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So what's the problem? The mugshot would be "copyright Waukesha Sheriff's dept" (assuming that it's copyrightable, as you suggest) and the rationale some variation on 'fair use'.
The problem is that it did not include that, and thus it did not have a license attached. Hence, removed for not having a license.
Riiight...
I don't understand why you find this hard to believe considering that's plainly the justification written for the deletion. This is not one of the (many) rules that can be bent for fun and profit, this one really is just that simple.
Because they can write whatever they want. If someone reversed what's written under which photo, and it remained unquestinedd by other editors, would you be able to tell something is amiss?
There is literally no license for the Charlottesville photo.
I don't understand the question. If there's no license for a photo, it can be deleted per the stated policy. This is a simple, binary question - does the photo include license information?
edit: Now that I look at it, you cannot upload copyrighted images to Commons at all, even if they are fair use (I did mention I'm not an expert on Wikipedia policy). The mugshot was on Commons, so even if it did have a licensing section, it would have been deleted since it's probably non-free. It would need to have been on Wikipedia, which does allow non-freely licensed images, provided, again, that the TPS report is fully filled out.
There is licensing information, hence the section entitled "Licensing" in large print, which is the requirement (see policy linked above).
If someone deleted the Charlottesville photo, and kept the mugshot, would you be able to tell that the policy was misapplied? If not, how can you tell that it was applied correctly here?
And you have evidence no one bothered writing such a section for the mugshot?
Yeah, I've never seen an image on Wikipedia without licensing information, and I've never seen an image on Commons that is copyrighted.
Yes, this user regularly does what seem to be (based on the rate and uniformity of log messages) semi-automated deletions of photos without licensing sections, including those illustrating such hot button issues as some kind of "flag map of Embera-Wouanaan", the logo of Sporge-Jorgen, and of course, the accursed demodex mite.
How would you be able to tell that the image had licensing information after it was deleted?
How is that evidence of anything?
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