Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:57, 6 July 2007

If you are here to register a complaint regarding this bot's edits, before doing so please note: There is a very clear policy regarding having fair use rationales on fair use images. This policy is located at Misplaced Pages:Non-free content criteria point #10(c). Rationales must be provided for each use of an image. Also please see Misplaced Pages:Fair use rationale guideline. We do not permit fair use, copyrighted images to exist on Misplaced Pages if rationales for that image's use are not provided. Please see Misplaced Pages:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Images.2Fmedia #6. Also please see the Wikimedia Foundation's resolution on this matter at m:Resolution:Licensing policy point #4. For quite some time, we have attempted to encourage people to provide rationales. The results of this effort have been dismal at best. The creator of this bot has come under fire for performing this work manually. One of the main complaints is that the effort to tag images could just as readily be spent providing rationales. This is not the case; the uploader and/or user of each fair use image is the person who should provide the rationale. A non-involved editor can not know under what principles the user of an image intended such use as fair use. The use of fair use, copyrighted images on the Wikimedia servers is covered by United States law. Our policies with respect to this bot's actions are based on that law. Please see Fair_use#Purpose_and_character. Read this talk page before registering your complaint. It is likely someone has already registered a similar complaint, and that complaint will have been given an answer. Bug reports are very welcome; tagging images as this bot is doing per policy is not a bug.

Favorite statement about ORFU images:

Thank you for the message, Mr. Bot, but you have to understand that this image was used in an article, but the article got deleted. PK 18:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Here we go again!!!

You're the main reason why I had to clear out my user talk page twice already!!! I suppose, any image I put up on Misplaced Pages isn't satisfactory! :{ TMC1982 12:00 a.m. 4 July 2007 (UTC)

msg posted to Talk:Hicom Trading E

Howdy -- this bot has posted a warning on Talk:Hicom Trading E about an image that's actually part of a stub tag ( template:econ-stub ) that happens to be on the Hicom Trading E page. Not sure what if anything this does or doesn't mean, but I'm guessing you didn't really want it to post a warning on each of the several thousand pages that include that stub tag... --NapoliRoma 14:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

How can we stop this nuisance once and for all?

There has been extensive discussion and argument in the past regarding this disruptive bot. Counter to the claims made in the rationale above:

• Policy is not clear on fair use rationales. Portions of Misplaced Pages:Fair use rationale guideline are illegitimate and/or lack consensus. See the active debate and consensus building on the subject at Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content.
• Misplaced Pages deletionists want to rid Misplaced Pages of fair use images as much as possible, and have announced that as their overarching goal. They have doggedly changed policy without consensus to give them cover for beginning to delete. This bot is part of that effort. Meanwhile, a majority of Wikipedians favor fair use, or at least an orderly policy, over the disruption caused by purging Misplaced Pages of its graphic content.
• Tens or hundreds of thousands of images could be deleted if tagged by the bot and. Most were uploaded when policy was different than today, or before there was any push for widespread deletion. Many are most are perfectly appropriate for Misplaced Pages; the flaw is not that they violate copyright but that they lack adequate sourcing and fair use metadata.
• We should fix articles, not delete content. The claim that non-involved editors can't know the fair use status of an image is simply not true. Fair use is a question of how an image is used in an article, not the uploader's state of mind. In cases like corporate logos, modern artworks, television and movie stills, album covers, and pictures of buildings, the rationale is plainly obvious and missing rationales can be added en masse. Once an image is deleted it is gone and cannot be fixed. The constructive people on Misplaced Pages need a chance to improve things before people on an agenda make a mes of them.
• Wholesale image deletion is premature while the debate is unresolved. The Wikimedia Foundation resolution does not directly enable people to delete images; it asks Misplaced Pages to adopt a policy on images in due course, which we are currently doing.
• One user's frustration is not a mandate. The bot-master says the state of things is "dismal." Other people differ. There is still plenty of time for resolution by consensus.
• BetacommandBot runs against consensus and discretion urged by the policy. Misplaced Pages:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion says users may flag noncompliant images for review and administrators may delete them. Nowhere does it say anyone "must" launch a project wide deletion effort. "May" requires discretion. This bot does not exercise discretion, it tags images automatically, project-wide.
• This is not about the law. The law does not require fair use rationales and most images marked for deletion are perfectly legal. What is happening is the Wikimedia Foundation wants to go beyond the legal requirements so that Misplaced Pages content can be freely available to all, including commercial users. That is a good aim. We're not talking about opposing that effort, but talking about achieving it in the best way. Getting rid of images instead of making them usable by all is the wrong approach.

