User talk:UBX/h2g2

December 2005

This template is for h2g2 Researchers User Pages. To add it, copy this code to your user page:

{{H2G2Researcher|U42}}

where 42 is the number of your h2g2 Personal Space. --Nerd42 19:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fair Use Images policy doesn't apply to user pages!?

Why/how then do people put images on their user pages!? This makes no sense at all. --Nerd42 (talk) 15:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Logos doesn't seem to indicate logos are not allowed for use on User Pages. --Nerd42 (talk) 15:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you check out the link to WP:FU as suggested in my edit summary? From WP:FUC (actually a better link) on official policy regarding fair use content:

Fair use images should only be used in the article namespace. They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes) or on user pages. . . This is because it is the policy of the Wikimedia Foundation to allow an unfree image only if no free alternative exists and only if it significantly improves the article it is included on.

Basically, our primary purpose here is the creation of an encyclopedia. Non-free images are allowed for limited use in the encyclopedia, as there are many situations where free alternative images aren't available. There is no similar need to use non-free images on User pages (i.e., outside the encyclopedia), so using them to adorn User pages is unnecessary and against policy. As to why/how people put images on user pages, it is acceptable to use images uploaded using a free license. This includes images tagged as public domain, or any of the images tagged using one of the free license tags listed under Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags#Free_licenses. Additionally, there are many images available at Wikimedia Commons, all of which are public domain or released under a free license.

Just as a general note to provide a bit of context, this policy is being enforced more of late than it has in the past (at least from my perspective). This is because of an increase in the creation and use of User page templates similar to this one (called Userboxes). These have been the source of some controversy, so there's been a push to make sure that templates for User pages conform to Wikipedia policy, including the fair usage restrictions. In some cases, User page templates have been deleted due to including a fair use image, so part of the push towards policy compliance is to avoid such deletion being necessary.

Accordingly, I'm removing the fair use image again. I'd ask that you abide by policy and not revert it. I won't, however, replace it with more messy formatting. You are welcome to replace the image I'm using with something more appropriate, so long as it meets the free licensing requirements mentioned earlier. I hope this helps explain the situation a bit better.— Jeff | (talk) | 10:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it does - that I ought to be arguing with the policy lol because it doesn't seem to make sense to me that User Pages should be more restricted in their content than regular articles. The new image you've added might have some issues as well, as I'm pretty sure it is related to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Movie and may be an outright copyright violation instead of a mere Fair Use policy violation. I have two questions here:

Could somebody please fix the formatting of the edit I undid? I'm not sure how to fix it properly myself.
If I was able to get permission from the image copyright holder to use it in this manner would that be acceptable? --Nerd42 (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for taking so long to get to this. I hadn't really thought of it in terms of 'more' vs. 'less' restrictions, though that's an interesting perspective to look at Wikipedia from. I'd say that user pages are indeed generally far less restricted in content than articles in the encyclopedia—namely, user pages aren't subject to Wikipedia's big three content policies: Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I think all the policies listed under 'Working with others' in the box at right probably are equally restrictive in both the encyclopedia and user pages. I'd have to agree that this issue of free image use is one of the rare places where policy does seem more restrictive in user pages than in the encyclopedia proper.

Ultimately, if you're looking to understand why we have this policy in place, I think it's helpful to look towards Wikipedia's priorities. With regard to your (accurate) claim that the fair use guidelines make user pages more restricted, minimizing restriction isn't necessarily one of Wikipedia's priorities. From Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not:

Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with the purpose of creating an encyclopedia. Accordingly, Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech.

I think the best statement of Wikipedia's priorities would be the five unchangeable pillars that Wikipedia is built upon. The first is, of course, that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Using fair use images in articles is permitted in situations where it would further our goal of improving Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Using fair use images on user pages, however, is not as important (if at all) in achieving that goal. I should also mention the third pillar:Wikipedia is free content. Non-free content (such as fair use images) is tolerated because it serves the goal of building the encyclopedia where there are not always free alternatives. For user pages, however, we can better comply with our goal of using only free content, as there is no comparable need for fair use images on user pages. I think it's also important to make the distinction that using fair use images may be legal in both the encyclopedia and user pages, but that priority on free content is what prevents their unnecessary use on user pages. Continuing off the quote from Wikipedia:Fair use criteria that I included in my earlier comment:

All other uses, even if legal under the fair use clauses of copyright law, should be avoided to keep the use of unfree images to a minimum.

