First off my apologies for being a prime cause of the delay here. There are a couple of issues we should pull apart to focus our discussion around images and then move to a vote here once we get some consensus. I'm hoping we get a lot more input from the readers of Comixpedia.com though so we make the best decisions on how to deal with images at Comixpedia.org
There's a "hosting/bandwidth" issue and a "legal/permission" issue. They overlap a bit but they are two different issues.
1. Legal/Permission
We need to make sure we're using images with permission. We've got a couple of options:
A. Text on Comixpedia.org is GNUFDL which roughly means anyone can copy and paste it elsewhere (ok it's more detailed then that...) - it's supposed to be free (as in speech and beer). We could ask folks to make images posted there comply with GNUFDL. But then how do we know it's really the copyright holder submitting the image (identification verification isn't trivial) and moreover, how many of you creators out there want to go this route?
A variation on this idea from TWG goes like this: artists create new artwork and slap a watermark of the [[Comixpedia.org]] logo on it as a way of showing it's intended for this encyclopedia project. (Here's TWG's full pitch)
I see several problems with this - one only new artwork seems awfully limiting (most creators aren't going to do this) and how do I know it's new - I have to rely on the comixpedia.org to check? Next putting a logo on the artwork is pretty easy - it's just a layer in photoshop. But let's discuss it.
B. Artwork from creators with the creators permission. We could post this with notice that the artwork is (c) the creator and not subject to GNUFDL. This seems fine to me although we would still have issues about making sure that the person saying that they're the creator really is the creator.
C. Fair Use. Arguably fair use should cover the display of a single image from a arger work, certainly under U.S. law. As we've discussed this it's possible that would mean a certain level of unknown legal risk in foreign jurisdictions but fair use is a viable approach.
We can also use all 3 or some combination of the above. (Let me know if I'm missing something).
2. Hosting/Bandwidth
We've also got the issue of whether to allow hotlinking to another site or not. Do creators generally think hotlinking would be okay (we could set up an email address to complain about unauthorized hotlinking) - I know this wouldn't work with some sites like Keenspot/CG.
As some of you have discovered you can hotlink to an image of your comic for your Comixpedia Library entry - (No Rest For the Wicked takes full advantage of this) - we could also limit Encyclopedia images to hotlinking images already hotlinked in the Library (I have a high degree of confidence that the owners of library entries are actually who they say they are so if they've hotlinked it's by choice).
In contrast to that we could go solely with uploading images to a Comixpedia server - one option there would be to do it through user accounts at Comixpedia.com - you could get a certain amount of space to load an image for your own webcomic(s) and then add them to your Encyclopedia entry (or it could be a group effort ) - the key thing would be your agreement to Comixpedia's display of the image(s) you've uploaded.
We could also enable image uploads at Comixpedia.org but i have much less ability to watch that for misuse so I'm inclined to do it through Comixpedia.com.
My Current Idea
I'm inclined actually to go with this kind of approach:
Creators get to upload material to their accounts at Comixpedia.com - they give us permission to display at Comixpedia Library and Encyclopedia (comixpedia.org) - that would be material we would display on comixpedia.org as (c) of the creator.
I'd also like to enable another group of trusted users who work on the Encyclopedia to upload images to Comixpedia.com we would display on the Encyclopedia under fair use. Because it would be a group of users I knew about I think we'd have a much better chance to actually comply with fair use guidelines.
Anyhow there's been a lot of start and stop discussion but hopefully now we'll have the full attention of all of Comixpedia and we can get to some type of proposal we can vote on here in the forums (I'll set up that vote when we get to that point).
I think whatever is easiest is the best route. I would think fair use would mean we don't have to do anything other than link an existing graphic from our own sites. But, I'd rather add a watermark than have to add a directory just for comixpedia on my site. It's an organization thang. Just my 2 cents.
[quote:b88ab83d7f="Fabricari"]I think whatever is easiest is the best route. I would think fair use would mean we don't have to do anything other than link an existing graphic from our own sites. But, I'd rather add a watermark than have to add a directory just for comixpedia on my site. It's an organization thang. Just my 2 cents.
