New system for images

so are we no longer vetting images?

I'm trying to decide about it. Right now I'm focused on moving the systems over.

FYI, the snagging process looks like it removes the credit, which is verboten under many of the free use licenses like Creative Commons and GFDL as well as the permissions from NYPL.

Not sure how you grokked the license, but it appears photos I uploaded under CC licenses are available for snagging, but the ones of my own that didn't have a CC license are not. Which is how it should be really.

Well, it doesn't remove the copyright notice. Do you think most have the appropriate info in the other field?

I did a regular expression. Phrases like "Wikimedia commons," "public domain" and so forth got it.

> 3

Even if you've decided not to worry about copyright, I think you need to still make it possible to flag spam images, images that fail to load, images that are something other than they purport to be, etc.

Also, with regards to no longer vetting, I understand wanting to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, but I know I would be peeved if my photos showed up somewhere contrary to their licenses. I don't think the publishers care all that much about their publicity photos, but folks are uploading a lot more than publisher photos. And there's no simple way for a third party without money to police photos under the new system.

Yeah, I agree. On my list.

Sorry not to be more clear about images. I'm in a terrible mood tonight. I'd better make no administrative decisions ;)

>And there's no simple way for a third party without money to police photos under the new system.

Send a DMCA notice.

5> We've flagged photos that do not have the credit properly made. That field really should be preserved and carried with the photo as well as the copyright statement. Perhaps if it were merged into a combined, uneditable field it would be fine. I dunno. But CC is pretty clear that the attribution has to be *somewhere* attached to the photo.

I'll make it so that it carries. Obviously I preserve the link.

9> That's the takedown part. I mean the part about finding them. I can't put in an image and see where people are using it (via Google or LT). LT isn't any worse that 99% of the web for that, but it was nice knowing there was at least one site that wouldn't indiscriminately rip off my photos.

Really, my photos aren't worth much except that the credit allows me to generate a little linkage to my site now and then.

Not vetting photos doesn't take away the linkage, but it makes it far more likely here at least.

Like I wrote, I totally understand if/why you would remove the vetting. But it will make me a little sad.

Yeah, me too.

So is this why there have been no new images showing in the helper log for the last day or so? If so, is there anywhere we can actually find new author images to even know what's been uploaded?

With regard to the focus of this discussion, I'm troubled at the suggestion that I wouldn't be able to label my photos as copyrighted. Now, when I photograph an author and upload that image to LT, I always indicate in the copyright line that it is copyrighted and permission is given only to LT for its use.

I will be less likely to upload images in the future if I can't do that. (I realize that I can make them not "snaggable" (dreadful word!), but I would like to be able to indicate my ownership/copyright as well.

I think the new system has a title/description field and a copyright statement. So you can still say that.

You're not understanding the problem.

1. There are two lines—credit, now called description, and copyright info.
2. You could and can put information in both fields. You have never been prevented from doing so. You will never be prevented from doing so.
3. When someone makes an image snaggable, and someone snags an image for their profile or whatever, it is also displaying the copyright info from the original image, a link to the person who uploaded it, as well as a link to the original image, with all its info too.
4. The objection was raised that the copyright info might not be enough to carry over, but it should also carry over the credit/description field too. I agreed to that, and I've already said I will carry over the credit/description too.

> 16

Oh, right. I didn't see the copyright section in the new uploading process at first, didn't realize I had to scroll down for it.

So, back to question >2 lampbane:. Are there plans for the helper log to be re-activated? It appears to have gone dormant after the conversion. In the absence of helper log, the only way to check out new author images is to go to "Recent picture gallery". From there, you can call up the image, but many of the recent ones do not have any attribution or copyright statements. Also, there does not appear to be a way to quarantine or otherwise question legitimacy of images.

Let's get down to cases. There are at least 3 categories.

(1) Some of the images appear on their face to be "no problem." E.g., http://www.librarything.com/pic/175543 -- published in 1896, so now PD. What I just said by no means reflects an exhaustive copyright search or a definitive legal opinion. But it passes the smell test.

(2) Others are more dubious. E.g., http://www.librarything.com/pic/175527 Kenneth Patchen. This was likely lifted from the website for Tin House -- "All files © 1999-2006 McCormack Communications, LLC." The image itself is explicitly labeled "courtesy Robert E. Johnson, Chester Kessler archive." None of this is addressed in the LT comments section or copyright section associated with this image.

(3) Some are outright theft. E.g., http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/e9/94/e994fb2904b2fa0637556464167434b41716... -- Clarice Lispector. This is acknowledged by the uploader as copyright protected -- "Copyright: Photograph by Bluma Wainer." No indication that the copyright holder has given permission to LT or anyone else for use -- even though it's ubiquitous on blogs and myspace pages all over the world.

Slippery slope, for sure. I'd vote for trying to stay on the high road, though, and not try to go snowboarding. (Sorry, too much Olympics.)

