Wikipedia:VRT noticeboard/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Permission

I'm having a difficult time finding the ticket that matches Talk:Alpha Psi Omega. The page may need deleted if I can't find the permission. NonvocalScream (talk) 20:15, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The person that I talked to months ago indicated that they would do so, but apparently they didn't. I've deleted the sections of the Alpha Psi Omega page that appear to be direct copies from the website.Naraht (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Where is the website... just for my knowing, I would like to compare as well. Thanks, NonvocalScream (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Health-EU portal

User:Parizellina says they have confirmed permission for text from http://ec.europa.eu/health-eu/about_en.htm for this article quoting OTRS ticket 2011062210004646, but there's no confirmation from an OTRS volunteer on the talk page - please could this ticket be checked? January (talk) 10:11, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done it checks out, I added a note to the talk page. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Maya Moore 2009.jpg

Could somebody check if https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketID=4625120 gives permission for this file's licensing? It's the same ticket used for File:Kalana Greene Senior Day.JPG, which appears to have been confirmed by an OTRS volunteer. See also User talk:Drilnoth#File:Maya Moore 2009.jpg. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T/C) 23:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

No, that ticket and associated email just gives the permission for the one file already referencing it. Jclemens (talk) 06:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Is this an accurate representation of the ticket? –Drilnoth (T/C) 14:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That specific ticket only covers File:Kalana_Greene_Senior_Day.JPG --Errant ^(chat!) 14:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Dang you people are fast! :)

Thanks for the info. It's much appreciated. –Drilnoth (T/C) 14:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There may be more tickets from the guy; I don't have access to the permissions-commons queue (where this is located); I can view individual tickets using the direct link. But can't search for more tickets from the same address :) so someone else might be able ot locate more info. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:30, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. Jclemens (talk) 01:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Image001AmirGalOr.jpg

Could somebody please verify the OTRS permission on this image? The uploader added the tag rather than an OTRS volunteer, so I'd like to be sure that it is accurate. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T/C) 23:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done - verified. I have added a template to the file. - Taketa (talk) 10:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks! –Drilnoth (T/C) 12:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, from the same source, File:Image010 Infinity-CSVC.jpg and File:Image009InfinityLicense.jpg only have the ticket numbers added by the uploader. It's the same ticket, but just to be sure, could somebody check? Thanks. –Drilnoth (T/C) 16:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

They also fall under the ticket. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 16:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks! –Drilnoth (T/C) 16:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

File:PATH Kawasaki PA5-Infosign.jpg

Again, could somebody verify the ticket since it was added by the uploader. The history of this image makes it look suspiciously like the permission may not have been granted. Thanks, and sorry for flooding you all with requests; I'm just coming across a bunch while trying to empty Category:Wikipedia license migration needs review. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:16, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• yes its not correctly licensed. The release hasn't been accepted. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you! –Drilnoth (T/C) 20:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

vicrailstations.com images

Can someone take a look at OTRS:2006052710002454? a user has stated this is a false ticket for images from this site, and wants to delete 100+ of them. Can an OTRS agent take a look and see if this ticket is "false" or not before any action is taken? Thanks, ^Avic_ennasis @ 20:51, 8 Av 5771 / 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The ticket isn't "false", but the declaration is very vague—it doesn't say if the copyright holder is releasing the one image discussed as an example or the whole lot. One could also question whether he really knew what the release meant. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I looked into this a bit earlier this afternoon and came to the same conclusion that HJ did, and I`d personally rather see another email from the copyright holder, and the photo is not the same uploader as one other file that the owner actually uploaded. -- DQ (t) (e) 21:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

So, with that being the case, is it best to proceed with tagging/deleting these images, or should someone reach out to the copyright holder to clarify? Or something else? ^Avic_ennasis @ 14:04, 9 Av 5771 / 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Request at WP:REFUND

File:SarfarazNiazibokehexample.jpg was restored after a request at WP:REFUND quoting ticket 2011081910011426, please could the appropriate confirmation be added if all is in order? January (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

All appears to be in order, so I've marked it {{PermissionOTRS}}. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Request verification Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica

It has been claimed on the talk page that the text of Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica, which was copied from various subpages of http://www.unem.edu/ including [1] has been licensed by OTRS ticket 2011083110000094. I would like to request verification. Monty₈₄₅ 13:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Speaking purely about copyright, the text is usable under the CC-By-SA license and the GFDL according to that ticket. I've annotated the talk page with the proper template. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Verification for uploads from User:LaZingo

LaZingo (talk · contribs) has uploaded multiple images of copyrighted modern artworks, with an OTRS note (ticket 2010110310005502). Apparently they were previously uploaded on it-wiki. They all have contradictory licensing statements (CC-BY-SA but also CC-BY-NC-ND). Can somebody verify please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Delete the images. That OTRS ticket is worthless. They sent an email to OTRS, but it was just an "I grant Wikipedia the right to sue them" type of email (it's in Italian, so I'm relying on Google translate). The agent quite rightly asked for a more specific declaration, but one was never provided. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Confirming that text copied from other websites has been released under a compatible free license

Since such requests go through OTRS, the volunteers might be interested in this discussion at WP:REFUND. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Confirm OTRS ticket for suspect file

Wngland (talk · contribs) has uploaded this file to Commons. Wngland's previous edits were to blank the image from the Jodie Moore article and add unsourced info about her personal life. I'm asking that you confirm that there is in fact an OTRS ticket from Wngland filed and that the image is really theirs to upload. Dismas|^(talk) 04:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

An email was sent, but it didn't contain any statement about copyright (or anything much, really). Courcelles noted this on the description page and requested more information. If they don't provide sufficient information after a reasonable amount of time, it'll be deleted. I'd recommend against using it in the article until and unless the permission has been confirmed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the addition of the image shortly after it was added due to the fact that the old image shows her face more clearly and is therefore better for identification. Dismas|^(talk) 02:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

On articles being restored at WP:REFUND per OTRS clearance being redeleted

I've started a discussion at WT:REFUND on the issue of articles being restored per OTRS clearance getting redeleted per CSD G11 or another speedy criterion. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

File:ASW Cornell Gradation 1954.jpg

Could someone verify the licensing status of File:ASW Cornell Gradation 1954.jpg? It is currently tagged with both {{PD-author}} and {{self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0}}. However, this combination of tags is contradictory—if it's been released into the public domain, then licenses like GFDL and CC don't make sense. So what does the OTRS ticket actually say? The GFDL and CC tags were added by an OTRS volunteer, so I'm guessing the PD tag is not supported by the OTRS ticket. Is that true? —Bkell (talk) 21:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The license specified in the OTRS ticket is CC-By-SA 3.0, which I guess would make the PD-author license invalid. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the GFDL and PD tags from the image description page. —Bkell (talk) 22:33, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

File:FlotinSiemReap.jpg

Could someone verify the licensing status of File:FlotinSiemReap.jpg? The description says, "The creator has granted permission for use in the wikimedia project," but Wikimedia-only permission is not free enough for Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission). —Bkell (talk) 14:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

It's legit. The license is CC-By-SA 3.0; the permission bit just means that they are happy for us to use it, not that they don;t want anyone else using it, if that makes sense. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

SAP_AG

The SAP AG page contains two references to the name:

... SAP was founded in June 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("Systems Applications & Products in Data Processing")[3] by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther).[3] ... The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing"). ...

The first of these is clearly at odds with the citation (listed as [3] above):

... 1972 Foundation: Five former IBM employees start a company they call SAP Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis and Program Development"). ... 1976 Legal transition: The limited-liability company SAP GmbH Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing") is founded as a sales and support subsidiary. Five years later, the private partnership is dissolved and its rights are passed on to SAP GmbH. ...

The history shows people keep fixing the translation only to have it backed out (presumably by people who haven't visited the citation and discovered that SAP used to have a different name). Is there any mechanism to (a) correct this; and (b) prevent people from pasting the new name back in? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.189.175.250 (talk) 15:03, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've got the wrong noticeboard. This one's for things related to OTRS; you'll probably find editors more able to answer your question at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard, which deals with issues relatying to article content and user conduct. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:05, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

DD172

Can I get some more eyes on DD172? The article has been the subject of both OTRS and Foundation contact, with regards to the accuracy and content of the second paragraph of the lead, and I need some more input on what exactly it should say. This morning, the article looked like this. I did some cleaning out of obviously unsuitable stuff using the existing sources, and came up with this. Further contact with a representative of the subject of the article pointed out another source that corrected an initial source, and I changed the lead to where it stands now, this. However, I could really, really use some more input on how to fairly interpret the content of the sources, and how to decide what belongs and doesn't belong in the article with regard to the police/summons dispute. I've done the best I could come up with, but this needs some crowdsourcing to reach the mean. Anyone want to help? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:34, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

security through obscurity

In a subsection above I wrote that I looked for the manual or guide that describes how OTRS team members conduct their duties -- and I wasn't about to find one.

The RISKS digest has had many discussions of a meme the security experts there mockingly call "security through obscurity". They assert that security should rely on procedures that are secure by design, that can survive peer review -- not through counting on keeping untested procedures secret.

Maybe I have failed in my searches, but it seems to me that the OTRS procedures are obscure. I could find no documentation as to how the OTRS team confirms the identity of an outsider. If the obscurity is by design, intended not to offer clues to vandals as to how to spoof the team, I think that would be a mistake.

I'll be frank, there have been a number of deletion discussions, mainly on the English language wikipedia, where I have been disappointed by the OTRS team. In several of those discussions some of the participants in the discussion kept repeating that the subjects of wikipedia articles had requested the deletion of those articles. But I could find no record, on the talk page, or in the discussion, of any messages that looked like they came from the subject of the article.

After participating in several of these discussion I came to the conclusion that all assertions that a real world individual had requested deletion should be ignored, unless an OTRS volunteer confirmed the bona fides of the individual making the assertion.

I'd really like to be able to trust that the OTRS procedures are robust enough to defeat being spoofed by casual vandals.

1. Is there a manual on the OTRS wiki?
2. Does it lay out procedures for how to confirm that correspondents are who they say they are?
3. In a discussion above I was surprised by the very broad scope an OTRS team member felt was their mandate. It seemed to me that they team members involved felt that Where can I learn where OTRS members are authorized to work to endorse deletion of a whole section, where it seemed to me their concerns were more in the line of ordinary editorial concerns that really could have been fully disclosed in public on the article's talk page.
4. I have heard that some OTRS team members have, in the past, accepted email from webmail IDs as sufficient confirmation that the individual sending the email was who they said they were. I really hope that the manual spells out anyone can create a webmail ID like Joe.Blow@gmail.com, and claim that they are the real world Joe Blow.

Candidly Geo Swan (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS agents are experienced editors, and we're not easily fooled. However, our work is confidential. If I handle a ticket from the subject of a BLP, OTRS policy prohibits me from telling you how I know they are who they say they are and from disclosing the contents of the email, and even if it didn't, I wouldn't disclose that kind of thing anyway. The people who email us usually do so about matters that require tact and discretion, and they need to know that their commubnication will remain private. I would add that OTRS agents do not take actions on-wiki, citing only a ticket number that is meaningless to most editors, lightly, and if they do so, there's a good (but confidential) reason for it.

If you disagree with a specific action, take it up privately with the OTRS agent in the first instance, and if you're not satisfied, email another OTRS agent you know or take it up with ArbCom and/or an OTRS admin (there's a list on Meta). OTRS agents are accountable to the OTRS admins for what they do on OTRS, and to ArbCom for OTRS-based actions they take on the english Wikipedia. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• HJ Mitchell, I completely agree that OTRS team members should remain professional, tactful, gracious, patient with outside correspondents. They should be professional and tactful with other members of the WMF community too.

  Your response above implies you thought I was asking for the kind of personal details OTRS is designed to protect to be revealed. Please understand that there is an enormous difference between saying that the general procedures OTRS team members use to confirm real world identities were made public from asking for unvieling of any particular outside correspondent's personal details.

  As to whether OTRS team members are intelligent, and thus not easily fooled, James Randi, the highly respected professional magician who helped found the committee to scientifically investigate the claims of the paranormal (CSICOP), has written that it is easier for a magician or a con-man to fool an intelligent person, because they are more imaginative. So, if the OTRS team members are not specifically informed as to how to detect and escape being played by hackers employing "social engineering" and other fraudulent techniques, then my confidence in their intelligence offers me no confidence that their native intelligence will prevent them being hoaxed. Geo Swan (talk) 16:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Geo Swan, keep in mind that there are various queues that the OTRS system deals with. The one at issue in the thread above is the Quality subqueue of info-en for emails from subjects of articles. As an aside, I'm pretty sure ArbCom is for conduct disputes, not editorial disputes. Personally, I work with permissions issues, so I'll address your questions from that perspective.

1. Not that you can read them, but info-en guide: http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Info-en_guide, permissions-en guide: http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Permissions-en-guide. (We don't necessarily know that all OTRS agents have read them.)
2. I've added heavily to the permissions-en guide and include information on verification of identities. Too often people accept statements from anonymous email addresses as you say. I require email matching to sites where content is hosted, either through listing on a contact page, ending in the same domain, or showing up in a "whois" search, for content that is clearly professional work or for content which has already been published. Jameslwoodward thanked me for this hard line.
3. Confidentiality applies to personally identifiable information. A situation in which an OTRS agent felt an email for one file being a copyright violation called for deletion of all the user's files, citing only the ticket number, but not providing any justification for it on-wiki: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Hatfield College Chapel.jpg. OTRS is not a mandate and I do not appreciate fellow agents, regardless of queue, not providing relevant information to justify actions on-wiki.
4. See #2. But yes, from doing checks on permissions tickets that have been brought up at Commons, some OTRS agents have accepted statements of permission from a free email address when they shouldn't have. I'll get people sending in permission for an image at Flickr from Gmail for instance; if I can't see the email address in the Flickr profile or see a comment made below a photo confirming the permission, it's a no-go. This is likely more difficult or impossible for those in the info-en queues to enforce, so I don't envy their positions.