Hopefully this should make it a bit clearer as to why fair use images aren't permitted in user pages. (I should point out that this is how I understand the issue, and I think supporters of the fair use policy might share at least some of these views; however, this isn't necessarily the official rationale behind the policy.) I know I've probably gone on a bit too much on this topic, but I hope it might be helpful. If you're still rather against the policy, I should point out that you're not alone. This issue (partially because of the aforementioned controversy regarding userboxes) is one that is being debated in a few places. If you'd like, I could point you to where people are discussing the possibility of changing the policy. I should offer the reminder, however, that Wikipedia is not a democracy and support for changing the policy doesn't mean that the policy necessarily will be changed. Changing the policy involves the legal ambiguities of fair use and would only benefit user pages and not the encyclopedia; user pages and related issues have far less importance than encyclopedia-related issues (contrast with hootoo where you have both an editorial focus and a community focus that are both arguably of equal importance). Because of this, the policy in question might continue to be imposed, regardless of ongoing debates.

To your specific comments, to my knowledge, the Image:Answer to Life.png is not directly related to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film) (aside from the obvious connection of 42 being related to all the forms of Hitchhiker's Guide media). The image itself was uploaded (under a free license) on 29 March, 2005; the movie was released in late April 2005. Having said that, I haven't (yet) seen the film; if this image is taken from the movie, then that would be something that should be brought to the attention of the appropriate people.

In response to your first question: which formatting are you referring to? If you're referring to my edit, then that can be ignored. It was a poor attempt at approximating the styling of the h2g2 logo using only styled text. It didn't work particularly well.

In response to your second question: if you can get the copyright holder to release the logo into the public domain or under a free license, then it can be used on a user page. I'll bluntly say, however, that I highly doubt this would happen. If an image is released under a free license, it generally has to be made freely available for both commercial and non-commercial use; additionally, it must be possible to alter the original image to create and distribute derivative works. I can't see any organization releasing something so important to their identity as their logo under such terms (and especially not an organization as big as the BBC). In fact, item (3) of the BBC Terms of Use states:

You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any bbc.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of bbc.co.uk content requires the prior written permission of the BBC.

You're certainly welcome to contact them, but I don't think it looks too likely they'd favorable to releasing any of their content under compatible terms.

I hope this has been helpful (if a bit long-winded). Let me know if you have any further questions. I will endeavor to be more prompt in my responses. — Jeff | (talk) | 12:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, there are two problems here:

The current template is too big. How can we make it smaller / more like other userboxes?
Your attempt to mimic the logo style with text was a good idea, and though it did look alot like the real logo, it messed up the rest of the text ... so if you or somebody else could put that idea back again, only make sure the formatting works, that would help. --Nerd42 16:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay:

I've made it into a standard userbox. To be more compliant with userbox standards, I've changed the page name as well. The preferred syntax is now {{User:UBX/h2g2|U42}}, but the old syntax should still work.
The formatting looked generally fine on my computer when I tried replicating the style. I'm hesitant to change it back since I don't know what formatting problems you're seeing. Here's what it would look like in userbox form with the styling changes:

h2g2

Don't Panic! UBX/h2g2 is actually h²g² Researcher {{{1}}}.

If this looks fine to you, then I can update the template, or you can make the change yourself by replacing the contents of {{User:UBX/h2g2}} with the following lines (except my sig):

{{subst:Userbox
  |border-c = #000000
  |id-c     = #666666
  |id-s     = 16
  |id-fc    = #FFFFFF
  |info-c   = #FFFFFF
  |info-fc  = #000000
  |id       = h<span style="color: #A3A3A3; font-size: 75%;">2</span>g<span style="color: #A3A3A3; font-size: 75%;">2</span>
  |info     = '''Don't Panic!''' '''''{{PAGENAME}}''''' is actually [[H2G2|h²g²]] '''''[http://bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/{{{1}}} Researcher {{{1}}}]'''''.
}}

— Jeff | (talk) | 09:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]