> 18

Where is this "Recent picture gallery"?

http://www.librarything.com/gallery/recent/authors

I'm working on bringing back flagging, voting.

Thanks. But shouldn't there be a way to find it without having to bookmark that? Like a link on the home page or under "zeitgeist" or something?

I've added flagging back.

You can see the flagged images here: http://www.librarything.com/gallery/flagged

It's a vote. To be removed, the yes votes must be twice the no votes, and win by more than five.

I'm working on the guidelines.

> 22

RE: the "comment" box.

I see that this appears on both the "flag" page and also as a comment to the uploader. If I mark the comment "private" (which is my preference when leaving such comments for people), will it still appear on the "flag" page? I see it, but then I also see the private comments I leave on the user's profile

Also, does the absence of copyright/credit info on the "flag" page mean that the uploader didn't include any? (Never mind - I see from looking at images with copyright info that that would appear.)

(I'm not deleting this, despite answering my own questions, in case someone else wonders the same things!)

Are there any plans to tie user-name into voting? I think it makes people more accountable when they know their name will stand beside their vote.

I have noticed that the comment box does not appear for all images (see, for instance, http://www.librarything.com/pic/175455). Is this a bug, or is there some reason I can't figure out? (It's not that the uploader doesn't allow comments, because the ones I've checked do.)

Oh, also, shouldn't "Recent author pictures" read "Recent author & venue pictures"?

If the uploader later edits a flagged picture to make it compliant, it seems to disappear. e.g., here

Oh, dear, that's not good!

I've made some changes:

1. Flagging now requires you to leave a special comment. The link to flag takes you there.

2. I've changed the rules so that author (and soon venue) pictures must allow comments. Six no-comments pictures have been flipped to allow comments. I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

Are there any plans to tie user-name into voting?

At present, no. The vote system doesn't have a display setting for it, and I want to get this out. We can perhaps do it later, although it can't be retroactive to people who thought the vote was anonymous.

If the uploader later edits a flagged picture to make it compliant, it seems to disappear. e.g., here

What do you mean? Are you sure they did?

>29 timspalding: She just tried in reaction to my flagging that now-disappeared image. I'm just relaying what she told me--you may want to ask her (and, she presumably is still online, as of a few minutes ago).

http://www.librarything.com/pic/175547

This one doesn't have the reason for flagging showing up. Is that a bug or by design?

http://www.librarything.com/pic/175544

And this is one I flagged because the image upload failed. However, when the image upload fails, you have to look at the HTML to get the image URL because there's nothing to click on in the galleries without the image. So far as I can tell at least.

>31 KingRat:

It came before I made it a requirement.

>32 KingRat:

I need to suss out when this happens. I don't think it should be a flaggable thing, though. I suppose if the uploader doesn't delete it.

>33 timspalding: I dunno about the new system, but with the old system, uploaders frequently didn't delete their failed uploads. They didn't know how. Lots of them just flagged them themselves. A lot of others just moved on to their next upload. And it wasn't uncommon for them to try and fail to upload two or three times in a row.

http://www.librarything.com/pic/175249

And one more issue, not related to flagging exactly. This one has a broken link that appears to be clipped. Is it the LT code that is clipping it, or did the uploader do that?

(It seems very similar to an old bug that used to plague reviews where links to blogs got clipped by LT code.)

When I went to flag a photo that didn't appear to be flagged before I got the comment box and filled it in - but it just left a comment on the person's profile without linking it to the picture info (so they wouldn't be able to tell which photo was flagged) - it did still show on the image page (I copied/pasted it and deleted the other and it worked the second time so I deleted the first.)

Give me the example? It should have showed up with a link.

I flagged Collectorator's image:
http://www.librarything.com/pic/175427

The public message that occurred when I first flagged it I deleted (the one that didn't have the image info) The private comment (that is still there) is the second one.

I will try an experiment to give you an example....a few minutes please.

Drat - experiment was a failure.

I uploaded image as me (PortiaLong) and flagged it as my alter ego (PetruchioLong) {I have permission from the author to use the image - email forwarded to abby - but it is a cover pic not an author pic} but it showed up as it should (i.e. linked to its image in the comments) - NOT what I experienced in the Collectorator example. Sorry.

If it happens again I will NOT delete the comment and will post again.

(If it helps: the first time I hit flag this pic ling but don't recall that there was a yellow-highlited line like I saw this time - some maybe I hit the middle of a code change?)

Yes, I think you did it before that code was in place. Sorry this has all been so slow. This is, unfortunately, some rather "deep" code. It's important to change it. But it's a pain.

Helpers now includes it:
http://www.librarything.com/log_helpers.php?view=pictures

tim

I was just looking at the "removed" pictures page and it seems like they're all (or maybe all, I didn't check every one of them) still out there on the author pages. Is there another step that needs to take place once the voting is done to get them purged?

And as far as I can tell, recently uploaded images still aren't appearing in the author gallery.