– Adrignola talk 14:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• I too appreciate hearing that efforts are being made to help make sure team members know how to detect being hoaxed. I still think it were best if the manual was available for all to read. Geo Swan (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Well, I do own the copyright on my own words, so I'm free to contribute what I've contributed on the OTRS wiki elsewhere. That said, anyone who needs access to such a manual has access to the wiki it's hosted on. I don't believe there's anything sensitive in the manuals and public viewing wouldn't provide any knowledge to game the system, assuming that OTRS agents are doing proper verification (mostly applies to permissions). The main reason you don't have access to such a manual is that it doesn't really belong anywhere else. – Adrignola talk 20:27, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Is_a_year_too_long_to_wait_for_an_explanation.3F

Could an editor with access to OTRS please comment on the discussion linked in the title? Yoenit (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a tough one, since the admin who left the note on Wiki is not the admin who handled the ticket. Because OTRS sometimes puts people in delicate positions, it's not common protocol to "out" the person who handled a ticket if they do not "out" themselves. Using some examples from my own work, I've dealt with people with a history of stalking via OTRS. At that point, they could not easily have tracked me by my name, which is not exactly rare, but if they had known my username they could do things to make life very painful for me. :) I'm not saying that this is such a situation; I'm just trying to explain why (I believe) this protocol exists.

I will approach the person who handled the ticket off Wiki to give the agent the opportunity to provide feedback here publicly or in private communication with Geo Swan.

But if the agent does not choose to respond, it's important to remember that there are options. OTRS actions are not "office" actions; they are not unchallengeable. At that point, I would probably consider proceeding to step 2 of Wikipedia:OTRS#Disagreeing with a_team-related edit. I have not read the OTRS correspondence in question because I did not wish to prejudice myself before replying, but looking at the article, I myself question whether the material removed was WP:UNDUE. A clumsy word count (I'm not bothering to remove the reference numbers :)) shows that the article before removal of that content was 857 words. The section removed was 398; almost half of the article was given to this incident. Is this what this woman is notable for? In addition, I'm not sure that WP:NPF wouldn't apply...she does seem notable enough for an entry, but she still seems to be "not generally well known." If I were to take this to step 2, I would raise these issues and try to work out what, if any, coverage should be given to this incident in the BLP. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:16, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The OTRS team member who originally processed the ticket has finally sent me an email. They closed with a wish that they hoped the email answered all my questions. I am sorry to say it did not answer all my questions, far from it. Rather, the email opened additional questions for me.

First let me say that I am sure the OTRS team is generally composed of well intentioned individuals who are working hard to do an important task. Having said that I think this incident illustrates that there is great room for improvement in how team members carry out their duties.

One of the additional questions the email raised for me is which passages in the email that original OTRS team member thought couldn't be left on the article's talk page. I didn't recognize in the email any secrets, anything that couldn't have been left on the article's talk page, except, perhaps, the identity of that original OTRS team member.

I still have not had a meaningful explanation why the original OTRS team member didn't respond when the second OTRS team member drew my questions to their attention on October 26, 2010.

As I noted on Talk:Kyndra Rotunda and when I raised this on the village pump, the warning in this edit summary says "before modifying the prior edit, please see ticket:2010093010005573".

1. This really gives zero information as to what was a problem with the excised material.
2. This really gives zero information as to whether a good faith contributor could work on a different version of the excised section without risking administrator action. and, if that good faith contributor were open to doing so, how they would go about it.
3. Messages should be left on the article's talk page -- not buried in an edit summary only visible if one takes a look at the article's contribution history. Trying to discuss anything complex in an edit summary is a trigger for edit warring, as the most natural way to reply is with an "undo" so one can leave one's own reply in another edit summary -- an instant edit war. I urge all OTRS team members to never convey their warnings solely in their edit summaries.
4. Since only OTRS team members can read the OTRS ticket it is maddening to be told to read the ticket.
5. I still have not had a an explanation as to the boundaries of what the warning in this edit summary was warning what warning
6. Is it the usual procedure for one OTRS team member to leave warnings related to an OTRS ticket when another OTRS team member hasn't finished dealing with the ticket?
7. Is it the usual procedure for a second OTRS team member to start to followup on another OTRS team member's discussion, only to say they are not in a position to explain the decision?

I accept, at face value, that the original OTRS team member genuinely thinks that their email contains information that can't be discussed on wiki, while still complying with all our policies. Out of respect for their opinion that the email has to be kept secret I will not quote the letter. This means I will have to hold some of the additional questions their email opened for me.

I think I can say that their basic concern was that the excised section was too long. I have a problem with this, as it really seems to me that this concern would be an ordinary editorial concern -- one that should have been discussed on Talk:Kyndra Rotunda. I am fighting from saying something like "I don't think this is what OTRS team member should be exercising their authority." I went looking for the guide for OTRS team members. I couldn't find one. So I can't cite what the OTRS is intended for, in sufficient detail.

I will paraphrase that the letter complained most of the references were to local papers and law journals -- as if law journals somehow weren't reliable sources. I am skeptical that this negative opinion about the reliability of law journals could be defended at WP:RSN. The letter went on to say there was little to distinguish Rotunda's sexual harrassment lawsuit from any mundane sexual harrassment lawsuit. I have no experience with mundane sexual harrassment lawsuits, but let me ask if there isn't one important difference? Isn't it pretty rare to be able to find coverage of sexual harrassment lawsuits that spans eight months as we see in this table of selected references:

date	reference
2009-10-05	Ex-Clinic Director Kyndra Rotunda Sues George Mason for Sexual Harassment
2009-10-05	Ex-Professor Sues George Mason Law School for Harassment
2009-10-19	George Mason School of Law Sued for Sexual Harassment
2010-04-27	Trial Looms in Hard-Fought Law Prof Sexual Harassment Case at GMU
2010-04-28	GMU law professor faces harassment suit
2010-04-28	GMU professor seeks dismissal of woman’s suit
2010-05-18	Sex Harassment and the Truth
2010-05-24	George Mason, Law Dean Win Bench Dismissal of Rotunda Sex-Harass Suit
2010-05-24	Covington Secures Victory for George Mason University in Sexual Harassment Case
2010-05-25	(Dismissed) Lawsuit of the Day: Rotunda v. Zengerle
2010-05-25	Judge Dismisses Most of Sex Harassment Case Against George Mason Law
2010-05-25	Rotunda lawsuit dismissed, almost
2010-05-26	GMU prevails in sexual harassment case
2010-05-26	GMU sex harassment suit dismissed
2010-06-08	Rotunda Sex-Harass Suit Against George Mason Legal Clinic Exec Is Settled
2010-06-08	Update: Rotunda v. Zengerle Has Settled
2010-06-09	Settlement Reached in Suit against George Mason Law Prof
2010-06-10	George Mason Reportedly Settles Rotunda Harassment Lawsuit With No Payment of Damages

Candidly Geo Swan (talk) 08:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's see. I'll try to organize this.

• "One of the additional questions the email raised for me is which passages in the email that original OTRS team member thought couldn't be left on the article's talk page"; "I still have not had a meaningful explanation why the original OTRS team member didn't respond when the second OTRS team member drew my questions to their attention on October 26, 2010."

Those would be a questions for the original OTRS team member. :) Nobody else can answer them. If you're in communication with that OTRS member now, I would recommend asking if you wish to know.

• Issues with the language of the warning, the placement of the warning, and "an explanation as to the boundaries of what the warning in this edit summary was warning what warning"

Those would be issues/questions for the second OTRS team member. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the last, but in any case his intentions are best described by him.

• Re: usual procedure:

OTRS correspondents do not own tickets any more than editors own articles. They change hands frequently enough for this to be considered a normal procedure. In this case, it seems that OTRS agent 2 was essentially functioning as a clerk rather than taking over the ticket, which was complete, simply notifying the community that the ticket existed and should be consulted before reverting the edit. This would probably be why, in this case, OTRS agent 2 did not feel that he could speak for the other agent. The good news here is that, now that we have an OTRS noticeboard, these issues can be more easily researched these days.

At to the rest, I've already opined elsewhere that this is not the appropriate forum for content concerns, so I'm not going to attempt to weigh in on that here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• OTRS team member B's position seems to be that they don't have any obligation to explain what the ticket meant because they were simply implementing a decision made by OTRS team member A. OTRS team member A's position seems to be that they didn't have any obligation to explain what the ticket meant because although they made the decision on the ticket they took no actions to implement that decision on en.wiki.

  I do not consider this acceptable, and I am reluctant to discuss this via email because although both team members have now had ample opportunity to reconsider things and own up to normal human error, neither have done so. If OTRS team members are accountable to the rest of the team, then I think it would be best for the project for this incident to be discussed in the open. To whatever extent OTRS team members are responsible to the rest of the WMF community I prefer to have this discussion in the open, so the wider WMF community can see how well the OTRS procedures work; do OTRS team members who err have other team members help them see where they erred?

  I will repeat that I didn't see anything in the email from team member A that breached the privacy of the complainant and that couldn't be recorded on the article's talk page, or in other on-wiki fora. Although I don't see anything that requires protection I won't quote team member A's email on-wiki.

  I am very sorry to say one interpretation of team member A's decision is that they used their OTRS authority to step in and take sides in a content matter in a non-neutral manner, when their concern could have and should have been discussed on the article's talk page. Geo Swan (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the questions you are asking are questions related to the mindset and the thoughts of the agents involved. Not only do we not know what they were thinking, but we don't have access to your correspondence with them and we don't know what they've said to you or if you are interpreting their positions as they would. Only one person in this world will ever be tell you with any authority "which passages in the email that original OTRS team member thought...." That said, when you write this, it raises some confusion for me:

I am very sorry to say one interpretation of team member A's decision is that they used their OTRS authority to step in and take sides in a content matter in a non-neutral manner, when their concern could have and should have been discussed on the article's talk page.

How can they be perceived as having stepped in to take sides on a content matter in a non-neutral manner when they have never edited or interacted with the content at all? Staying away and saying nothing seems to be the very antithesis of stepping in and taking sides. :/ So far as I know, the first this agent has ever heard that the content removal (done by somebody else) was subsequently disputed is in the email I sent two days ago.

What I know here is that we have one OTRS team member who notified the community of the existence of a ticket and asked that it be checked before content was restored. Since he did not handle the ticket, he deferred question about it to the agent. I do not know if the other OTRS team member ever received his private correspondence; it certainly seems the other OTRS team member followed up with you with all due swiftness after receiving my private correspondence. Emails do get lost. I understand that you have been waiting quite some time, but in the absence of evidence that you have been deliberately ignored, at this point WP:AGF still applies. We do not leap to "one interpretation" that suggests a misuse of authority without more evidence, particularly not when that interpretation is based on somebody stepping in and taking sides on an article they've never edited. :)

If you want to ask if the communication system in this case worked well, I'll say that clearly it did not. And I'll repeat that one of the purposes of this board is to help avoid issues such as this. In other words, we recognize that communication issues happen and have already created a board to address them.

Moving on, now that you are in communication with the OTRS agent, if you disagree with the decision, you are free to follow the processes in policy. This would not, however, be the best place to iron out the content question. You will only confuse matters by bringing it in. This is not a content dispute noticeboard. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• I've been told this is not the forum for discussing the content issues behind the OTRS request. I have also been asked why I say the OTRS team members who processed this ticket gave the unfortunate appearance that they made a non-neutral decision to take sides in a disagreement over content issues. I explained here. Geo Swan (talk) 17:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

• One OTRS team member processed this ticket. I'm afraid that your note continues to leave me mystified how a person can give the appearance of making a non-neutral decision to take sides by not making an appearance or taking sides. :/ But good luck with the content discussion. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

• Earlier I wrote: "both team members have now had ample opportunity to reconsider things and own up to normal human error". The way I see it the second OTRS team member shouldn't have left the cryptic warning unless he or she too was satisfied with the first OTRS team member's reasoning. The way I see it the seocnd OTRS team member should not have left a warning they could not explain.
• I am going to repeat that I strongly suspect there has been nothing sent to the OTRS team which couldn't have been written on the article's talk page.
• How did the OTRS team members give the appearance of a lapse of neutrality and give the appearance of siding with one side of a disagreement. Well, I explained this in more detail back on the talk page. I think the decision makers had an obligation to look at the article's recent revision history. The version the decision makers locked down was a version the complainant had violated WP:3RR over the course of eleven minutes. Prior to trying to excise the section on the sexual harrassment suit the complainant tried to replace the existing version with a sanitized version, which I think many contributors, or most contributors, would agree did not comply with WP:NPOV. What the contribution history shows is that the complainant was prepared to have the sexual harrassment lawsuit covered, so long as they could control the wording. It was only when they got pushback over the neutrality of their version that they wanted coverage of the lawsuit excised.
• By locking down the prefered version of someone unwilling, unable, or unaware of their obligation to explain themselves the decisionmakers gave the appearance of lapsing from neutrality and picking sides.
• Please see Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2011 September 28#Jeffrey H. Norwitz and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey H. Norwitz. A recent deletion review and following procedural {{afd}}. I think the discussions there show the wider WMF community does not want notable individuals to try to control how they are covered here, so long as that coverage is neutrally written and is well referenced.
• I am going to be repetetive. I strongly suspect that there is nothing on this ticket which couldn't be written on the talk page. Geo Swan (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Herbert Mataré

Hi, I don't get a response on WP:BLPN (see section Herbert Mataré) so I ask here for the OTRS part.

According to User:Wikinaut (talk) Herbert Mataré died on September 2. I did not find any reference yet, but he has send a copy of the death card to OTRS: "Dem Support-Team liegt unter Ticket:2011092210019198 ein Scan der Todesanzeige vor".

• Can you confirm the content?
• Is WP:BLPN the correct noticeboard to check if an OTRS ticket is accepted as reference to change the status of a BLP article to non-living?