If your article got tagged, please fix your image before it gets deleted. First take a moment to make sure it really is a legitimate, legal image. If it is, add a fair use rationale and remove the tag from the image page.

This bot caused a lot of frustration and consternation several weeks ago when it was first unleashed on Misplaced Pages. It tagged images indiscriminately and the administrators followed behind deleting many images improperly. In the latest gaffe, it just tagged thousands of pages in error over an image that was used on a stub template. A perfect illustration of why we cannot allow bots to run amok. If you have any suggestions on how we can stop this vandalistic bot and resolve things constructively and by consensus, please share. Wikidemo 14:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

It's fairly easy to cut the bot off at the knees... write a fair use rationale. Voila, then there's nothing the bot can do. Besides, it's not like an image can't be restored; if you ask the deleting admin to restore an image so you can provide a rationale, I'm sure they'd be willing (no reason to go through DRV for something that trivial). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Requests to reinstate are on a one-by-one basis. BetacommandBot just tagged thousands of corporate logos where the fair use status is not in legitimate dispute. I have written a handful of fair use rationales for other people's images today, thank you. Care to join me? But in the time it takes to write just one and remove the offending tag Betacommandbot will tag another two hundred. That's hardly cutting the an out of control bot off at its knees. Let's shut it down, now, and don't waste everybody's time cleaning up the mess. Wikidemo 15:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Also note, that the bot's owner has stated in the past that Templated FURs are not valid, and now insists that my FUR template must be substed or his bot won't work Talk:Mario Party 8 for example. McKay 16:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought he'd backed down on that? I thought BC had ultimately accepted the points put to him at the end of the discussion here ? -- Jheald 16:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• If you want to stop this bot once and for all, then get the policy requiring fair use rationales changed. The policy is Misplaced Pages:Non-free content criteria item #10(c). However, I would like to point out that this point is unlikely to be changed as this particular aspect of our fair use criteria is based in fair use law, in that fair use must have a reasonable justification. The intention of the fair use rationales is to provide the same, and it is also the reason why templated fair use rationales are insufficient. --Durin 17:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to get the policy changed, I'm trying to stop an out of control bot. This one was just unleashed a second time by a rogue Wikipedian, after it was soundly condemned and blocked the first time he pulled the stunt. I am building a case for blocking the bot again and possibly blocking the user. The fact that images need a fair use rationale does not equate to a license to build a bot that automatically tags them. He already had his administrative privileges stripped over this sort of thing. An analogy. Just because cities have parking meters does not mean that any citizen can go out and build his own robocop to arrest overtime parkers. If the policy requires fair use rationales, let's give them fair use rationales rather than deleting the images or vandalizing the image pages. Wikidemo 17:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed the last comment. Template rationales comply with the guideline and policy pages, and there is a consensus on the page User:Jheald linked to that templated rationales are fine. For goodness sakes, the fair use rationale page even has a template you're supposed to use. Enough of this crazy talk. Wikidemo 17:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you for accusing me of crazy talk. Warms me to the heart. *hug* --Durin 17:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• So you're on a witch hunt then? You're rooting around for evidence to get the bot shut down?
• Understand the bot is acting directly in accordance with policy. You do not happen to like the fact that it is tagging images that have no fair use rationales. But, that doesn't change the fact the the images do not have fair use rationales yet MUST have them to be in adherence with policy. Your analogy fails by the way. Cities can and do automatically ticket people who violate red lights, speed limits, and more. Since editors here at Misplaced Pages have every bit as much standing as Jimbo Wales does, than an editor can act as he is doing, essentially a part of the government. We do have means of dealing with people acting in opposition to policy, but this bot and its manager is rather far from doing this. You've got a long road to hoe to get him blocked. You've got a much better chance of getting policy changed. --Durin 17:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Witch hunt? I'm trying to stop an out of control bot that's causing lots of mayhem. In my analogy, which you've now changed for your purposes, even Jimbo Wales has to operate by consensus. Even he can't just delete people and articles for no other reason than he does not like them. When you question a user's inappropriate actions on Misplaced Pages you try to see if it's an isolated mistake or a pattern of misbehavior. Betacommand and his pet Bot are operating unilaterally. I see the guy was also blocking users for disagreeing with him, running automatic deletion bots, deleting thousands of links by bot that should not have been deleted, running user blocking bots, and all kinds of other stuff. He's been blocked multiple times. Why are you defending the guy? The corporate logos he's trying to delete are all appropriate to Misplaced Pages. Why are you trying to delete them? Wikidemo 18:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, an out of control bot that is upholding policy. How shocking. If you think Betacommandbot is acting unilaterally, then you have failed to read considerable discussion regarding this bot's behavior. Perhaps you're unaware of these discussions. Would you like a pointer to them? I'll restate, yet again, go to WP:AN/I to have this bot blocked. This bot isn't going to block itself, and discussing the issue here isn't going to achieve what you want; the permanent shutting down of this bot. Further, since I fully intend on continuing the work of this bot per our long standing policies, I am just as much a threat to your line of reasoning as the bot is. Thus, you should have me banned from the project as well. I urge you to act now, before any more images are deleted from Misplaced Pages, especially since I can't even block myself. I'll restate my offer as well; if you need assistance in having my banned from the project, I remain at your disposal on how to go about doing that. Do you require assistance? --Durin 19:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

