Wikipedia talk:Contact us

See list of subpages of "Wikipedia:Contact us".

Updating to CC-BY-SA 4.0?

Could we get this page updated so that it recommends that editors upload under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license instead of the now-outdated 3.0 version? That would be great! Also, I wonder if the page might be rephrased to be 1.) more encouraging for people to use Commons rather than suggesting that they might just as well upload to Wikipedia directly (when this is inefficient and usually not necessary), and 2.) to be less encouraging that people come up with some kind of declaration of consent on their own, "or use ours", when the fact is that unless they use ours, their statement will be rejected by OTRS, which is only a waste of time. Thoughts? Thank you! KDS4444 (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

@KDS4444: You don't say which page, but presumably you mean Wikipedia:Contact us - Licensing. But has your proposal been approved by the Foundation's legal department? --Redrose64 (talk) 10:17, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

You know, it has not. Let me contact them and see what they say. Thanks for pointing this out to me. KDS4444 (talk) 20:51, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I've now heard back from Legal. As their disclaimer specifically states that the recipient must not copy or disclose the contents of their messages, I will summarize what I was told by "Jacob": he offered strong encouragement that volunteers begin transitioning to the 4.0 licenses where possible, as he considered 4.0 to be better written and more flexible than 3.0. Apparently they (Legal) are planning on having a community-wide discussion on the topic of wholesale migration to 4.0 "at some point later this year" (whoops, I copied that), but are holding off until Creative Commons finishes translating their latest license into all of their intended languages. The legal team is also not entirely confident about the use of the 4.0 license for article content that was originally created in 3.0, but expressed only encouragement for the increased use of the 4.0 license with regard to images. Inasmuch as what we are talking about here is the uploading of images, I am taking this as a green light from them to update the recommended license from 3.0 to 4.0. How does that sound? (Also, as an aside, I believe Commons is already operating fully on 4.0— I don't know of any page there that mentions 3.0 except for historical purposes.) KDS4444 (talk) 00:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

OK, so the next step is to get the upload forms amended so that they offer the 4.0 licenses (we already have the two necessary templates, {{cc-by-4.0}} and {{cc-by-sa-4.0}}). We should not recommend the use of a license that isn't available when uploading, it only causes confusion. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:04, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I agree completely. So... then we have the license available, yes? All we need to do then is change the text of the page mentioned above so that it no longer "recommends" cc-by-sa 3.0 but instead recommends... nothing? Or something? In either case, I guess my edit request still stands. Can this be done? KDS4444 (talk) 07:34, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

It's outside my area of knowledge, and the other 2,200+ watchers of this page are all silent, so I've left a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#License selection lists when uploading images. Also, we should somehow ensure that Commons update theirs too. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:21, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

@Redrose64: The licences for Special:Upload are at MediaWiki:Licenses, and the licences for the Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard are in MediaWiki:FileUploadWizard.js (doc). The latter appears to have been updated by Future Perfect at Sunrise. — JJMC89 (T·C) 08:55, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I updated MediaWiki:Licenses, and created Template:Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0 and Category:Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0 files. Did I miss anything? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:18, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks,JJMC89, Edokter, Redrose64! My only remaining request is that the wording of the Wikipedia:Contact us - Licensing page be updated to either reflect the 4.0 license or have its licensing recommendation removed. This is what got me started on all this in the first place. Can someone do that? I think the page is fully protected. KDS4444 (talk) 21:09, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think we should do a short inventory, because ohter pages linked on there, such as Wikipedia:Declaration of consent for all enquiries, also still list 3.0. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 22:08, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

@Edokter: Yeah, the thing is, if you look at the talk page for that page, I've already tried to get the declaration changed/ updated to 4.0 but no one was willing to implement it. I wasn't the only one making the request, either. But I wasn't able to establish what probably constitutes community consensus to implement the change. Perhaps now, with the permission of the legal department as mentioned above, we can move forward on that. Thoughts? KDS4444 (talk) 05:03, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@KDS4444: I believe Commons is already operating fully on 4.0— I don't know of any page there that mentions 3.0 except for historical purposes Try going to c:Commons:Upload, select "It is from somewhere else" (which is the same as "Already know the license, and its copyright tag? Go directly to the main upload form") at the bottom), have a look in the "Licensing" dropdown. Seven of the entries, and the templates that they emit, are:

• Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0) - {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0|migration=redundant}}
• Own work, attribution required (GFDL, CC BY 3.0) - {{self|GFDL|cc-by-3.0|migration=redundant}}
• Own work, copyleft, attribution required (CC BY-SA 3.0) - {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
• Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 - {{cc-by-sa-4.0}}
• Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 - {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}
• Attribution 4.0 - {{cc-by-4.0}}
• Attribution 3.0 - {{cc-by-3.0}}

Only two are 4.0, five are 3.0. Now, also at c:Commons:Upload, if you go for "It is entirely my own work", and have a look in the "Licensing" dropdown, you will find (amongst others), these four entries:

• Multi-license with CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GFDL (recommended) - {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0|GFDL}}
• Multi-license with CC-BY-SA-3.0 and older and GFDL - {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0|GFDL}}
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 - {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
• Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 - {{self|cc-by-3.0}}

All are 3.0, there are no 4.0 in that selection list. Also, only one of these ({{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}) is common to both lists. None of the other options at c:Commons:Upload offer CC later than 2.0. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Even after nearly eight years of doing this, there is still so much I do not know. Thank you for pointing these out to me, I am working on getting them updated! Are there others? KDS4444 (talk) 16:58, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

How to report apparently improperly re-used Wikipedia content?

So far, I have been unable to find any specific directions or recommendations for how one might best report web content that appears to improperly re-use Wikipedia content without proper attribution or with potentially misleading usage of Wikipedia logos. It seems to me that this page should have such a link or recommendation on it. Any suggestions from anyone else on this?

Thanks,

Scott P. (talk) 23:34, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview#Site X seems to be violating Wikipedia's copyright. Do you guys know about this? It's mostly editors who are interested in reporting mirrors. Wikipedia:Contact us is not aimed at editors. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks kindly for the great cross-link. I followed the site that rated the worst "offenders" of our "WP content re-use licensing requirements," and none of them seemed to be as bad as the certain site that I stumbled upon this AM at Gawker-Labs, and all of them, so far as I could tell, appear to have been contacted by our legal department and to have subsequently removed whatever material may have been in question. Am hoping that the same might happen now with Gawker-Labs too. I've written a letter to the WP legal department about this. My guess is that yes, they will now soon be "reaching out" to Gawker too. We shall see. Be good (relatively speaking of course). Scott P. (talk) 03:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)