I guess I would rather add a directory then have to redo and resave artwork myself. It would be helpful to hear from a lot of people on this so we can get a wider sampling of opinion. My deciding factors are (1) what's going to be easier for comixpedia.org to police and (2) what's the least burdensome way for creators to get images onto the encyclopedia.
It seems to me too that this is a debate about hotlinking by creators only - other options for images discussed above we can deal with separately but maybe we should narrow in on an appropriate way to allow hotlinking so we can move on that part more quickly.
OK, I figured it out, we all just take one of our comic panels and change the wording in the vox bubbles to read "Comixpedia is teh roxor! BFF, BABY!"
Joking aside, if you go with the image directory thing, would it work to reside as a subdirectory? I'd rather have the image in root/blargy/blarg/images/comixpedia/ than root/comixpedia/
If so, that would be easy to accomodate.
The directory system would work fine for me, seems to be the easiest option.
[quote:2afd9ada7e="Fabricari"]OK, I figured it out, we all just take one of our comic panels and change the wording in the vox bubbles to read "Comixpedia is teh roxor! BFF, BABY!"
Heh - that's it! :)
Although I worry about hotlinking from free-space servers, I would like to suggest that trusted users (admins?) could upload lo-res images of covers for print editions to the Comixpedia server as fair use.
An idea for a bot.
Develop a bot that will delete images that come from certain site such as photobucket and other image hosting site. Let the bot goes on a deletion rampage every day at the time when most of us are alseep.
[quote:57e8081145="nifboy"]Although I worry about hotlinking from free-space servers, I would like to suggest that trusted users (admins?) could upload lo-res images of covers for print editions to the Comixpedia server as fair use.
Actually that's another idea why I like the /comixpedia/ subdirectory idea - you can't really do it unless it's actually your own domain.
Well then, since it's so hard for me to keep track of what's going on, please link anything that needs voting to the encyclopedia site so I know when I need to come here.
[quote:27859b4bde="meeowth"]Well then, since it's so hard for me to keep track of what's going on, please link anything that needs voting to the encyclopedia site so I know when I need to come here.
Definitely - although what flavor of the thread above are you supporting? There's been a few ideas batted around so far.
Let people watermark it or comixpedia directorized it. So people can choose what they think are best.
I support the idea that a watermarked image hosted on the comic creators site or on this .com would be the easiest way to confirm that the artist in question sanctions the images use.
I see it this way. Use of the image is providing more coverage for said webcomic, if the creator don't like it, take it down, no big deal. Obviously Comixpedia is not claiming the image as there own if they are citing it source, and not using the image for say profit (and if they did I am sure they would work something out with the creator).
Option 1: Do it as I suggested Downside- Some folks cant hotlink
Option 2: Get creators to mail the admins an image they'll allow Comixpedia to host and use. Downside- Lot's of extra work for the admins
Option 3: Allow both, and let the creators decide. Downside - Too many lazy weiners out there
I prefer less work on our part though....
Brainstorming:
An idea....the creator could set up a page that say I allow this certain image to be used on comixpedia.org than upload his image to be used on comixpedia.org
Hmm, you have to add that {{image}} template with a bunch of text and blahabhalbhab.
I don't like it... Comixpedia.org logo picture with a FAIR USE on it replace all that damn texts.
Who know? It might be fine with the other users.
Note: this has been suggested by me before.
I also adcovate building a bot that blacklist sites..... Basically it a way to automagically delete image from sites such as photobucket automagically and send a list of user who violate the policy to educate them/punish them everyday.
This is to relieve the burden off comixpedian so they can spend more time improving the encyclopedia project.
I realize I'll ruffle a few feathers by being a bit of a benevolent dictator here but there is a need to get some more of the fundamentals fixed on the comixpedia.org site. I don't think the technical question of how we allow for images needs a vote per se - we all agree it is a good thing but at the same time there's a need to evaluate technical issues like resources use and legal issues like copyright ownership and fair use.
As benevolent dictator, I'm going to start with offsite hosting of images limited to creator posting his/her own work from a /comixpedia/ subdirectory and we'll see how that works for awhile. Consider this an emergency measure and let's continue this discussion on the remainder of ideas proposed and to be proposed.