substituting unsigned template

This bot replaced {{unsigned}} with {{subst:unsigned}} on the Talk:Alligator page. Its edit summary reads "(subst'ing templates per WP:SUBST)". However, when I go to WP:SUBST, {{unsigned}} is not in the list of templates that must be substituted. Instead, it is listed as template whose substitution status is under discussion. Also, the page says that one of the drawbacks of substitution is "Substituting en masse — editing thousands of articles with bots — slows down the site and wastes server resources unnecessarily." From these two points on WP:SUBST, I am very much NOT convinced that is is appropriate for a bot to go around substituting unsigned templates on article talk pages. At the very least, the link I follow from the bots' edit summary should convince me that the bot is doing the right thing, not convince me that the bot is doing the wrong thing. We need Hagerman bot or another signer bot to get up and working again, we don't need a bot to go back and fiddle with all {{unsigned}} templates. Enuja 15:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Just for the convenience

Can you insert another line break before the bot's automated messages to talk pages. Would make it a bit easier to identify them when browsing through the source.  Grue  15:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Request: List of tagged images, by category?

BC, would it be possible as the bot is running through, for you to produce lists of the images tagged by category -- eg list of logos tagged, list of album covers tagged, list of screenshots of video games tagged, etc.? Producing 'menu' lists like this would make it easier and quicker for people to go through and add appropriate rationales - at least for the easy cases.

In fact, producing such lists prospectively from a dry run, a few days before running the bot to add the tags, might be quite helpful towards achieving the desired outcome with rather less wiki-angst.

Lists categorising the images you've already tagged would be a really helpful start.

What do you think? Jheald 16:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use reasoning given, but now the bot's a critic?

Fair use rationale for Image:MysteryoftheWhisper.jpg

An album page, review, or critical commentary should be able to include a low-res image by way of illustration, and that's the explanation I've used. What is wrong with my description? -- Xinit 16:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Your bot is annoying.

Misplaced Pages gives me the option to post DVD covers this is not allowed? Please dont have your bot harrass me and take up the issue with wikipedia.

Jeremy221 19:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• All images uploaded to Misplaced Pages must have an associated fair use rationale. Please see WP:NFCC item #10(c) for the policy regarding this. For assistance in crafting a fair use rationale, please see WP:FURG. Other questions? Please feel free to ask. --Durin 19:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)