdrawn" subcats. For practical purposes, withdrawn ones are categorized under Category:Philippine FOP cases/kept, Category:United States FOP cases/kept, Category:French FOP cases/kept et cetera. Same applies to other categories of deletion requests. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:37, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See, for example, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Wooden spiral stairs (Nebotičnik, Ljubljana).jpg (withdrawn, but under Category:Slovenian FOP cases/kept, not "Slovenian FOP cases/withdrawn"). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 00:42, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure; but I'm guessing those other categories might not have had the issues that this category has had? I'm not suggesting that every "kept" category should have a subcategory, only if/where it's useful (like here). Alternatively, I guess "withdrawn" could be moved up as a sibling of "deleted", "kept", and "pending". I'm agnostic about the category placement, as long as the DRs aren't mixed up with those kept on policy grounds (and used as future precedent). --Rlandmann (talk) 01:30, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rlandmann better to discuss this at COM:VP. Not only this affects FoP and NWS-related subcategories, but also subcategories of many deletion requests by specific subjects. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 11:56, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to take it there, but please help me understand how this affects any other category? I don't see any reason why there needs to be 100% consistency between administrative categories. --Rlandmann (talk) 14:10, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rlandmann it has been the norm to categorize "withdrawn" cases at "/kept" subcat's, since the files are technically "kept" and not deleted. For examples:

It's up to you if you want to separate "withdrawn" cases from "kept" cases, or like the current norm here, consider withdrawn cases as equivalent to kept cases. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 21:45, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand that "it's always been done this way", but I would like to understand how structuring one category differently (when there is a specific advantage to doing so) affects any of those other categories. The fact that other categories mix items that are kept through policy decisions with items that are kept because the nom withdrew a request for some reason is not in question -- it's very obviously the case, as you've shown. --Rlandmann (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't hear back for a few days, so because I'm still not understanding why having all admin categories structured the exact same way is more important than utility for any specific category, I just went ahead and reverted. But, I'm definitely open to a VP or RfC discussion if this isn't sitting right for you. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:36, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rlandmann you are free to open COM:VP discussion for this. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 23:20, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:JWilz12345

Freedom of Panaroma

File:SM J Mall facade October 2024.jpg

Subcat for withdrawn DRs

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