I took the ceremonial first lap with this entry here:
http://www.comixpedia.org/index.php/Life_in_Four_Panels
I am also chewing on an option for comixpedia hosting of images but I'm not finished evaluating it yet so there's nothing to report there.
[quote:6ba0c5302b="Kiba"]I also adcovate building a bot that blacklist sites..... Basically it a way to automagically delete image from sites such as photobucket automagically and send a list of user who violate the policy to educate them/punish them everyday.
This is to relieve the burden off comixpedian so they can spend more time improving the encyclopedia project.
I think this is a great idea but it is so far outside of my skills I couldn't do it. If we could recruit someone to do it that'd be great though - any ideas on where to look/how to get people interested in this idea? Maybe there's something out there quite close to what we'd need but I wouldn't know where to look.
[quote:094c3b2af8="Kiba"]Hmm, you have to add that {{image}} template with a bunch of text and blahabhalbhab.
I don't like it... Comixpedia.org logo picture with a FAIR USE on it replace all that damn texts.
We're not allowing for Fair Use right now - these images must be posted with the permission of the copyright holder. Even if we did the logo idea I think we'd have to have the copyright text. At least you only have to add it once and presumably you could do it down the page so as not to disrupt the page too much.
We can certainly refine and revisit but maybe we'll also get some practical experience after a bit with this approach in place.
Wait a minutes....why not just build the blacklist and prevent it instead!
Ok.....I be patient until someone come along.
Well I thought fair use is a catch all for author's permission. I was wrong.
Here is an idea:
If they clicked on the image, it will direct them to a simplictics catchall wikipage about copyright notice.
However, ideas are not any good if they are not implemented or they too complicated.
Alternatively, we could host lo-res thumbnails only, a la Websnark. Simply set a maximum width of, say, 400px/image, and speedy delete any images not in an article a week after they're uploaded (which is current Wikipedia policy, iirc).
The biggest problem I have with requiring author permission is that we would never be comprehensive that way.
When will we decide which flavor is the best? We should decide on one version of the image policy to vote on.
Remember, it required 2/3 of votes for a policy proposal to be offical policy.
Must we really place that long spew of text right next to every image? That's what the 'tag each image or face its deletion' policy sounds like to me, I may be misunderstanding.
I mean, couldn't using the image tag at the bottom be enough for the whole page?
I'm wondering the same thing as Aleph. What about the image placed in the infobox? We can't put the image tag inside the infobox.
[quote:19c636c089="Aleph"]Must we really place that long spew of text right next to every image? That's what the 'tag each image or face its deletion' policy sounds like to me, I may be misunderstanding.
I mean, couldn't using the image tag at the bottom be enough for the whole page?
The tag just needs to be on a page with images - it can be on it once and at the bottom of the page. It doesn't need to be next to each image.
Oh so here is where the discussion is. Or so I assume, there's apparently some mailing list somewhere, and nobody was willing to tell me where that is, either.
I have to tell you, I've had exactly one happy experience with Comixpedia thus far: finding to my surprise and delight that someone wrote an entry for my comic. But after that--from having an image (of mine!) deleted due to a policy that wasn't obvious, to not being able to find policies due to pages like "FAQ" being empty, to asking where policies are and not getting an answer, to going to where the discussion about images was and seeing it flounder, to asking where that discussion actually is and not getting an answer, to getting here and the forum generally sucking to the point of its telling me "you don't have rights to perform that action" when i tried to register the first few times, to "profile" not letting me change my cryptic password and having to find the "my account" link tucked safely away at the bottom of the page--it's all been downhill. If you want a community-driven information resource, why is it so hard for someone in the community to get simple questions answered?
But now that that's off my chest, let me say something about the entirely arbitrary fear anyone has about the legality of the images: why are you confident in posting character names, plot developments, and excerpts of copyrighted information, but images are off-limits? If you think images are a legal problem, then you should certainly think that excerpted text is a problem. And therefore a wiki is entirely the wrong medium for you. You should run a centralized index where comic authors can send information about their work, because you're ultimately only going to allow author-approved commentary.
Policies aren't obvious because they're preliminary and/or we're waiting on Xerxes to give us the go-ahead to change it (he asked voting on the first image proposal that came up be postponed because the discussion was moving too fast). In fact, the ONLY non-preliminary policy that has actually been put into place is the policy to put policies into effect, which got heavily modified by Xerxes when he decided he wanted all the discussion here.