Kind Regards, SchreyP ^(messages) 21:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't access the ticket, so it's not in info-en. My gueess (from the language) would be that it's in info-de, so you'd need to find someone with access to those queues. If you speak any German, I'd suggest trying the German Wikipedia's admins' npticeboard (or OTRS noticeboard if they have one). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I can list this for attention on the OTRS wiki. Please let me know if you still require assistance with this. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes some help is welcome. For my information, is there just one OTRS for all WP wikis or a separate for every language? -- SchreyP ^(messages) 07:06, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

There's one OTRS system, but different agents have access to different queues, so most agents from en WP will have access to info-en (which is for tickets in English, usually relating to the English Wikipedia), but very few will have access to info-de (which is for tickets in German, mostly to do with the German Wikipedia). However, there is an OTRS wiki, which is a private wiki for coordiantion between OTRS agents, to which all agents have access. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have opened a case on this. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 16:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi thank you both for the information and help. Let's see what the case brings. -- SchreyP ^(messages) 19:03, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

No one has responded yet. I will try emailing the list when I am on a computer from which I can access my email. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 20:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Thanks KillerChihuahua. I already thought this was "dying silently". -- SchreyP ^(messages) 21:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

email sent. I emailed the en list; my German is non-existent, but I am sure there are OTRS personnel who speak German and handle the German tickets who subscribe to the en list. If I'm wrong, then I'll try the de mailing list and hope someone there doesn't circular file my email due to it being in English. Hopefully this will gain a result, though. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 12:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I've identified the agent who handled the ticket and asked him to stop by here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not the agent who handled the case, but I can answer the question nevertheless. Yes, the ticket is in info-de, the german language queue. The PDF we got sent contains the scan of the death notice. It contains the birthdate (22.09.1912), and the day of death (02.09.2011), plus a list of people mourning the deceased. Unfortunately it's not mentioned where this death notice was posted, but it looks credible. --Guandalug (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey Moonriddengirl, thanks to be so kind of stepping into; and Guandalug thank you for answering the question :)

In the mean time I have seen that administrator Canadian Paul ^(talk) has changed category "Living people" to "2011 deaths", so I suppose that the OTRS ticket is valid as reference for now. I guess that soon a public obituary article will appear, that can replace this reference.

Case is resolved for me. Thank you all who was involved. -- SchreyP ^(messages) 20:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Text permission for one or two articles

Permission to use text from an online document is posted at Talk:Paul Shoup, ticket 2011100610000127. The document is being used with attribution (and copied verbatim at some points, if I remember rightly) at Paul Shoup House; could someone please check the ticket and then move it over to the house's talk page? I ask because I'd appreciate knowing whether (1) all of the online document is cc-by-sa-3.0, or (2) if only part of the document is cc-by-sa-3.0, and I think it might help if we had a comment about that at the house's talk page. Nyttend (talk) 02:24, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I copied the tag over to the other page. The content in the application (linked from the template) supplied by Garavaglia Architecture (pretty much the entire application) is covered by the release as a work for hire. – Adrignola talk 03:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Samadhi_Community_Development_Foundation

Resolved

 – by Adrignola

Primary editor of this article has claimed the permission grant was made to permissions-en at the talk page. Please review and remove the copyright block tag if it's appropriate. No judgement on COI aspects of the author being involved with the organization. Hasteur (talk) 20:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

OTRS pending - how long?

I've noticed several images with "OTRS pending" that have been there for quite some time (I've seen 3 months) - clearly I think that someone is pulling a fast one. Is there a defined time limit that one should apply before deletion?  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:51, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe standard practice is about a month (at least on Commons). If OTRS confirmation is still pending after that long, you can feel safe in deleting it. If the person who added the {{OTRS pending}} tag complains, point them here, get them to (re-)send the email, or find out the address they emailed from and pass it on to an OTRS agent so they can search for it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. One month is fine with me. Now where's that delete button... ;-)  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

File:River_Alexander.jpg

I uploaded this file on July 28th. Shortly thereafter confirmation was sent, and I just forwarded the original email from the owner with the file attachment as well this evening for extra clarification. A user on here has recently called the permission into question. Therefore, the location the permissions that have been sent (especially the original one sent quite a while ago and shortly after the file was uploaded) as soon as possible would be greatly appreciated to help settle this dispute. Booth088 (talk) 02:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've located your recent email. (Ticket: 2011103110000848, for other OTRS agents.) I'm afraid that there are several issues with it--the primary issue is the lack of explicit license. Secondarily, we need to verify that the email you received came from the subject and that he actually owns the copyright to the image, which was not taken by him but by Rod Goodman. I'm not 100% sure that we can accept a copyright release from an 11-year-old. :/ There are some issues with licensing releases by minors. The last one I'll have to check on. There are steps we can take with regards to the second issue once I know about the first. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 03:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for getting back to me. The email that I just forwarded came from the individual from his mother's business email account. However, there was an email sent by the individual directly to OTRS. If there is an issue with the individual sending the release (the point is regardless of age, he still owns his own copyrights) then it could be further clarified directly bu his Agent. The phone number for his agent's office is in the contact section of his website here: http://www.riveralexanderonline.com/ Booth088 (talk) 03:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

An individual who has not reached the age of majority is not permitted to enter into a legally binding contract or licensing agreement. The legal guardian or authorized legal representative needs to make any such release. – Adrignola talk 03:46, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I will ask his mother to send the permission. Hopefully she will get to that as soon as possible. However, even if the file is deleted in the mean time, that practice is that if permission is received then the file will be undeleted. Am I correct? Booth088 (talk) 03:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

At any point that usable permission is received, the file can be undeleted (if it is deleted first), but it would be best to lay out all our issues for his mother at one time to avoid having to go back repeatedly to get everything right. Even if the subject were an adult, we would not have been able to use his permission, as it does not assert copyright ownership and it does not assert a license. We generally recommend that copyright owners use the form at Wikipedia:Declaration of consent for all enquiries. It isn't a given that he owns copyright, although it is plausible. Copyright in a photograph is owned by the photographer unless it is legally transferred. See [2]:

Ownership of a “copy” of a photograph – the tangible embodiment of the “work” – is distinct from the “work” itself – the intangible intellectual property. The owner of the “work” is generally the photographer or, in certain situations, the employer of the photographer. Even if a person hires a photographer to take pictures of a wedding, for example, the photographer will own the copyright in the photographs unless the copyright in the photographs is transferred, in writing and signed by the copyright owner, to another person. The subject of the photograph generally has nothing to do with the ownership of the copyright in the photograph.

The photographer who took this image is evidently Rod Goodman, [3]. It would be awfully nice if Mr. Goodman had something on his website about license, but he doesn't, beyond the standard disclaimer that "No images may be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from the photographer." This doesn't mean that he did not transfer copyright of the photograph to River Alexander, but it does add yet another complication to the situation. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have forwarded the email I received to Mr. Alexander's mother. I have also went ahead and contacted Mr. Goodman to see if I can get in writing confirmation of the release. With headshots, it is a given that permission was released due to the nature of the use and need for reproduction; however, I do understand that Wikipedia needs an explicit paper trail to cover all the legal ends of the situation. I hope that we can get this resolved in a timely fashion. Booth088 (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It is not necessarily a given that the photographer is releasing the content for both commercial reuse and modification, both of which are required for content to be used here. It's good to contact Mr. Goodman as well, so we hopefully will cover all bases. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I just spoke with the photographer. Apparently Mr. Alexander and his mother made an honest mistake when this file was given to me. The believed they had the right to when they indeed did not. So I promised the photographer that I would request it's deletion as soon as possible. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Booth088 (talk • contribs) 03:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for following up with the photographer. It's not an uncommon misunderstanding. It's too bad, though. :/ I've deleted the image. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

User:Sophievogt

User:Sophievogt has uploaded a large number of artworks by Jeff Wassmann and Mary Schepisi. It seems like she has permission to do so, and several months ago she said she'd send an email verifying this,[4] but no OTRS tags have been added to her uploads. Could someone check and see where this stands? Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:53, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I find the search engine a bit wonky, but I've done a search beginning with March 18 2011 when she says she will send the declaration for Mary Schepisi and found nothing. I haven't found anything for Schepisi (by itself), Jeff Wassmann or Sophevogt/Sophie Vogt, either. No sign of contact that I can find. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

File:F0149Forbes 1.jpg

There's a note on the file that refers to an OTRS ticket. If it's correct could someone format it in the normal OTRS template?  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The ticket is not in the permissions queue so i can not see it, but the user adding that note is an OTRS member. I have sent them an email asking them about this. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 03:11, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The ticket was in the vandalism queue and is valid. I have made the appropriate modifications to the page. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 07:10, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not convinced it is valid. The most obvious concern is that no license was specified, and the client didn't state that they were the copyright holder, just that they have rights to sue the image. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:35, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

If it makes any difference - it's probably derived from http://www.qpicture.com/artist/fiona-forbes/image-fiona-forbes-236447 - best match I could find, and it overlays perfectly in photoshop, if you zoom up the WP image 189%.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 18:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not actually see the ticket. I just verified that the permission was add by an OTRS member and the email from J.smith convinced me that the permission was valid. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 18:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• I have serious reservations about the OTRS ticket—including that no license was specified, and the client's words might suggest that they are not the copyright holder—so I've deleted the image. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Backlog

Could an OTRS volunteer go through Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission for over 30 days and delete/tag for deletion as appropriate? Note that any edit, even those not removing the tag, will reset the 30 days. Thanks! — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

No mention of JFK assassination on the main page today??

Somebody at Wikipedia has to make this editorial decision. How can this major modern event be left off the main page, while some minor papal schism from 1400 years ago is included?

This is not the appropriate place to question "On This Day" events. Please consider raising your objection at Wikipedia Talk:OTD Hasteur (talk) 15:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry how or who do i need to contact for wrong information posted under my name in wikipedia?

i apologize but got confused with all the links as to how to delete or who to contact this is what is posted under my name. (1st paragraph is correct but i believe you will agree this is funny but not factual and is not true) "...It should be noted that this time was and is fairly slow for international competition. It has been hypothesized that Reuss could have swam faster, but was prevented from doing so by a freak earthquake that launched thousands of sea urchins into the air as a result of a previous cataclysmic event occurring nearby in the Pacific (see: 1883 eruption of Krakatoa). Reuss, a longtime animal activist, was understandably concerned by this catastrophe and boarded a jet for Australia to provide what aid she could immediately before the semifinal of the women's 200 meter freestyle. The jet crashed at sea, killing all 96 people on board in an event that is now referred to as the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash. Because of her physical fitness and swimming skills, Ruess was able to make it back to Moscow in roughly an hour and 45 minutes, shattering the English Channel crossing world record. Ruess was consequently shcoked to find out that said disaster had in fact occurred 99 years earlier, but was able to recover from her surprise and win the Men's Olympic Bobsleigh race two years before, an event that garnered significant public relations coverage and widespread approval from mainstream media. Ruess is now a consultant for AIG, who she has advised on numerous successful mortgage tranch investments..." i would assume someone playing a joke let me know thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isabel reuss (talk • contribs) 17:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

• The article in question was Isabel Reuss. Undoubtedly this was a hoax and nowhere near appropriate for a Biography of a Living Person. Please accept our apologies for letting this slide. It was inserted in one big block yesterday by an IP address editor that has been warned previously about vandalism. I have taken it out because it was an unreferenced hoax. In the future, you should raise concerns like this at the BLP Noticeboard. Hasteur (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Files outstaying their welcome?

There is a small but growing list of files at Category:Wikipedia files with unconfirmed permission received by OTRS, how long should we leave these alone, before requesting some action? I'm a little worried that this could be a bit of a loophole which allows images to stay that should not be here at all. Some of these images were tagged over a year ago!  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, anything older than a month should be deleted under F11, and then restored if an OTRS agent is satisfied that the ticket (now) contains sufficient information to keep the file under the specified license. Ideally, it's best for an OTRS agent to check the ticket before deletion (I'll go through later today and see if I can clean out the category a bit), but if the uploader alter complains, point them here so someone can check the ticket. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The en queue is at 27 days, so anything older than that is probably safe. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information - I'll tag the old ones.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 20:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

39 out of 51 tagged as over one month old, some went back to May 2009. Now wait for talk page explosion... At the very least it should prompt some users back into action. The F11 tag can easily be removed if they are willing to get it sorted out.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 20:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

arndt krupp reference "arms of krupp "---WILLIAM MANCHESTER

The information re The Krupp Foundation is incorrect---as is the origin of the Arndt Krupp Inheritance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.127.143.35 (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:UN map

I came across Template:UN map, and the text of it doesn't make any sense. Which is it?

1. The image may be used without any restrictions ("Modified UN maps are to be considered in the public domain. This applies worldwide.").
2. The image may be used for any purpose, as long as it is renamed and a link to the original is provided.

I ask here in case the referenced ticket 2006090710013991 clarifies the matter. My main concern here is whether the link to the original is required or merely requested. Anomie⚔ 21:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

From the email, it looks like we can use the map to make derivatives, as long as we don't suggest in any way that the derivatives are official maps of the UN. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

So it would be correct to say "Modified versions of UNCS maps may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, or otherwise exploited in any way by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, with or without attribution, provided that the UN name and reference number does not appear on any modified version. A link to the original map is requested but not required."? (wording cribbed from Template:CopyrightedFreeUse-Link) Anomie⚔ 22:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

That would be my interpretation, certainly; "provided that the UN name and reference number does not appear on any modified version" is the important bit. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:00, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

File:Lucevela.jpg

I see that File:Lucevela.jpg got an OTRS tag at upload time. Could this tag be verified, please? Eeekster (talk) 03:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The ticket doesn't mention that particular image, but there is a suggestion that all images from a collection are public domain. I'll email the sender for clarification, so if you could hold off on any action for a few days, I'd appreciate it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:03, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Idea: OTRS feedback board

Most of the messages received and processed in the English Wikipedia's OTRS queues are things that don't affect life on-wiki outside their own individual scope: errors that need fixing, "why was my article deleted?", complaints about perennial topics... but some of them are different. Some of them are thank you notes to "Wikipedia's editors", some are articulate complaints of systemic bias, and some are written as if we had, and published, letters to the editor.

