Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dorset crosswheel buttons.jpg
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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.
Facebook post does not mention which CC-BY-SA license this has been released under, meaning Commons cannot host it without clarification. Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:21, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- Keep What sort of pointless make-work trolling is this? It is quite specific: "I , Abi the photographer, license this under CC-by-sa" - there is no requirement, and no justification for deletion, that this doesn't specify CC-1.0. CC-4.0 or whatever. It is perfectly well established practice to make the non-specific claim, and for those involved to simply assume the current version at the time. Note also that Commons has even gone through in the past and changed such versions. Are you now going to schedule those for deletion too? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Andy Dingley: We can't assume which license they've released the image under. All four versions have different meanings, so we might be wrong in assuming 2.0. I contacted Green Giant a few days ago regarding an image with a similar issue, and they said that because it's ambiguous, Commons can't host it. Anarchyte (work | talk) 14:01, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, we certainly can assume which version of the licence they've released it under, and this is not a question of which licence they've released it under. So it barely matters for Commons anyway.
- "Without a version number, we cannot host it, nor can we assume which license it might be." is utterly wrong, and goes against CC's statements since their outset. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Andy Dingley: As far as I know, we don't have a policy or guidelines on a lack of version numbers (we certainly should). My understanding is that not having a number is not a clear license staement. You say that we can assume but what is your methodology i.e. how did you work out that the copyright holder would have mean't version 3.0, and not 4.0 or 1.0 or all of them? The only discussion I can find is as follows:
- Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2015/08#What_to_do_with_images_with_home-brewed_licenses
- Commons:Help_desk/Archive/2012/12#Copyright_help_regarding_File:Frans_Malschaert_-_De_Toren.jpg
- Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive_62#Thoughts_about_"Add_information"_gadget_being_able_to_query_metadata_for_information_template,_or_a_bot_to_run_through_to_extract_where_information_missing
- None of these seem to suggest that a lack of version number means we can assign a fallback number. If you can find something on the Creative Commons website that says you can do that, I will be happy to change my opinion but as it stands I can't see the logic of what you are proposing. Perhaps we should delay this DR and start a discussion at the Village Pump? Alternatively, reading through the Facebook conversation, it is you who suggested the cc-by-sa, so why not just ask her if she will specify a number and resolve the issue? Green Giant (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- CC-by-sa is not a "home-brewed licence"! I don't know who you two are, I don't know who appointed you the sole guardians of Creative Commons policy (but I was there when CC was founded and we didn't do it like that) but I'm tired of the invented trolling crap from Commons - this is why I no longer contribute there - and I am not going to play your pathetic little games here. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- Who said we’re the sole guardians? I’m hardly a newbie and I was editing on WP almost from the start too. So what? Nothing amazing about it that needs pointing out to everyone who disagrees with me. Either ask the author for a numbered license or point to something that supports your views. I’m done with this conversation. Green Giant (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- CC-by-sa is not a "home-brewed licence"! I don't know who you two are, I don't know who appointed you the sole guardians of Creative Commons policy (but I was there when CC was founded and we didn't do it like that) but I'm tired of the invented trolling crap from Commons - this is why I no longer contribute there - and I am not going to play your pathetic little games here. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Andy Dingley: As far as I know, we don't have a policy or guidelines on a lack of version numbers (we certainly should). My understanding is that not having a number is not a clear license staement. You say that we can assume but what is your methodology i.e. how did you work out that the copyright holder would have mean't version 3.0, and not 4.0 or 1.0 or all of them? The only discussion I can find is as follows:
- @Andy Dingley: We can't assume which license they've released the image under. All four versions have different meanings, so we might be wrong in assuming 2.0. I contacted Green Giant a few days ago regarding an image with a similar issue, and they said that because it's ambiguous, Commons can't host it. Anarchyte (work | talk) 14:01, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Delete unless the author clarifies this. Why not just go back to the original photograph on Facebook immediately and ask the author if she would be willing to specify a version to clarify this? Then we could avoid this discussion, at least for this file; there's no shame in fixing the issue. Otherwise, we have a problem — and this is a good example of why Commons files without a specific license version should be decided on a case-by-case basis on Commons, rather than mass-interpreted or mass-"improved" for all files. So, for this particular file:
- If this were an issue of the copyright holder herself uploading to Commons and using the Commons Template:cc-by-sa, this would be easy: Until late 2016, the wording of that template said version 1.0 explicitly. But that is a Commons-specific template issue. (There have been multiple discussions about this, but they seem to have been about the Template:cc-by-sa itself being changed in a way that retroactively made files look invalid, or cases in which the CC-BY-SA version turned out to be available from the source after all.)
- But this file's alleged license statement was made off-wiki, and not by Commons template. Outside of Wikimedia projects' internal templates, "CC-BY-SA" has been ambiguous in the outside world since 2004-05-25; and by 2014-02-20, when the author made the licensing statement, CC-BY-SA could have meant 4 different licenses. I haven't found any statement by Creative Commons that provides any meaning for a license statement without a version number, and the current version of the Creative Commons FAQ says
Because there is no single "Creative Commons license," it is important to identify which of the six licenses you are applying to your material, which of the six licenses has been applied to material that you intend to use, and in both cases the specific version.
- I don't know if it's "established practice" for an ambiguous off-wiki license claim to be converted to a specific Commons license claim — I didn't realize that experienced users would even do that. But regardless of whether it became "established practice", it doesn't sound legally sound to me. This case itself is evidence that it's unsound in practice also: Andy Dingley applied {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} to the upload, but CC-BY-SA-4.0 had already already released and already had a Commons template by that time. So the alleged "practice" in this case wasn't for "those involved to simply assume the current version at the time" (4.0) — the uploader instead assumed the most trendy version on Commons at the time (3.0).
- My interpretation of all this is that the author hasn't declared under what specific terms she actually licensed her work: She was kind enough to simply repeat back what Andy Dingley said would make it easiest, but on the other hand she didn't express any intent to delegate further power to Andy Dingley or anyone else to retroactively decide what she meant.
- It's not valid to say that "it barely matters for Commons anyway": One of the oldest policies on Wikimedia projects is that just knowing that the work is usable by Wikimedia projects is not sufficient; it must be specifically and freely licensed out for all parties who follow the license. In this case, we don't know what the terms are; in particular, it's unlikely that anyone (maybe even Wikimedia projects) can make direct copies of this file legally, since every version of the CC-BY-SA license requires that only the terms of the same version must run with copies of the original work; so, in this case, the user doesn't know what terms they have to provide to others in order to copy it (and may even be receiving false information about which terms are required). Therefore, in my opinion, an unversioned claim of "CC-BY-SA" is not free to others according to Wikimedia project standards.
- And, to repeat for clarity in case this opinion is cited in the future: I'm not saying that all (seemingly) unversioned standard licenses on Commons are invalid; I'm saying that each unversioned or ambiguous license statement requires each case to be traced back to the original circumstances at the time to see if the license was really ambiguous at the time and in a way that cannot be resolved by the license's own attributes. (And that also applies to any files that "Commons has even gone through in the past and changed such versions" on too.) --Closeapple (talk) 06:22, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Kept: no valid reason for deletion, as per Andy Dingley. --Yann (talk) 07:51, 13 February 2018 (UTC)