Changing the namespace from (edit: WebcomicWiki to) Comixpedia to Comixpedia.org to [[Comixpedia]] has absolutely not helped at all.
But, yes, getting back on topic, we'll never have images on more than 2% of our articles if we rely on the authors to put the images into the articles.
I am just as afraid of inserting copyrighted text into comixpedia. I have taken step on my war of copyright violation. We don't post exerted information unless the copyright holder understand our license and given us permission to use it under the GNUFDL. At time, I did deny permission because I was unsure if the author understand what they are doing leting people insert their material on Comixpedia.
Sometime I goes overboard though.
Images are a different matter. I don't believe anyone could license their comic under the GNUFDL. They are more likely to use Creative Common license. So all images that come into the wiki are not automagically licensed under GNUFDL.
If policies don't exist, then a site based on user contributions has no business being open to public contribution. You need editors to receive submissions and talk amongst themselves whether each submission would break policies that are yet unclear.
Why the love of GNUFDL, if it's such a problem?
And finally: Wikipedia gets really messy when the subject of an entry gets involved with it. Even without the legal issues, you people are obviously not prepared for such messiness. You shouldn't be doing this. Hand it off to someone who is.
More directly to the point, what happens when Sean Howard shows up and demands you take down his article?
We don't take an article down unless it aginest the goal of the encyclopedia project.
Spinn: Reviewing submission? Oh please....we call that recent change patrol. We do it volunteerly. You can join in by doing "recent change patrol". We do it all the time....
The encyclopedia for the most part is flase anarchry. There may be few rules to govern the project, but the wiki actually have a little culture and little informal rules to make the project viable.
Yes, dispute sometime get messy and stuff. That happen in Wikipedia all the time. If it get really out of hand, than I consider it a problem. That when the community start deciding on how to handle it. Right now there are no need.
The project is open and will be open regardless if polices don't exits. If you want policies and stuff, I suggest you being bold.
Policies and articles don't grow on trees!
I don't understand why this isn't clear, but: I'm saying there is absolutely no point for me to edit anything when the policies aren't clear. You have simply put up a website with no, er, entrance strategy. I spent time and effort putting an image in an entry for my own comic, and it got removed due to a policy I wasn't clear on and couldn't get answers about when I asked. I'm just not going to bother editing anything else because of it. True, your community might implicitly understand the rules, but then you're blocking out a large group of casual, well-meaning contributors in favor of a small group of devotees. You've set the entrance bar very high.
You then tell me I should join as an editor? How does that make sense? how can I edit when I'm not clear on what policies to follow?
I'm also saying there will be a point when it gets out of hand, humans being what they are. And if you've spent, what, three months? four? discussing this one little item, then you are not prepared for it.
And as for my not being bold: I don't know how much more strongly I can insert myself into this policy discussion than I've done. Here's bold, if you want it: Pretend you're running a Wiki, and let the information be entered as if it were one. Does it make sense for the article? Do it. Does it step on someone's toes? Discuss it, and change it if required. Until then the whole project is simply not a Wiki as I understand it. Especially--gah, like i've said elsewhere, how can you have a Wiki on a visual medium that doesn't allow visuals?
nifboy: ah, my Wiki dramas intersect. You see why I'm trying to convince these people that there will be a problem at some point. It just has to happen.
Oh, and come to think of it.
[quote:cdd7d23382="Kiba"]Yes, dispute sometime get messy and stuff. That happen in Wikipedia all the time. If it get really out of hand, than I consider it a problem. That when the community start deciding on how to handle it. Right now there are no need.
How can you so casually say "oh, we'll deal with that when we get there", and then on the other hand, fuss with this image problem for nearly four months before you'll let anything happen?
What? I didn't give out answers? I am sorry for not being helpful to your concern when you are asking me. (I thought I was clear in my answer, but I guess I was wrong)
I am trying to help newbies out there to contribute to us. I didn't see it as confusing and unhelpful place until you say it is a problem.
Yes, we are terribly disorganized. We ought to organize ourselve better......