Would anyone be interested in an "OTRS feedback" board, where OTRS agents would cherry pick interesting messages of interest to the project as a whole, remove identifying information, and post them for the community to see and discuss among ourselves? I've asked OTRS administrators if this would be acceptable, so they might put the kibosh on this from their end, but I think it appropriate to ask the community in parallel... is this something we'd like to see? Jclemens (talk) 04:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Not to comment on the merits, but would the legal/WMF policy issues across umpteen different jurisdictions not make this rather tricky to pull off? Skomorokh 04:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It is a good idea, and I'm all for transparency. However, even with all the PII and surrounding information, I can't find the real value in this one. Correspondents email us with confidence that we will not repost those messages, most especially to discuss in a round table style. I don't object to OTRS agents taking suggestions and reposting it to the project, if they take responsibility for those suggestions. They way it is currently suggested as above, I don't feel is workable. Respectfully, Jon@talk:~$ 06:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

OTRS receives tons of messages. The ones suitable for posting to the community are perhaps 1% of the non-spam total. Some, like the thank you messages that you currently never see, are addressed to the editor(s) of Wikipedia, giving implied permission for public circulation. At the same time, there is not currently any method to get such feedback to Wikipedians. Previously, I'd just replied to thank you notes on behalf of the community, but that feels kind of cheesy and suboptimal. Last week, I stripped the headers and signature from one thank you note, and sent it to the Functionaries email list, which is mostly limited to the Arbs, Checkusers, and Oversighters. I received multiple, universally favorable responses to my initiative. That got me thinking about this. Then, earlier tonight, I ran across a ticket where a user complains that Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movement don't mirror each other and wonders if that reflects systemic bias. On seeing that, I thought that it might be a good question to pass on to the community: it was an articulately worded criticism, one that I wasn't going to try and respond to since I don't have any familiarity with either article, but one that might be worth letting the community know about and consider. Privacy concerns are paramount... but these sorts of messages, once devoid of headers and signatures, are praise or constructive feedback that I think would benefit the community.... but can't release due to the lack of a proper venue, safeguards, etc. Jclemens (talk) 07:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I support this if and only if the person sending the email clearly gives consent for the message to be posted and indicates that the person fully understands what information about them is and is not posted. Like any thing else on Wikipedia, the text of the message must be released under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 compatible license. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 19:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I could always make a reply template that says "Thanks for your message. May we anonymize it and publish it to Wikipedia under a free license so the rest of the community can see it?" or something similar... Adds a step, but definitely removes all doubt about permission to post on-wiki. Jclemens (talk) 04:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Permission to use materials of the website: sexology1.narod.ru

Wrong venue for attempting to grant permission.

Hello. Copyright holder of the HTML edition of the scientific work of the world famous sexologists: Masters,Johnson, Colodny. The textbook: "Human Sexuality". Russian version of this work (official version) is the base for the creation of this HTML edition: HUMAN SEXUALITY OF MASTERS, JOHNSON, COLODNY IN HTML. This is the compilation, which consists of the selected best chapters. The HTML edition is multi-language. Also, this version uses the xxx video materials in some chapters, for the educational purposes only. Why? Such content was used in the scientific research for good of the science and education. Sexual scenes were filmed by Masters and Johnson. Many of the different private records were lost. They needs to be restored or replaced. Only the second option is available. About copyright: I am the one of the translaters of the book to Russian language (of the official version). The publishing house Mir now is in the disrepair. Not has of competence in every sense. Till this moment people from our group of the employees got task to create the HTML version of the textbook. Now is ready. As the one of the translaters, I act currently as the rights holder. Lawfully absolutely. By me were used the tools of the CC, to get such right in the best quality of all. About spam, if was this: one time was period, when the HTML edition not was under a control. Access to the studio of this website was opened to any person, when go preparatory work mostly. Because of such openess, possible, there were unpleasant incidents. This situation was in far past. These incidents not have of any relation to my person. I am respected man who has the full control in the relation of this website currently. I give the permission to use any materials of this educational resource for all projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thanks! P.S. Copy of this permission was sent to: permissions@wikimedia.org. - 2.94.190.140 (talk) 19:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC). Observation: I believe the IP address is attempting to grant access to a version of this and therefore still under the active copyright of the US. Hasteur (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC) You wrong. Russian translation has own copyright (was got from the original). 128.68.213.171 (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC) My jurists have found alternative ways, if it will be necessary. Soon I will give the information. - 128.68.199.187 (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC). Some changes appeared on the page of the legal information (additional permissions). If this is not enough, give me know, please, by any method. Including, via: sexology1@yandex.com. Thanks! - 128.68.199.186 (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC). Amazon suggests publish this scientific work to everyone, who will declare, that he is the copyright holder of the textbook. Probably, such person or company is not exists currently. Or other option: copyright holder do not wants to fight against a progress, education and science. A copyright is not necessarily a desire to make a profit, may exist and other aspects, not related to the material interests. In the U.S. and world wide is implemented the global process to provide access to the open education for everyone. Reputation of people, related to a science and education, can be discredited, if they become submit claims of the material nature. Such people understand it better of others. Become a simple merchant from a respected scientist, teacher and so on, this is the great shame for them. My opinion is such in the relation of this situation. - 178.66.147.82 (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC). Russian Editors: Wikipedia has it's servers based in the United States. The book is copyrighted and sold by a publisher in the United States. The (google) English translation reveals that indisputably that this is a digital reposting of a translated book (of which there is a US copyright). It is incumbent on Wikipedia to disallow such content to be posted on the EN wikipedia because it would either violate the US copyright in the context of the original book, or the copyright of the Russian version of the book (as it would be safe to assume that the Russian translation was granted under a specific copyright licence by the original publishing company). Wikipedia will not accept content of this natrue as it appears to be a copyright violation. Hasteur (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC) Countryman suggested direction of where to direct our attention. Your government spends a lot of activities related to open access to knowledge. Good idea, including. 128.68.213.69 (talk) 01:00, 5 December 2011 (UTC). Paragraph 4. I focus your attention: the international license of the CC (not local). Thanks ! - 2.94.102.22 (talk) 22:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC). Unless you have an explicit license from the original copyright holder, this is irrelevant. Translations of copyrighted works can only be performed and under specific license - and only freely licensed with the express permission of the copyright holder. Certainly if you are proposing to translate the material back to English and post it here that is nonsense... because the English version definitely is copyrighted, no matter how your derive it. You are barking up the wrong tree here, sorry. --Errant (chat!) 22:58, 8 December 2011 (UTC) To put this in the most simple terms possible: No, this material may not be used on Wikipedia. Please stop asking. Thank you. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 23:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC) It should be noted that there was very persistent set of Russian IPs (from Corbina ISP as well) [5] that was trying to push that they had the copyright privilage for the catalog works of "The Beatles". We probably want to blacklist the site. Hasteur (talk) 00:06, 9 December 2011 (UTC) See Also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive727 Topics:Rangeblocks requested and IP hopper at Wikipedia:OTRS noticeboard for more behavioral examples Hasteur (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC) You should apologize: http://my.mail.ru/community/linksruspower - 2.94.102.22 (talk) 00:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC).

File:RodolphFaneDeSalisbyGSWatson.jpg

I added a speedy delete template to this image due to incorrect licencing (painted 1928) and the copyright statement in the images Metadata. An OTRS pending template was then added and the speedy delete was removed. As it has been a week since this took place, can someone with OTRS privileges please confirm the validity/invalidity of the permission email. Thanks. memphisto 11:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It's ticket #2011112810019495 - the respondent simply says that the image is out of copyright/public domain. No comment on whether that is the case or not. I can't follow up with this one because the ticket is in the permissions-en queue (and I don't have reply access). --Errant ^(chat!) 11:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

SpiderGraph

I believe permission has been given for File:Hpqscan0002_=_The_Real_Estate_SpiderGraph_-_A_Home-Buying_Decision-Making_Aid.jpg via ticket 2011120210001086

Can the file be restored?  Chzz  ►  05:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure that is the correct name? No file has been uploaded under that name as far as I can see. --Guerillero | My Talk 06:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It was on Commons, Commons:File:Hpqscan0002 = The Real Estate SpiderGraph - A Home-Buying Decision-Making Aid.jpg - but I think possibly DeltaQuad is handling this now.  Chzz  ►  19:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing we can do about Commons files here, you'd need to ask a Commons admin. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:00, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

D'oh yes I was looking into this, i'll poke a commons admin in a few hours hopefully after I verify everything is in order. -- DQ (t) (e) 11:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Stella images

Resolved

What is going on with {{Stella image}} and {{Stella4D}}? While I understand that only 2D images are attribution and that 3D images are not allowed, why is this template transcluding OTRS pending on every image that uses this template? — Train2104 (talk • contribs) 14:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

{{Stella image}}was created by User:Anomie with the comment that it followed discussion - so I expect he could shed light on it :) From initial look it doesn't seem to be needed, but there could well be a reason. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Anomie contacted. Also, I realized {[tl|Stella4D}} merely transcludes {{Stella image}}, so only one template is problematic. — Train2104 (talk • contribs) 16:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I forwarded the email conversation to OTRS (permissions-en@wikimedia.org and permissions-commons@wikimedia.org) on November 28 with the subject line "Permission for use of images created by Stella, and for two screenshots of Stella.". How long does OTRS usually take to process such things?

The reason was just so that record of the email conversation exists for future reference. Apparently there had been email conversations in the past between Robert Webb and other users, but since there was no record I had to email him myself to clarify the ambiguity in {{Stella4D}} applying both {{attribution}} and {{CC-BY-SA-3.0}}. Anomie⚔ 17:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Bare with me, I'll see if I can dig it out. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• All sorted, and the appropriate tags have been put in the appropriate places. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Hafiz's Mausoleum.jpg

Does the permission for this image also cover non-Wikipedia uses? The file page is unclear. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

As is the OTRS ticket, I'm afraid. The ticket gives "GFDL" permission for four images, and then discusses this file as an afterthought, as near as I can tell. Jclemens (talk) 05:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Pooch Café

An editor has taged a section of this article as a copypaste of http://poochcafe.com/?page_id=16 , which both it, and other section of the article, appear to be. According to the talk page we do, however, have permission to use the images in the article as this was apparently given in Ticket#: 2008103110012065. Given that the text was added by the same user as uploaded the images it seems likely to me that the release may also have included the text, especially given the discussion on the user's talk page. Could some one check the ticket and see if it released the text as well and if so undertake the appropiate actions (the original ticket handler is no longer active). If the ticket doesn't release the text I'll list at WP:CP and see if we can get permission. Dpmuk (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The images are explicitly licensed, but nothing else is. While the author said that the user had his permission to update the article, he doesn't specifically clear text. I will write to the author to see if he will clear the text as well. Meanwhile, can you go ahead and blank the relevant sections pending permission? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:54, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Now listed at WP:CP. Dpmuk (talk) 19:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Permissions question

I would like to use one or more of the images listed here: 1, 2, 3, and 4 for the Hurricane Debra (1959) article, which is currently in one of my user sandboxes. It requests that I contact hpl.archivescityofhouston.net though admittedly I am not confident in this matter; can someone else contact them requesting permission to use the images/upload them to the English Wikipedia? Thanks, HurricaneFan25 — 16:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Simply obtaining permission isn't enough. Youd need to get them to release it under a free license (I.e. remove the current restrictions) --Errant ^(chat!) 17:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

The other thing to consider is that if these images were first published in the US before 1963 (which seems likely) without a copyright notice, or with a copyright notice that wasn't renewed, then they are now PD. I'd suggest a reading of WP:PD#When does copyright expire? may be useful. I'm not too sure how you'd go about proving this if it is the case. A post at WP:MCQ may get the help of the right people. Dpmuk (talk) 18:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Permission use the database for all projects of the Wikimedia Foundation

I have right to give such permission: Freebase. Original to: permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Thanks! - John Take (talk) 22:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC).

Permissions verification

Does ticket #2011022810016611 also cover the other untagged contributions by user:Rodion88?[6] Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The only picture covered in that ticket is File:StephaneRolland.jpg. It's possible and even likely that permission *can* be provided for the others. Want me to follow up and ask? (Not boldly doing it, in case you're already in conversation somewhere. :)) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Roger Kirby Image

File:Professor Roger Kirby.png was uploaded by Biggleswiki and taken through the OTRS system. However, the user later turned out to be involved in the recent Bell Pottinger problem, and therefore may have been misrepresentating themselves in the OTRS process. Someone may want to check to see who they claimed to be and where the they claimed the image came from, as they may or may not have been factual in who they are during that process. Miyagawa (talk) 13:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

So far as I can see, Ticket#2011080110010451 seems to be on the up-and-up. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:43, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

File:White Apple Boutique.jpg

Uploader told that he would provide "all the shit" that was required. It is a nice pic so it would be nice if there was a permission somewhere. --MGA73 (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

A text search for White Apple Boutique.jpg returns no tickets MorganKevinJ^(talk) 06:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Need the discussion that started this board

Hey, I'm writing an end of year piece for the Signpost, and I was hoping to cover the creation of this board. Could someone who remembers it better link me to the proposal that lead to this board's creation? Thanks in advance, Sven Manguard Wha? 00:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Sven. :) Right here: [7]. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Confirmation of copyright permission

I sent copyright permissions via email for this images:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2D_neuronal_map.jpg
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack-Starr.jpg
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crimson-Glory-2011-05-02-n01.jpg

A quick search for that URLs in the OTRS system and you will find my emails. (This is not to rush you guys. Just to be sure that the emails arrived, and avoid deletion. If you can't find one of them, ask me and I will re-send it)

Also delete this one:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DivaBlock.jpg

(After we couldn't get the copyright-permission the uploader made a free replacement)

Thanks--Neo139 (talk) 21:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Emails have been revived for all of the above images and have yet to be processed:

ticket # 2011121110009561-File:2D_neuronal_map.jpg

ticket # 2011122710015293-File:Jack-Starr.jpg

ticket # 2012010110011372-File:Crimson-Glory-2011-05-02-n01.jpg

MorganKevinJ^(talk) 01:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Ely toponymy

Resolved

 – OTRS responded within 3.5 hrs. Brilliant! --Senra (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I have been given email permission by an authority on toponymy to use text created specifically for an article I am working on. I have modified the text in my draft space, intending to incorporate the text into the Ely article. Before I do, I wish to email you the full text of our discussions, including my drawing the authority's attention to the Wikipedia terms of use and the authority's subsequent explicit donation and acceptance of those terms. As far as I am aware, the text being donated has not been previously published --Senra (talk) 15:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

For completeness, I have just come off IRC where I was asking if an edit summary (this one) could be changed as I had inadvertently typed AB instead of KB. They told me OTRS would sort that out, including whether or not I need permission anyway for this entire enquiry. Please take note that KB is not the Keith Bailey referenced in my draft space. This caused confusion at IRC --Senra (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this noticeboard is mostly for inquiries about existing tickets (emails). To verify that the text is available under a license acceptable for Wikipedia, you'll need to forward the emails to permissions-enwikimedia.org and someone there will sort it out (bear in mind there could be quite a wait, depending on the size of the backlog). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for using the wrong noticeboard. Nevertheless, thank you for directing me to the correct procedure. I emailed OTRS via permissions-enwikimedia.org yesterday and they responded by email and by flagging the article within 3 hrs 11 minutes. A brilliant service! --Senra (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Official notice: materials, related to The Beatles, can be used via interactivity.