I say that casually because that how the communtiy work. The community govern the entire project, enforce the rules, maintain the contents. The community don't get on their feet until they start thinking it will be a problem.
I don't think it urgent. Maybe the rest of us don't think it so urgent too.
The project seem to not like making policies at all. After all, the only policy was like accepted as offical was the voting policy after several months since Comixpedia.org exits.
Just to be clear: I'm not saying I wish there to be a bunch of policies. I'm saying that I want to know what unwritten rules there are before I bother making edits that might break them. I'm asking for policies not because I want them to be created, but because I want to know what the rules are.
I added an image; it was deleted due to a rule that is waiting for a policy. Oh, what other polices are there? I asked. Nobody answered.
So, I dunno. I don't really have a vested interest here or anything; for me it just started because I wanted to add something and my work was removed. My obvious reaction to this is to find out what else is to be avoided. I guess I can't adequately explain the fact that not knowing what else is to be avoided removes my motivation to contribute anything. And your saying "just be a good contributor" doesn't answer the issue. I think adding an image of a comic is a good contribution.
So really, if you're of the "let's just go with what makes sense and deal with the problem when we get there", then you shouldn't be worrying about the legal issue. If it's about hosting/bandwidth, then Xerxes is just paying for the wrong service. Dreamhost gives about 100x the storage and 200x the bandwidth that Pegasus does, comparing the $20 plans of the two. 60 gigs can handle plenty of web comics.
The unwritten rules..I am not sure if I can accurately pin them down....
1. Help new contributors
2. Assume good faith
3. If you going to discuss something, do it in a civil way.
4. Don't bite the newbies (Try not to be harsh on them)
5. Be bold!
Err...kinda like Wikipedia's.
Some newbies have little trouble around here...they don't need to be told the "rules" we have here. If they made a mistake or a big mistake on a grand scale, than it no big deal. As long they learn from their mistakes.
Yeah, that's the normal social set of rules. I meant the procedural/technical, like "follow these rules for posting images on web pages". If that's the only such rule you currently have, then okay. Had I known that a month ago I wouldn't have gone through all this.
Still, if you say "kinda like Wikipedia's", there's a pretty large and robust set of guidelines there that are more than what you mentioned.
Okay, I'm done. Thanks for your time and patience.
The image policy was posted by Xerxes on the main page. In light of the fact that it seems absolutely no one *reads* the main page I've given it it's own page. I've done a tiny bit of editing to it as well.
It seem to me that we should go ahead with the vote. I like the experment. It work well enough.
Anybody agree with me? We been discussing it forever...and we need a vote and get this policy to become offical.
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Image Discussion
First off my apologies for being a prime cause of the delay here. There are a couple of issues we should pull apart to focus our discussion around images and then move to a vote here once we get some consensus. I'm hoping we get a lot more input from the readers of Comixpedia.com though so we make the best decisions on how to deal with images at Comixpedia.org
There's a "hosting/bandwidth" issue and a "legal/permission" issue. They overlap a bit but they are two different issues.
1. Legal/Permission
We need to make sure we're using images with permission. We've got a couple of options:
A. Text on Comixpedia.org is GNUFDL which roughly means anyone can copy and paste it elsewhere (ok it's more detailed then that...) - it's supposed to be free (as in speech and beer). We could ask folks to make images posted there comply with GNUFDL. But then how do we know it's really the copyright holder submitting the image (identification verification isn't trivial) and moreover, how many of you creators out there want to go this route?
A variation on this idea from TWG goes like this: artists create new artwork and slap a watermark of the [[Comixpedia.org]] logo on it as a way of showing it's intended for this encyclopedia project. (Here's TWG's full pitch)
I see several problems with this - one only new artwork seems awfully limiting (most creators aren't going to do this) and how do I know it's new - I have to rely on the comixpedia.org to check? Next putting a logo on the artwork is pretty easy - it's just a layer in photoshop. But let's discuss it.
B. Artwork from creators with the creators permission. We could post this with notice that the artwork is (c) the creator and not subject to GNUFDL. This seems fine to me although we would still have issues about making sure that the person saying that they're the creator really is the creator.