No. Beatles1.ru is never going to be accepted. Hasteur (talk) 05:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Introduction. I got message, which lower, yesterday. Re: [Ticket#2011111310001478] Permission of the copyright holder to use materials related to The Beatles От кого: Permissions <permissions@wikimedia.org> Кому: Evgeniy <beatles80@yandex.com> Когда: 12 января 2012 в 00:34 Dear Evgeniy, Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message. 11/13/2011 05:42 - Evgeniy wrote: Here is located my permission from 13 November 2011. Permission was sanctioned by OTRS. I'm afraid I've been unable to find which of our articles you are writing about. Wikipedia has over three million articles, many on very similar topics, and it is sometimes difficult to know which one of them someone is referring to. Could you please give us the exact name of the article that you wish to draw our attention to? The article name is given in large, bold characters just above the words "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Alternatively, you could give us the exact URL of the page. The URL is the web address, which most web browsers show in a long bar above the page display and below the browser menu. Thank you for your help on this, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience .... And so on. I give reply now: Wikimedia Foundation can use any materials of THE BEATLES DATABASE by any way and in any of articles, which related to The Beatles. The derivative work was created lawfully and now is in the public domain. All creative works, which located there, must be used only in the context of the adaptation, to be in accordance with diffrent laws. Only for implementation of the global purposes (can see after clicking link). Only via interactivity, which relates to: Wikimedia Foundation and all of projects (including, any users: contributers and visitors), to Creative Commons (heart of all system) and to Yandex (big number of codes HTML is there located). Important: all content was generated on the website and then was uploaded on Yandex video service. This is the official invitation, to give access to online multimedia on legal grounds, providing interactivity. Any user of Wikipedia, by default becomes member of this interactivity, when click to link from the website. All multimedia at the website belongs only to THE BEATLES DATABASE as new material with new title (addition: "educational version" - by default). Date of creation of any content of website, is the day of appearence of THE BEATLES DATABASE (can update in any moment). The most important: exists The Beatles (to make pockets of some companies more bigger because of money), and exists THE BEATLES DATABASE, to implement international conventions on cultural diversity, education, research (of creativity) and charity. This is not the same, including, because purposes and tasks are very different. This is official legal act, my signatures: beatles80@yandex.com and 176.15.141.192 (talk) 05:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC). No: The site that is trying to be introduced is beatles1.ru. A previous discussion came down to the determination that the site was never going to be acceptable for usage in Wikipedia. Hasteur (talk) 05:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC) Not truth. Click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:OTRS_noticeboard&diff=459716467&oldid=459697585 and read this text: Permission to use materials related to The Beatles Ticket:2011110810018756; got it, thanks. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC) Yes, later in the thread HJ Mitchell and several other administrators tell you that it's not appropriate. Hasteur (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mobile Payments in India

An OTRS ticket has just been added to the talk page (TicketNumber=2012010910008586) confirming "permission for use of this work". However, this article has chunks of text from three separate web sources:

• https://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~gr224/PAPERS/Mobile_Financial_India.pdf
• http://www.mobeyforum.org/content/download/16699/175936/file/Mobile%2520payments%25202012_Innopay_v1.0.pdf
• http://www.ncc.org.in/download.php?f=NCC2011/1569367349.pdf

Does the ticket confirm permission to use all three of them? If not, which one(s) have permission? Note: I suspect the rest of the article also has individual sentences copypasted from other sources in addition to the three above.

- Voceditenore (talk) 06:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No. The ticket just links this revision & claims ownership. The email is from a gmail address & no further detail is provided so there is no reason to believe that they have ownership of those three articles. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

(BTW; the permissions queue has been stacked up recently - I know Sarah has been cracking through the backlog [which I lent my admin assistance to] so this was probably a slight oversight during that process. Thanks for catching it) --Errant ^(chat!) 12:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, that's a big help! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Response time

Hi, I e-mailed info-en@wikimedia.org five hours ago regarding a possible legal threat, and haven't received a response as of yet, is that normal? I wouldn't mind normally but I'm going away this weekend in 3 hours time and won't be back until Monday (UK time) so that could obviously hold up the investigation if they need more info/diffs/e-mail evidence from me. GiantSnowman 15:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, you're probably better off at ANI, or if there are privacy issues involved, emailing one of the Foundation-staffed email addresses like emergencywikimedia.org or legalwikimedia.org. That email address is manned by volunteers and there are currently 275 emails (some several months old) awaiting attention in info-en and its sub-queues. Info-en is mostly for inquiries/complaints about articles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks; I was informed to try info-en at the AfD, I'll try the legal-specific one. Thanks again, GiantSnowman 16:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Legal@ is the wrong place - that is the direct line to the legal department and they will probably put it into OTRS themselves :) having read into the situation he probably does need to be referred to OTRS as one of us can walk him through why it is not being deleted. I can't find your mail in the system though... if you email me with the address you used I can take a look. --Errant ^(chat!) 21:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I responded to the ticket from GiantSnowman this morning, unaware that the issue had been raised here. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 22:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kyndra Rotunda redux

I raised the Kyndra Rotunda ticket here about four months ago, which I saw then, still see, as an instance where our OTRS procedures didn't work properly.

The Kyndra Rotunda article was subjected to the same kind of bias that preceded this ticket. I think there are strong reasons to suspect, first, that a single individual keeps trying to introduce bias to the article; second, that the individual whose fight to bias the article also is the individual who contacted OTRS.

I initiated an SPI -- Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Allison Page. In the last paragraph of the SPI I mentioned I mentioned my frustration with the role OTRS has played in this article. Geo Swan (talk) 05:49, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Geo Swan, it was explained to you quite clearly long ago that the OTRS ticket received resulted in no action at all on the part of the editor who addressed the OTRS ticket. I will once again confirm this: I was the OTRS agent who responded to the ticket. My name appears nowhere at all in the edit history of either the article or its talk page. No changes whatsoever were made to the article by me on the basis of that OTRS ticket. The concerns that were mentioned in the OTRS ticket had already been addressed by the editorial route, which is of course the preferred method. I note that you did not raise your concerns on the talk page of the article, nor with the editor who made the changes with which you disagreed; instead, you have now (over a year later) requested a sockpuppetry investigation.

I will, however, give you my strictly editorial feedback here. While it may have been reasonable to add one or two sentences about the dispute between the subject and her former employer, prior to October 2010 almost half the article was about this dispute. The notability of this subject is centered on her professional work with the military and involving military personnel and policies. Her dispute with her former employer is not particularly notable. Thousands of people every year have similar disputes with their employers, and some of those disputes may be commented upon in newsletters and similar journals related to the specific profession, but that does not make them notable. The principle of maintaining the appropriate balance within an article and not granting undue weight to smaller issues unrelated to notability is true for all articles, and in particular for biographies of living persons. If I had coincidentally stumbled upon the article in this version, not only would I have removed most of the material about the labour dispute, I would have seriously questioned the notability of the subject in the first place. Even with considerable additional work since that time, I cannot help but think that her notability is pretty borderline, and that the article has some fairly hefty coatracks in it. Risker (talk) 16:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Ariel Agemian

Can you please tell me what website/source ticket 2011123110014795 is for? Ariel Agemian is up for G12. --Guerillero | My Talk 03:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The ticket releases the text at http://agemianpaintings.com/TheArtist.html under the CC-By-SA license, so your instincts in decining the speedy were spot on. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Status of permission sent?

I urged a new editor to arrange for permission for images desired to be used in Compact Linear Collider. Those images have been (understandably) removed, lacking licensing information. The editor informs me (on my talk page that permission has been sent, but no response received. I realize all are volunteers, but I would guess that it is normal to respond within a week, so I promised to follow-up to see if it is in progress, or if something is wrong. I understand that it would be easier to track down if I had the name of the eprson sending the request, which I will get if necessary, but perhaps noting that it came from an official at the Compact Linear Collider about a week ago will narrow it down.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The ticket in reference has been received, 2012012310005141. The correspondent has some further questions about uploading the images. I don't really work on images or permissions, so if an agent that's a Commoner could assist that'd be great. We do try to keep permissions to under 30 days for response, and the ticket is at 8 days as of writing. Keegan (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I'm the agent handling the ticket. I've sent one reply, and need to respond to their latest email. Bear with me, and I'll get it sorted as soon as I can. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Coat of Amrs of Catherine of Lancaster file error

I don't know how to, or if I can, edit this file page. The title contains an obvious typo. I'm sure Catherine had a 'Coat of Arms' but not a 'Coat of Amrs'. Can somebody change it or let me know how to do so myself, please?!

Is this the appropriate place to highlight an error such as this or is there a better way to do so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weirdunclebob (talk • contribs) 09:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done For future reference, you can add {{Rename media|new name.jpg|reason for name change}} to the file description page to have it renamed. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 17:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation for File:ChristianKeiber Celebrity Image.jpg

I'd like to request a confirmation for the OTRS ticket on File:ChristianKeiber Celebrity Image.jpg. The EXIF states that the author is "Jason Kirk/Dailyceleb.com [redacted]." Can we get confirmation that User:Jsantandrea has the authority to make a release on behalf of that professional photographer? The uploader stated that "I know Christian Keiber and he gave me his head shot to post...He owns the headshot and it is not necessary to credit the photographer." Sounds suspicious to me.--GrapedApe (talk) 13:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

There is an email in the ticket from the subject but not from the photographer. The image could be work for hire in that case the subject would own all the right to the photo. I will send an email to the subject asking them about this. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 02:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Note that the uploader has a history of uploading copyvios/celeb cruft for Christian Keiber. If we can't get permission from Jason Kirk/Dailyceleb.com confirmed, then the image should be deleted. If the uploader claims work for hire, I would respectfully ask for evidence. WP:AGF doesn't apply here.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I received a response indicating that they currently in the process of getting permission from the photographer. On one hand, this means that they did not previously obtain permission from the photographer. On the other hand, they may get permission from the photographer. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 18:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd characterize it as the former: Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2012_January_31#File:ChristianKeiber_Celebrity_Image.jpg. If the photographer permission is confirmed, then the image could be restored. This user is constantly pushing this non-celeb.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Has there been any followup email from the uploader on this image? The PUF is still pending.--GrapedApe (talk) 14:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No, no follow up messages have been received MorganKevinJ^(talk) 17:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, guys. I missed the EXIF data (one more thing to check in future...) I was going on the data shown in the information section.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Query

The owner of some text wants to email me his confirmation that the text is licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0. Is there a boilerplate format for that kind of email? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Permission-text, IIRC. Jclemens (talk) 08:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec) You can find a template at Declaration of consent for all enquiries. In general it is better to ask the copyright holder to directly email (or copy in) the relevant wikimedia address so that an OTRS volunteer can see the headers of an original email for verification, these are normally lost if forwarded. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Science of Life Studies Logo big.jpg

A permission has been sent by SOLS247 for this logo to verify a GFDL license. However, the logo is much too simple to be eligible for copyright and is clearly a case of {{PD-textlogo}}. I have already notified the uploader but you might want to consider changing the license to public domain. De728631 (talk) 22:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it's too simple for copyright, but it's not up to OTRS to change the logo—we just process emails. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'm going to put this up at WP:Media copyright questions. De728631 (talk) 19:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Wesley A. Clark and LINC, 1962.png

This file was deleted by User:Fastily. See User talk:Fastily#File:Wesley A. Clark and LINC, 1962.png for discussion. I would like it restored, but I am afraid any WP:BOLD move on my part will be instantly reverted and I do not know what to do. David Spector (user/talk) 00:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you please provide the OTRS ticket number associated with this request? Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 01:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a OTRS issue. The image wasn't deleted for lack of permission but because it failed one of the non-free content criteria. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 03:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Sheetal Sheth Cover of CHI.jpg

I uploaded File:Sheetal Sheth Cover of CHI.jpg on 13 February 2012 (UTC) and tagged it as {{otrs pending}}. On Wed, February 15, 2012 8:37:07 AM (PST) the copyright holder emailed permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org granting the {{cc-by-3.0}} license. The email was apparently not processed, and File:Sheetal Sheth Cover of CHI.jpg was removed on 20 February 2012 by User:Fastily due to no evidence of permission. The copyright holder re-sent permission to permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org on Tue, February 21, 2012 9:29:36 AM (PST). What's the status of that file? What do I need to do to get it restored and properly approved?

Thanks in advance for your help. JBChristy (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you please provide the OTRS ticket number associated with this request? Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 01:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If the image was deleted, that would suggest the ticket hadn't been processed, so the customer wouldn't know the ticket number. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell is correct. I have no ticket number. AFAIK the email was never processed. My request is that the email granting license be located & processed so the file can be restored. The date and time of the first email are bolded if that helps you locate it. JBChristy (talk) 05:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What would be helpful is the first part of the email address it was sent from and the subject line if you know them, but permissions-en is backlogged at the minute (and permissions-commons even more so), so I can't make any promises. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for replying, HJ! I understand about backlogs, and am grateful for any help you can offer. The subject of the email was CC-by-3.0 License Granted, which I now realize is hopelessly unspecific. :/ I do not feel comfortable publishing any part of the copyright holder's email address, but if there's a way I could communicate that to you privately, I would be happy to do so. It probably doesn't help, but I was CC'ed on the email - my email address starts with JBC (same email address as is associated with my Wikipedia account, if you have access to that). Thanks again for your help!

p.s. Is there any way you could temporarily restore the file and tag it for deletion say 2 weeks from now, or whenever you think the backlog might clear? I promise that the license is properly granted, in the same way the other 8 images I uploaded were licensed. JBChristy (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I see several tickets in the photosubmissions queue that appear to be related to this query: 2012022310005783, 2012022110009989, 2012022110000086, and 2012021510009384. Hope this helps! --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, thanks so much, Jezebel'sPonyo! I hope it helps too! --JBChristy (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

 Question: Could someone help me with this please? I've done everything in accordance with Wikipedia policies and the license for this file was granted 12 days ago, and yet I can't use the image. Please help? JBChristy (talk) 10:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Yea! Thank you so much! -- JBChristy (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB)

Could an OTRS person please check TicketNumber 2012021110008071 (placed on the talk page) and verify that material from both

• http://www.themasb.org/about/masb-mission/
• http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/dominique.hanssens/Website/content/Long-Term%20PUP%202011%20-Hanssens.pdf

has now been released under a compatible free license. The article is now blanked and I don't want to restore any of the material until I know for sure that it has a compatible license. There have been past problems with the authors sending invalid permission letters, and I want to make sure they've got it right this time. Voceditenore (talk) 12:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• Answered in the affirmative by an OTRS volunteer on another talk page. Voceditenore (talk) 13:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

OTRS and non-free use

Folks, a message at the Help Desk has pointed out inconsistencies on File:Arnold Leibovit.jpg and File:PuppetoonMovie(2).jpg. The former is tagged with an OTRS template even though the permission is incompatible with Wikipedia requirements. Not quite sure what's going on with the latter - has OTRS template and a non-free use rationale. – ukexpat (talk) 13:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Read over the tickets. Unless the person who handles this ticket can clarify this, I'd say that 2012021610000014 does not contain sufficient permission, so I see no reason to keep the tickets on that page. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I also see insufficient release to these under CC-BY-SA or an equivalent. I have removed the OTRS templates. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 17:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:HelenShiller.jpg

I am not the owner but I uploaded this to en-wiki, added copyright info and requested permission. I did not get the permission myself because the owner is anonymous to me, so I asked them to send it in to wp. Recently I moved it to commons thinking the release was on file, but I got a warning that there was no evidence of the permission. I believe I've been thru the permission process. How would that be recorded? Did the permission e-mail get seperated from the image? Thanks for your help. Hugh (talk) 05:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The OTRS team received the email of uptownupdate and thus you have only to wait until the file description page gets updated (an OTRS volunteer will paste {{OTRS received}} on that page and answering your mail). The move to commons is independent of the permission. The permission (if getting accepted/granted) is still valid - also on commons. mabdul 12:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

More OTRS and non-free

See File:JoelFanAtPiano.jpg (OTRS 2011111010022817). Free licence but with a FUR. Is the free licence valid?

CC-BY 3.0 requires attribution. Who should be attributed?

It says that "permission from photo owner for use on Wikipeda has been recieved by OTRS". Is the "photo owner" the same as the copyright holder? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The licensing is valid. You should attribute the author or licensor (in this case, that'd be Joel Fan, per the image information). Cheers, — madman 01:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Will fix it. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Photo collage of Mirkwood (band)

Some time ago, I posted a photo collage of headshots of the members of Mirkwood (band) to complement the band's WP article. As you will see from the responses below, it was queried on the grounds that its copyright status was unclear and I was asked to provide the source for each headshot. I confirmed that the collage was made by me using Corel photobook from an original photograph taken on my camera at my request by a friend. As you'll also see from the comments reproduced below, I have now been recommended to contact you for further advice/assistance. I hope you will be able to help as I do not know what else I can do. I will be very grateful if you can tell me what I've done wrong and what I need to do now. Thank you.

Mainmiguel (talk) 10:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Responses received A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Mirkwood wiki photosmall.jpeg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 11:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Although you did the collage, you need to provide the source for each of the pictures therein. As the images appear to be professional headshots, you may wish to go through the WP:OTRS system to verify the (c) status. Skier Dude (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

You'd be best to deal with the WP:OTRS people given the nature of the image(s). Skier Dude (talk) 06:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Mainmiguel: All you need to do is send a declaration of consent to permissions-en@wikimedia.org so we can archive your permission for use of this work. Please let me know if you have any further questions. — madman 14:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

More non-free with OTRS

File:RichardWernick.tif is listed as non-free but has an OTRS ticket (2012022510008311). Is the file really unfree, or does the ticket specify some free licence? --Stefan2 (talk) 18:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Communication on that ticket does not specify a free license. — madman 19:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

To confirm the permission 2012021010002176

I would like to the permission for 2012021010002176. Articles for creation/St Dominic's Parish Melton

Thanks Kate

I have confirmed that permission has been received from the copyright holder to release material from source meltonstdoms.bigpondhosting.com under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. Thanks, — madman 05:09, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Toolserver runs

In light of the threads above, I'd like to get someone with a toolserver account to do two runs for me.

First, I'd like a list of all files in both Category:Items with OTRS permission confirmed and Category:All non-free media

Second, I'd like a list of all files that are in Category:Items with OTRS permission confirmed where there is not a Commons file by the same name (I did a random spot check and found that most of them had KeepLocal templates, but that dosen't mean that we can't also transfer them over to Commons). I'm asking for this because with the exception of KeepLocal tagged files, there shouldn't be any OTRS files on this project in the first place.

I'm not sure how to get a hold of people with TS accounts. The only person I know of off the top of my head, Chzz, is retired. I'll be more active during the second half of the month, and if no one comes forward here I'll chase someone down then. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I have a Toolserver account and can do this either this weekend or (more likely) next week. Cheers, — madman 21:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The results of the first query are here. Cheers, — madman 04:13, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The results of the second query are here. Cheers, — madman 05:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll handle them later this month. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:42, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Angela Gheorghiu.jpg

(Apologies in advance if this is the wrong area to ask this particular question.)
I recently contacted the PA of opera singer Angela Gheorghiu to verify that Miss Gheorghiu was the copyright holder of the image File:Angela Gheorghiu.jpg. Miss Gheorghiu's PA confirmed that she was, so inquired whether she would be willing to release the photograph through the OTRS. The response I received was that they were not very comfortable with granting anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and wanted to know if there was a less permissive licence that could be used instead. I have checked both WP:File copyright tags/Free licenses and COM:Copyright tags, but the pages weren't particularly intuitive, and I wasn't sure which (if any) of the licences listed would fit their needs. Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks very much in advance. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 13:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Non-free content details the only circumstances in which non-free content may be used. To the best of my knowledge, there is no free license that we allow that does not allow commercial use; that's the idea behind free licenses and Wikipedia:Copyrights. Thanks, — madman 13:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The image was uploaded by Madamabutterfly, who's only work on this project is in relation to Angela Gheorghiu. I'm not sure if this is her, someone doing PR for her, or a fan, however in light of this conversation, I have placed the image up for deletion because there is no evidence that proper permission was given. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Given the e-mail conversation that I have been having with Miss Gherghiu's PA, I believe that Madamabutterfly is somebody closely related to the copyright holder of the photograph. I have asked if they would be willing to release the photograph through the OTRS, but they are currently uncomfortable with granting anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise. I will e-mail again to let them know that the iamge is up for deletion and encourage them to publish it under "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" and GNU Free Documentation License, although they may prefer not to have the photograph held on Wikipedia at all. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 23:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Spanish speaker needed for photosubmission-es

Hey there. We've wrangled photosumbissions down to a reasonable response time, however of the 18 that are left, 8 are in Spanish, and some of them are really old (159, 156, 127, 104, 84, 78, 57, and 18 days). If someone could come along and knock those off, that'd be fantastic. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

There are still four pending, three of which are 120+ days old. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:19, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Translation needed (English into Spanish)

Could someone please translate http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Response:En-Photosubmission-No_article,_not_notable into Spanish for us, and then set it up on a page in the OTRS Wiki? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Bump. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:19, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Casualties of the 2011–2012 Bahraini uprising

The talk page doesn't say that a BCHR article can be used despite sending a declaration and receiving a ticket number (2012031710000511). Can someone annotate the talk page with the proper template? same applies for Prisons in Bahrain. Thanks. Mohamed CJ ^(talk) 09:46, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Their permission has not been logged; they were sent a letter asking for more information on 3/24 to which they have not yet replied. Please ask them to reply to that letter with a link to any articles that use the text. I'm afraid that they sent their permission to the wrong address - the one used for images - but if they explain that it is text they are clearing and provide urls to any articles which use that text the OTRS agent handling the ticket should be able to address the matter. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I told them to send it to the other e-mail, because on 8 March when they sent it to "permissions-en@wikimedia.org", they got no reply. Could you check that first? Mohamed CJ ^(talk) 11:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI: I have found the 8 March e-mail and have merged it into the ticket number above. — madman 14:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Good. Does this mean there is no need for them to explain that the permission is for text? Also do they need to provide all urls to any articles which use any part of the text or just those which use the text as a whole? Mohamed CJ ^(talk) 14:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not handling the ticket above, but as long as links to articles are provided it'll be understood the permission is for text, and the URLs should be to any articles which use a substantive portion of the text (anything other than brief quotations). Thanks, — madman 16:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Strange licence combination

File:Mr. Thomas Bell-Wright CEO & CTO.jpg has ticket:2012031310001562 and it says that it has been published under GFDL and CC-BY-SA and also released to the public domain. Is this correct? I'd assume that "public domain" makes GFDL and CC-BY-SA unnecessary, so the licensing section looks strange. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done I checked the licensing on the OTRS ticket and it isn't released into the public domain, it's CC-BY-SA and GFDL. I've updated the image description page accordingly. Thanks for spotting that! —Tom Morris (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Verifying attribution - Gene Polisseni Center

See also: User talk:Magog the Ogre § Gene Polisseni Center

I flagged a possibly unfree file here: Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 March 21#File:Concept Rendering Of Polisseni Center.jpg which we later obtained OTRS permission for. I am not questioning the provenance of the permission; in fact, I'm confident that RIT actually does own the copyright on this image. My concern is with the attribution listed on the image description page; the image is attributed to the Institute rather than to the outside artist who created the concept rendering. I would like to know what, specifically, the OTRS permission says about attribution and whether the original artist needs to be explicitly credited on the image description page. Thanks! Powers ^T 14:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

It states that RIT is the creator and sole copyright holder. It says nothing about any other author. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:13, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Multiple files, retired user

I have today had three files flagged up as possibly unfree, however I am the copyright holder, UK trade mark Rovington, publisher, the files flagged are:

File:Will of Elizabeth Shaw.pdf, File:Allvideo.jpg, File:15th-baron-willoughby-of-parham-shield.jpg

I uploaded all three some time ago and under creative commons share alike, CC-BY-SA, I am the copyright holder.

I am happy to answer any questions here or via email.

--pl (talk) 20:48, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

You will need to email OTRS and provide us permission. For more information, see here. Cheers, Tiptoety ^talk 08:00, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

A user sent an OTRS e-mail but the files were deleted

Resolved

See User talk:Stefan2#Permission Sent, User talk:Stefan2#Permission Not Found and User talk:Stefan2#Files Deleted. Is there some problem with the user's OTRS message? I tagged the files as {{di-no permission}} some time ago, but after that they got {{OTRS pending}} and were eventually deleted. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Generally when OTRS has been informed permissions are being emailed, the OTRS pending tag is added; that the files were deleted later would tend to indicate that the permissions email was not received. I suggest resending the permissions, working with the person who deleted the files, and re-uploading once the permissions are processed correctly. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As far as I'm aware, files tagged with {{OTRS pending}} are not exempt from deletion, as they still do lack evidence of permission. In fact, I just came across this archived discussion where it seems the rule of thumb is to allow the OTRS pending tag to sit for one month before being eligible for deletion again; Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission for over 30 days was created a result of that discussion. From the looks of it, it seems that this process is extremely unknown to most editors, including admins and probably OTRS volunteers.

The rule of thumb I used for files tagged with {{di-no permission}} was to extend the deletion date by one week if it was tagged with the OTRS pending tag. If it preferred that I remove the deletion tag and allow the file to spend at least 30 days without OTRS confirmation, I can start doing so. — ξ^xplicit 22:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

If it's this ticket then I really must be missing something here. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

An email has been received regarding the above messages and is in ticket 2012032710017038. It has not been processed yet. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 21:11, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Undeletion request created MorganKevinJ^(talk) 21:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done All files restored and tagged. Rjd0060 (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Need help with CC-licensed product photos

I've received permission from the maker of the Pebble watch to upload all of the images in this press pack as CC-BY-SA. Is there someone around that can verify for me? I haven't used OTRS before so I'm not sure of the procedure. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Permission through email that is. Is there someone manning (or womanning) an email account so they can verify the license? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I forwarded the permission email to permissions-commons, and uploaded the images to commons:category:Pebble E-Paper Watch. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Drwilliampepper#Hi Shearonink

Could someone head to User talk:Drwilliampepper#Hi Shearonink and see whether the stuff that was allegedly sent to OTRS actually arrived? Regards SoWhy 20:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Everything is there. Text and image are both now published under GNU and CC-BY-SA 3.0, with text permissions at ticket:2012032610009405 and image permissions at ticket:2012032810008573. For some reason I don't understand, I'm able to look at the tickets but not actually take any actions on them. The image should be credited to Pam Kosty, and the text to Patrick E. McGovern himself. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

File:Ryad Boudebouz.jpg

I uploaded the file mentioned in the title and sent permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org on April 6. I added the {{OTRS pending}} tag to the file so it does not get deleted while the permission process is being done, however an admin went ahead and deleted it anyway (what is the point of the tag??). I can't find a ticket number, not sure if I ever got one. The admin said I can contact OTRS and you guys can restore the file if you can find the permission. I can resend the permission letter if necessary. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 06:57, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I have found the ticket and resolved it. The file has been undeleted and tagged. The reason it was deleted was because the OTRS pending tag can't give a file an infinite pass on the site. The tag was added shortly after upload. The normal 7 day deletion time was extended another week because it was tagged as having OTRS pending. We have backlogs currently - growing ones. Perhaps we need to establish a better procedure about deleting files with OTRS tags but a lot of this kind of trouble has to do with the backlogs. Rjd0060 (talk) 18:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah fair enough .. and thanks for processing my request. TonyStarks (talk) 19:59, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I think a better procedure would be to keep files with {{OTRS pending}} until an OTRS volunteer confirms that no e-mail has been received. It makes less sense if admins try to guess the size of the backlog. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

• Permissions-commons currently has 285 pending requests. The oldest is 46 days 2 hours old.
• Permissions-en currently has 504 pending requests. Removing 5 irregularities, the oldest is 54 days 1 hour old.
• Photosubmission currently has 46 pending requests (11 in Spanish). Removing 1 irregularity, the oldest is 79 days 23 hours old (it gets down to 30 days really quick after that though).