C. Fair Use. Arguably fair use should cover the display of a single image from a arger work, certainly under U.S. law. As we've discussed this it's possible that would mean a certain level of unknown legal risk in foreign jurisdictions but fair use is a viable approach.
We can also use all 3 or some combination of the above. (Let me know if I'm missing something).
2. Hosting/Bandwidth
We've also got the issue of whether to allow hotlinking to another site or not. Do creators generally think hotlinking would be okay (we could set up an email address to complain about unauthorized hotlinking) - I know this wouldn't work with some sites like Keenspot/CG.
As some of you have discovered you can hotlink to an image of your comic for your Comixpedia Library entry - (No Rest For the Wicked takes full advantage of this) - we could also limit Encyclopedia images to hotlinking images already hotlinked in the Library (I have a high degree of confidence that the owners of library entries are actually who they say they are so if they've hotlinked it's by choice).
In contrast to that we could go solely with uploading images to a Comixpedia server - one option there would be to do it through user accounts at Comixpedia.com - you could get a certain amount of space to load an image for your own webcomic(s) and then add them to your Encyclopedia entry (or it could be a group effort ) - the key thing would be your agreement to Comixpedia's display of the image(s) you've uploaded.
We could also enable image uploads at Comixpedia.org but i have much less ability to watch that for misuse so I'm inclined to do it through Comixpedia.com.
My Current Idea
I'm inclined actually to go with this kind of approach:
Creators get to upload material to their accounts at Comixpedia.com - they give us permission to display at Comixpedia Library and Encyclopedia (comixpedia.org) - that would be material we would display on comixpedia.org as (c) of the creator.
I'd also like to enable another group of trusted users who work on the Encyclopedia to upload images to Comixpedia.com we would display on the Encyclopedia under fair use. Because it would be a group of users I knew about I think we'd have a much better chance to actually comply with fair use guidelines.
Anyhow there's been a lot of start and stop discussion but hopefully now we'll have the full attention of all of Comixpedia and we can get to some type of proposal we can vote on here in the forums (I'll set up that vote when we get to that point).
Page on Fair Use at Wikipedia
Here's a page at Wikipedia on fair use and comics that might be of interest to our discussion.
Sounds like a good plan!
(And for the record, here's a sample comic I did based on TWG's proposal.)
Well, I didnt intend to make it seem like they should provide Comixepdia with only original art. Just them having the watermark on whatever they wanted to hotlink (their decision after all) would be to indicate that they have agreed to their images being used.
Anyone can hotlink an image with out the site owner knowing about it, after all.
I'm fine with being hotlinked in the wiki. Really, any of these approaches is fine for me.
As I understand it, the issue here is protecting the wiki from copyright violation. As such, I don't object to uploading my images to comixpedia.com first, slapping a comixpedia logo on the image, whatever's going to protect the wiki. Covering your arse is a wise, wise policy.
I think William G's idea is pretty clever though. Nobody's going to put an image on their site with comixpedia branding unless they expect to have it hotlinked, and because it's hotlinked, you can tell it's from the creator's website and that permission has been given to use the image.
Brilliant thought.
What about images for the project itself? For example, comixpedia.org logo and comixpedia.org related items. It not a comic from some creator. It was images to be used for the project and under our license. They may be little picture illustrutating how to write article, little award images, among other things.
Variation on TWG idea
[quote:88c7f891b5="spargs"]I'm fine with being hotlinked in the wiki. Really, any of these approaches is fine for me.
As I understand it, the issue here is protecting the wiki from copyright violation. As such, I don't object to uploading my images to comixpedia.com first, slapping a comixpedia logo on the image, whatever's going to protect the wiki. Covering your arse is a wise, wise policy.
I think William G's idea is pretty clever though. Nobody's going to put an image on their site with comixpedia branding unless they expect to have it hotlinked, and because it's hotlinked, you can tell it's from the creator's website and that permission has been given to use the image.
I see the point better now but how many people are going to be held up by having to slap a logo on their art? As I thought about this another way to do this is to say that images must be hotlinked from a particular subdirectory on the artist's site - say "/comixpedia/" - anything not from such a subdirectory would be immediately suspect.
It serves the same purpose - it's hard to imagine that the subdirectory would exist other than for this purpose.