I recommend waiting a month from the time OTRS pending is set to the time we delete a file. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:31, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we (en.wiki) would benefit to a similar procedure that Commons started a few years ago with regards to OTRS pending files. Such files, if not tagged with a ticket # in adequate time are tagged with this template and their uploader notified. If there is still no permission received 15 days after notification, the file is deleted. Much of the process is automated and it seems to work.

Issue with leaving all OTRS pending files on the site for an unlimited amount of time will lead to us hosting a lot of copyright violations. I'd imagine that most of the time we don't receive permission within 3-4 weeks after upload, we won't receive it at all. This particular case however I would say we might have acted too quickly to delete the file. - Rjd0060 (talk) 22:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm the newest OTRS volunteer, and hope to work on the backlog. Unfortunately, I'm out of town for a couple days, so cannot get started until I return and get up to speed. I'll want to run my first few by someone (I'm looking at you Sven ), but hope to be up to speed soon.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to be active at all until Friday. After that, I'm willing to help out. I recommend Mumble or IRC. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Uploads by User:Allack

Does ticket:2011050310012808 or ticket:2010061510048525 contain any general permission for User:Allack to upload images copyrighted by Niffler.co.uk? There are four such images in Special:ListFiles/Allack without OTRS, but his similar Commons files have OTRS permission. The uploader complained about my image tagging at User talk:Stefan2#Chuck's Challenge Images. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I should hope there is this is the third time I've done it over the last 2 years Allack (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

No. The former ticket is for commons:File:Chucks_Challenge_iPhone.jpg and the latter is for commons:File:ChucksChallenge.jpg. — madman 15:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

But those are both from me, why are they not link to my account? And If they are not how do I make that happen? Allack (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Stefan gave you the right guidance; you need to e-mail permissions-commons@wikimedia.org per WP:CONSENT. If you wish, you may grant permission for all files hosted at niffler.co.uk. — madman 15:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I've already done that and they are still flagged. How do I make it so Allack = Barnabas Cleave Niffler so you stop flagging the our images? Allack (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

If you tag the images with {{OTRS pending}}, other contributors will know you've sent that e-mail and are currently waiting on an OTRS volunteer to confirm permission and remove the tags. — madman 15:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

OK how do I tag the images with {{OTRS pending}}? And how do I stop having to do that by being able to always upload images? Allack (talk) 15:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

You edit the images' description pages and add {{OTRS pending}} (without the tags). Once an OTRS volunteer has confirmed permission with a {{PermissionOTRS}} tag, you should be able to use that tag on all future images you upload as long as your declaration of consent includes those images. — madman 15:46, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've tagged all four as {{OTRS pending}} now. Would it be possible to create some general permission template for files uploaded by User:Allack? --Stefan2 (talk) 15:47, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Are there enough files that it'd really be worth doing so? They can all just be tagged with {{PermissionOTRS}} and the appropriate ticket number (note that an OTRS volunteer should add the {{PermissionOTRS}} on Commons; adding the tag otherwise will trigger an edit filter, I believe). — madman 15:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

OK so why did that not happen with the last images then, as I've been using the same account for years now? Allack (talk) 15:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Because the e-mails you sent in before only covered two specific images. — madman 15:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

OK what form do I have to fill in to cover all Chuck's Challenge & Niffler stuff? Allack (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Please send the declaration of consent at WP:CONSENT to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, making it clear that it applies to all works related to Chuck's Challenge and Niffler. — madman 15:56, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I assume that is all work that is uploaded to Wiki, rather than everything we ever make? Allack (talk) 15:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Boy is this thread a mess. Alright, so the way that I would do it is this. Have an email sent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org that states that User:Allack has has the right as the [copyright holder/copyright holder's representative] to upload files to Wikimedia Commons related to [Chuck's Challenge and Niffler/whatever it is you have the right to upload], under free licenses, and that the copyright holder understands the terms and conditions associated with those licenses. What this does is that it allows you (and only you) to upload files in the future (and dosen't release anything but the files you upload). We'll give you what's called a ticket number (essentially a timestamp that allows OTRS members to find your email). If you run into trouble again, you can just point to the ticket number, and an OTRS member will be able to clear it up in seconds. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Sven Allack (talk) 17:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Using a permissions template for the first time

I just discovered {{Text release}} for the first time, and I've applied it to User talk:Raman Sonkhla/Parvaresh-Vardy codes and list decoder. Did I use it rightly? If not, please let me know, and I'll send an email to OTRS simply confirming that the source page is presently cc-by-sa-3.0 FYI, I'm not associated with the permissions process directly; I'm simply working with a user who (1) is also operating the source page, and (2) is doing his best to release the text under an acceptable license. Nyttend (talk) 03:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks good; there's a clear statement that the content has been released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 at that Web site, so an OTRS ticket should not be necessary. Thanks! — madman 04:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Elevator Files

Can someone look at the OTRS information for these files:

• File:Elevator BriemAnita.jpg
• File:Elevator BriemAnita2.jpg
• File:Elevator GetzJohn2.jpg
• File:Elevator KnightShirley2.jpg
• File:Elevator SunnyTehmina3.jpg
• File:Elevator ZuaiterWaleed.jpg

They are all part of a discussion at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2012_April_25#File:Elevator_BriemAnita.jpg

I really believe that they are all copyvios. One photo by this uploader was already CSDed: File:Elevator Ratray CU.jpg for being a copyvio. Another one is an almost duplicate of the scene here: (see 00:51 second mark). There is absolutely no way these photos were taken in any other method than being on scene during production of that movie. That being the case, I would be hesitant to believe any claim that did not include something from the production company that these are not owned by them.

Thanks in advance, -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 02:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no OTRS information on those files' description pages; there has been an OTRS ticket opened regarding their respective listings on Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files, but it is not (at least currently) a statement of permission and it will be handled by an info-en volunteer. I don't think the existence of this ticket should preclude the PUF process continuing. Thanks, — madman 04:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Permission to use materials of the project: The Beatles For Cultural Diversity

Troll protests quite unjustly about the suppresion of their rights. Yandex.ru has always been a hub for User:Ron Halls who is indef banned for repeated attempts at copyright infringement and admited trolling Hasteur (talk) 12:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia can use all materials of the project on human rights with title: The Beatles For Cultural Diversity (in strict accordance with the rules, to be free of violation of copyright). Materials can be used for the relevant articles (related to the creative work of band The Beatles). Usage of the project means, that Wikipedia supports the policy by the UN and the British Council (on legal grounds). This is the invitation to the interactivity. Permission was sent also to: permissions-en@wikimedia.org. From: [redacted]. Thank you for attention! - FreedomRome (talk) 04:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC). It really would be best if you sent this permission to permissions-en in the form of a declaration of consent so we can ensure you understand all of the implications of licensing your content under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL. Specifically, Wikipedia is only subject to the terms of those licenses and compliance with UN and British Council policies cannot be a precondition for use of the content. Thank you, — madman 04:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)  Note: The ticket number is 2012050310000631 MorganKevinJ(talk) 05:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC) In what way the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license can be compatible with "strict limitations for the good of copyright holder" in the project? Concept of the project strongly relates to such limitations (changing of the conditions creates the contradiction in the concept). Texts of the project can be copied and distribute (can be changed only form of text - not the sense). Please explain, how to be. All materials of the project can be used in the articles, which have relation to this category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Beatles (articles from the subcategories, including). In all sections of language. Also, all materials can be used in other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation (topic: The Beatles). These materials: pages with audio (328, in accordance with the rules), resources in PDF, and text (description and rules without changing of sense). Any content can be used in accordance with the rules. On the main page of the project will be displayed info, that I am the representative: http://thedatahub.org/dataset/the-beatles-for-cultural-diversity (here). Thank you! FreedomRome (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC). The very idea of the CC-BY-SA license is to not impose strict limitations. I'm not sure what you mean by permitting the language of the content to be changed but not its sense, but in any case the CC-BY-SA license allows anyone to modify the content according to their needs. It is not limited to Wikimedia projects or to a subset of same. It also is not limited to "culture, education, charity, development, research"; it grants anyone the right to use the content in a commercial product or otherwise (note that this is incompatible with the CC-BY-NC release on the Web page to which you link). In short, Wikipedia content cannot be subject to the kinds of rules to which you are referring; our purpose is to build a free encyclopedia. — madman 02:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC) No problems. Today we will send the declaration of consent. On the main page of the project already can see changing: CC-BY-SA license. Thank you! - FreedomRome (talk) 02:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC). Important addition was made several minutes ago (P.S. see). - FreedomRome (talk) 05:27, 4 May 2012 (UTC).

File:4PPTunesNEW-300x300.jpg

Is the permission for the high-resolution copy in the history or only for the current low-resolution one? --Stefan2 (talk) 13:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The declaration of consent is dated 26 April 2012, at which time the high-resolution copy was the latest, so I think you can assume that's the copy for which permission was granted. Thanks, — madman 13:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Declaration of consent (for Wikipedia): «The Beatles For Cultural Diversity»

See above dontation of Beatles content. WP cannot accept the donation. Hasteur (talk) 15:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Declaration of consent was sent from the copyright holder of this project for permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Text see below. I hereby affirm that I, John White am the creator and sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the project on human rights «The Beatles For Cultural Diversity»: http://thedatahub.org/dataset/the-beatles-for-cultural-diversity (permanent link). Copyright occur independently of registration in accordance with any copyright legislation (was made very large work in the creative and intellectual context). I agree to publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" (unported) and GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites. I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by me. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project. Copyright holder of the project «The Beatles For Cultural Diversity» (see link above): John White E-mail of copyright holder: [redacted again] Representative of the project in Wikipedia: user FreedomRome Powered by Creative Commons in MAIL.RU: http://my.mail.ru/community/linksruspower (international coalition). E-mail: [redacted] (administrator). P.S. Limitations in the project are fixed by default (any). Such limitations can be changed in conformity with a law (rule) of particular jurisdiction. 2.93.13.216 (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC) (signature of the person who made the post here simply).

File:Derek Flores actor improvisor and comedian by Sarah Andrews.jpg

Resolved

According to this note on my talk page, the permission for File:Derek Flores actor improvisor and comedian by Sarah Andrews.jpg was sent at least over a week ago, as well as a followup email on May 2, but received no response. I know there's a backlog at the moment, but is there a chance an OTRS volunteer can look for said email? — ξ^xplicit 23:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

File:LCHAIM Matisyahu.jpg

I'd like to verify that File:LCHAIM Matisyahu.jpg (ticket) was released under a CC BY 3.0 license. Since this is an advertisement for a product, I question whether Group Force Capital was fully aware of the extent of the licensing or if they simply said "it's okay to use this on Wikipedia." Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 00:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

They crossed their t's and dotted their i's on this one. It's either all good, or a very good forgery. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

File:On The Road With Ellison Volume 6 album cover.jpg

Free, unfree, multiple duplicative licence templates and OTRS permission. What is this supposed to mean? Is the OTRS permission valid? I see that the file information page never has been edited by anyone mentioned at m:OTRS/personnel. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The relevant ticket grants a GFDL license on that image, I'll update the page. --Errant ^(chat!) 21:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

A request to see the Ticket:2011080110010451.

A request to see the Ticket:2011080110010451, for a .png, uploaded by a now blocked user, to be remained unnamed for now, to see if the consent was in fact validly given. I thank you. — KC9TV 11:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I had a look and, yes, it is a valid permission from the owners of the copyright. --Errant ^(chat!) 11:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It is in fact possible that the permission might in fact had been forged. Never mind, this is a simple template:db-g11, anyway, I think. — KC9TV 13:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't seem likely to have been forged. --Errant ^(chat!) 08:38, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Gregory Scott Cummins Football.jpg

This was uploaded by paid group account Expewikiwriter. I'm a bit worried about the permissions. 86.** IP (talk) 09:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an OTRS volunteer, but Madman is, and he's the one who placed the {{PermissionOTRS}} template on the image. Nyttend (talk) 11:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't suppose the details could be double-checked? 86.** IP (talk) 13:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess we just wait for Madman or another OTRS volunteer to come along. If you'd rather go faster, why don't you leave Madman a quick note? Nyttend (talk) 13:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure! Just wasn't sure of the procedure. 86.** IP (talk) 13:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Though that ticket was handled by another volunteer (I was just fulfilling a request for an administrator to restore the file), I can verify that that request is ostensibly from the copyright holder and/or sole owner of the work, it covers that work only, and it is a proper declaration of consent for CC-BY-SA 3.0. Thanks, — madman 02:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, then. I suppose we can presume an apparent PR firm can at least get permission right. 86.** IP (talk) 04:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeh, I was flicking back through issues on this noticeboard and I am not entirely sure this checks out. Or, rather, it may check out but there are questions.. the ticket forwards a permission ostensibly from the copyright holder - but both the email and the forwarded message originate from free email server providers. And the email address of the purported copyright holder doesn't match with the one listed on their site. So.. might need further investigation. (Which I can't do by the way because I don't have permissions for that queue) --Errant ^(chat!) 11:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to e-mail me with whatever recommendations you may have (forwarding the ticket to the contact information on the Web site, perhaps)? I believe the ticket was handled appropriately at the time, but there are now salient concerns. — madman 15:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

You got mail! :) In this case it doesn't appear to have had full scrutiny, though I could have missed a validation step. I've never handled those tickets directly, just done this sort of spot checking & problem solving, so I don't know what processes permissions use exactly (I presumed there is some recommended checklist etc.). --Errant ^(chat!) 15:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Question on meaning of "Restraining orders" in WP:BLP

At Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Restraining_orders_questions I asked this question more explicitly for a second time in a related discussion:

I just don't understand what this means and it probably isn't clear to others.

Subjects who have restraining orders [discuss] may need to make special requests, which should be handled through the OTRS system.

On first reading it sounds like it means, "Subjects who have restraining orders against wikipedia for writing about them or having some specific thing in their biography..." It's not clear it means "Subjects who have restraining orders against editors who may be writing about them..." Assuming even THAT is what it means. That's why I put [discuss] on there.

One editor who doesn't know the meaning either replaced "restraining order" with "legal issues", but maybe there's some legal reason restraining order is in there. Since people are asked to come to you, it would help if it is clear why they were coming to you and it would help us with a somewhat related issue we are debating. So if anyone knows the exact meaning of that sentence, please help us clarify WP:BLP policy page. Thanks. CarolMooreDC 00:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This is now what I'm resorting to...

Please help. Much love, Sven Manguard Wha? 02:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

That's awesome, Sven! Good luck with your drive. I hope it works. I wish I could help, but my Spanish is abysmal. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not a drive as much as that there are six tickets there, and the same six tickets were there when I started with OTRS. We get a ticket every 60 days or so maybe? We just need someone. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

You should leave a note at COM:ON. Might find more Spanish-speaking OTRS users there. Rjd0060 (talk) 19:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Try Es-wikipedia? --Guerillero | My Talk 20:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The 230 day old one can not be accepted as the photographer is unknown. I can not find a Spanish version of the declaration of consent for all inquires. That would be useful for the 201 day old ticket. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 02:52, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics

The page I created (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Helmholtz_Alliance_for_Astroparticle_Physics) displayed an OTRS banner with ticket number 2012041910008641. Is the permission in question about the content (like copyright & licence trouble) or this is linked with the main problem displayed on top of no third parties reference? Thanks for helping! Astrohap (talk) 09:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The ticket gives permission for the text at de:Helmholtz-Allianz_für_Astroteilchenphysik - it appears you translated this article from the German wiki? Just for future reference, if you do that then you need to cite de.wiki as source to meet the attribution requirements of Wikipedia's license :) --Errant ^(chat!) 10:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The easiest way to do this is using {{Translated page}} — madman 15:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually I did not translate anything for wiki. I did translate from English to German on the HAP official website. And for de.wiki I sent an official statement about the licence of this text (I did not notice this was the ticket from de.wiki), and this ticket say "no copyright infringement". I can send the same sort of email to authorise publication on wiki. Will that help? Astrohap (talk) 11:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

That is basically all that notice is doing; referencing that previous permission you sent. So, no, no need to do anything else. --Errant ^(chat!) 11:38, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! Astrohap (talk) 11:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Hyderabad-attractions- Dilkusha-guest-house.jpg

I have doubts about File:Hyderabad-attractions- Dilkusha-guest-house.jpg. The uploader, Rkiran t (talk · contribs), claims he sent an OTRS permission. Could somebody kindly check if such a message (valid or not) has indeed been received? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:10, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I see nothing. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:54, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

User talk page tagged as G7

Hi, not sure if this is the right venue for this, but I just came across a user talk page in C:CSD with the rationale "my employer requires that this page be deleted". I replaced it with a courtesy blanking notice, obviously it's not eligible for G7 since multiple authors have edited it, would there be an exception here to the usual rule of not deleting talk pages? Has the user contacted anyone? - filelakeshoe 16:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyright permission sent to permissions-en@wikimedia.org

I have forwarded a copy of permission obtained for use of text in the article NIDM to permissions-en@wikimedia.org on 02 June,2012. Kindly check and please tell any irregularities. VIVEK RAI :  Friend?  05:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The ticket number is 2012060210001461. I have responded directly to the copyright holder asking them to use the permission template given here. MorganKevinJ^(talk) 18:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Requesting a ticket from OTRS to use Visual_Collaborative.jpg on english wikipedia page

Hello, An e-mail from the the author of Visual_Collaborative.jpg was sent to permissions-enwikimedia.org. Can you please review the Declaration of consent request.

Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnanonymous (talk • contribs) 23:35, 24 May 2012‎

This message was added to commons:Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard, but I think you guys can handle it better. :) Trijnstel_talk 22:15, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

File:Alberto Hernandez concept car design.jpg does have an OTRS ticket. Is there a need to also have one for File:Visual Collaborative.jpg? My suggestion is to ask for deletion of the redundant photo. If that doesn't make sense, please explain.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

File:Stefano Cusin Al Nasr Dubai 2012.jpg

The uploader claims on the description page to have forwarded permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, although this file is on Commons. Has any such e-mail been received? January (talk) 10:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Ticket 2012032910006439 releases all images from http://www.stefanocusin.net under GFDL and i think that images is from http://www.stefanocusin.net/480_320_csupload_43447411.jpg?u=2763563973 MorganKevinJ^(talk) 15:01, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation for File:Lsuaerial.jpg

Would someone please confirm OTRS permission for File:Lsuaerial.jpg? Thanks,--GrapedApe (talk) 21:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The image was created by a non-notable individual who is not a professional photographer. The image and the photographer's webpage are found on websites that will host anything. I'd treat this with as much good faith as any editor who uploads a random photo. Is there a reason to believe the information on the description page might not be true? Someguy1221 (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

What? There is an OTRS ticket #2012061510012523 and I would like the OTRS confirmed. This is standard procedure.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:35, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Someguy - it is quite common for users to request verification for specific images. Rjd0060 (talk) 00:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, i wasn't very clear. Had I realized how unclear I was being, I would have instead said, "I checked the ticket and it seems fine. Is there any reason to doubt it?" Someguy1221 (talk) 00:58, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I have checked the ticket and it all seems to be in order. Rjd0060 (talk) 00:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Rjd0060. I just moved it to commons.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:56, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

File:StevenMeierProfilePicture.jpg

This image got OTRS permission. After that, the image was overwritten by another image. Does the OTRS permission also apply to the new image or only to the old image? --Stefan2 (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't see that it does, so I wrote to the individual and asked for a new statement.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:55, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Offwiki report to ADL?

I honestly don't know whether there is anything wrong with the following, so I am just going to put it out there and let someone else decide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Joseph_A._Spadaro&diff=prev&oldid=498070661

(Also see User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro#Dispute resolution requested)

--Guy Macon (talk) 01:58, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Not an OTRS staffer, but this is probably not the right place. I had serious concerns when I saw that edit and still do. IMO it's roughly akin to a WP:LEGAL threat, since the ADL is known to take off-wiki (i.e. real life) actions and the obvious implication is to exert a chilling effect on the on-wiki actions of our editors. Likely the best place to discuss that aspect is at AN (not AN/I), that's where I was thinking of posting myself - or at VP (policy) of WT:LEGAL. The battleground attitude evinced by the new editor in going that far will quite likely resolve itself soon enough, not in their favour, but I too would be interested in other people's views on the acceptability of filing ADL reports as a Wikipedia editing tactic. Franamax (talk) 04:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Posting at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:No legal threats. I suggest that discussion be centralized at AN. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Franamax, I copied your comment to AN to centralize discussion. Please revert if you have a problem with this. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation for File:Manil Suri, author photo by Jose Villarrubia.jpg

Hi Folks, could one of your kind selves check out the OTRS for the image File:Manil Suri, author photo by Jose Villarrubia.jpg ? - Peripitus (Talk) 12:23, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

• Looks legit. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 02:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

File:800px-Cuc.Phuong.Primate.Rehab.center.jpg

Apparently, an email with the copyright holder's permission was sent regarding File:800px-Cuc.Phuong.Primate.Rehab.center.jpg. Would anyone mind checking for it? Thanks in advance. — ξ^xplicit 00:35, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

• ticket:2012061710000551, which also applies to File:800px-Cuc.Phuong.National.Park.jpg. The photographer agreed to use the images on Wikipedia, but did not specify a free license to use. Please direct your correspondent to WP:CONSENT for the preferred release format and suggestions for licenses to use. Also, please have him reference the existing ticket number or this will significantly delay our response. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 02:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Bazley.jpg

Hi there, An image I uploaded entitled Richard_Bazley.jpg was deleted after 7 days due to lack of licensing info. I spoke with Richard Bazley, who owns the copyright on the image, and he was kind enough to email wikipedia releasing the image under a creative commons license, using one of the wikipedia templates for this purpose. He did this on 21st June. Are you able to check if the permission has been recieved and re-add the image to the page which bears his name? I raised this with the volunteer who removed the image and he explained he was unable to track this and I should contact you directly. Many thanks. Dave Dave.m.houghton (talk) 17:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

This has now been resolved and can be closed. Many thanks

Dave.m.houghton (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks like Sphilbrick added the ticket several days ago. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:39, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

photo of a statue

The file File:OtisReddingStatue.jpg is up for deletion because of "fair use" reasons. I took the photo of the statue and uploaded it to Wikipedia three or four years ago. Yesterday I got permission from the sculptor via email to use the photo. At the page discussing deleting the file, they want the sculptor to fill out the permission form. But this doesn't seem right to me, since the sculptor isn't giving permission to use the statue - it is my photo of it that will be used.

Is is sufficient for me to forward the email to you? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you're a copyright holder on the derivative work, as in a case such as this, "the photographer generates originality by virtue of a choice of viewpoints and lighting arrangements". However, the sculptor is still the sole copyright holder on the original work; therefore, I do think we'd need a declaration of consent from the sculptor to publish the work under a free license. I welcome a second opinion from someone more versed on these matters than I. — madman 03:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The sculptor's permission is definitely required. Under US copyright law, photographs of copyrighted works of art, even 3D ones, require the permission of the copyright holder to be published. In some countries, that rule does not apply if the work is displayed outdoors in public view. But in that case, which doesn't apply here, I don't know if WMF prefers us to go by the US standard or the standard of the origin country. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:34, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

More at Wikipedia:Public domain in several sections. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I think we prefer to go by the U.S. standard, but we will also accommodate the standards of the origin country as much as possible. And I figured that's what the case law would be; I was just trying to reason it out logically. — madman 03:42, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I have an email from the sculptor giving permission. Does that count as a declaration of consent? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it would, as long as it specifically authorizes you to publish the derivative of the original work under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license and/or the GFDL. — madman 03:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The email gives permission but does not go into details like GFDL, etc. Can I forward the email to OTRS (email address?) and have OTRS explain to him what you need, because I don't know how to explain it. Thanks. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:36, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Please forward his e-mail to or have him e-mail permissions-en (at) wikimedia.org and an OTRS agent will explain the specific statement of permission that's needed. Thanks, — madman 16:54, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I just forwarded the email. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:08, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ticket:2011122110014438

Need to get some information on this ticket. This has to do with the WTBO page. An IP claimed the information had "several inaccuracies" and it was "edited at the request of WTBO". I sourced the section in question with many different media sources and can find others if need be. I am curious if the OTRS ticket is still open and if so, if the information I have provided makes the ticket null and void. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 15:28, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

There's no detail in the ticket about why the information isn't appropriate - although it did discuss some of the other previous text that you didn't restore (rightly pointing out that it lacked relevance). The rest of the ticket relates to their changed affiliation, which isn't associated with the material you mention :) --Errant ^(chat!) 15:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was just the Chazz Offutt section that was the problem. That seemed to be the only part that was taken out by the IP. I did goof up on reverting the format change, but that has been corrected. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 16:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that was mentioned - but no explanation of why it should be taken out.. the rest of the email related to being dropped as a Fox station and the switch back to Adult standards. --Errant ^(chat!) 08:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Kenneth Adie Ferguson.tiff

This file has a strange licence: it is in the public domain because it is a "family archive photo". Family archive photos are not necessarily in the public domain, so I'm not sure if the licence is valid. Does the OTRS ticket reveal anything better, such as {{PD-release}}? --Stefan2 (talk) 18:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I looked to see what agent handled this, turns out I did. I usually make sure that the license in the email matches the license on the file, but this one was one of the first I handed, so I didn't do it. Will fix now.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Sheriff Harold Taylor.jpg

Something looks wrong: the image has {{PermissionOTRS}} but no licence. Could you check if a licence is specified somewhere? --Stefan2 (talk) 10:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Oops, also mine. I don't have the same excuse,as this happened in the end of May, but we had a couple other tricky issues to resolve, and I was so happy when they got resolved, I missed the missing license.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Kleiser Khan Sinha.jpg

See upload summary: "Uploaded a fully free file, since the previous file was mistakenly declared as free." Does this mean that the first version is unfree? --Stefan2 (talk) 12:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

That is correct, the first should be deleted. I deleted the earlier version.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Strange attribution

Compare File:Shankar Amrit Mahotsava Logo.jpg with File:Shankar Dayal Singh.jpg. Two copies of the same photo (but one has some extra decorations). One is attributed to "Shankar Amrit Mahotsava Samiti" while the other one is attributed to "Parijat.delhi". Both have licences which require that the author is attributed, so it is important that the attribution is correct. One of them is marked with ticket:2012062110000711 so I'm wondering if the OTRS ticket might contain something useful which can be used to sort out the attribution issue. Interestingly, the file with OTRS permission has an {{OTRS pending}} template on the talk page. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I am fairly certain that I know what has happened. However, "fairly certain" is not the same as "certain", so I just sent an email to the author, asking for clarification, and suggesting two options for resolution.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I now understand. The photo by itself, was taken by Parijat.delhi. That same person was commissioned to create and add the logo, on behalf of an organization, Shankar Amrit Mahotsava Samiti, which isn't the name of a person, but the name of an organization. It means, the 75th Birth Anniversary of Shankar. That organization owns the copyright on the logo and the derivative combination of a freely licensed image and the logo. Parijat.delhi uploaded both. The organization has indicated that if we want to identify the author of the derived image as Parijat.delhi, they have no objection. If you think that would be cleaner, we could do that, but I am satisfied that the current wording is acceptable. I do want to applaud your attention to detail. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I'll just mention this discussion on the file information pages so that we avoid problems in the future. I was looking at files in some odd category and happened to stumble upon these two images. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, as others may have the same question.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)