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A copyright is the right of the copyright holder to decide who can publish a copyrighted work under which conditions. A license is a document written by the copyright holder that specifies those conditions, and who they apply to. So no, copyright is obviously not a license. "Fair use" is an exception in the American copyright law that allows people to publish a copyrighted work if certain conditions are met. "Copyrighted image under fair use" literally means "we have no license for this, but we believe the fair use exceptions apply".
Do you want to make a bet on how long it will stay up if I reupload the image, and state that it's fair use?
Do you want to actually do it, or to merely feel secure in your continued belief that Wikipedia maliciously deleted that picture (in a manner indistinguishable from neutral routine gruntwork)?
It would be an interesting experiment, but I'm not interested if it turns out a prompt deletion for another made up procedural reason wouldn't change anyone's mind.
And I'm assuming producing another log of innocuous-looking deletions for that same "made-up" procedural reason will not change your mind either? Do you believe organisations are unlikely to have procedural reasons that don't serve political agendas contrary to yours?
Literally why would it? Also, why are you criticizing me for not changing my mind, when I'm proposing a test that would falsify my belief, and you're just looking for excuses to never change yours?
It's not about "contrary to mine", and yes I believe it's rare for organizations to neutrally apply their procedural rules, unless they have a healthy balance of worldviews, political agendas, and values, in their decision-making positions.
If you begin with the premise that Wikipedia has a habit of deleting pictures politically under made-up pretenses, then sure, it wouldn't. You would reject any procedure they have and any amount of work they do that ostensibly furthers that procedure in non-political cases as just covering it up.
I expect someone who's seeking the truth to attempt to falsify their belief first, especially if they're well aware the test they proposed is onerous. What you're doing, on the other hand, is the equivalent of a flat earther who smugly offers their interlocutor to go to space and see for themselves. It's a strategy for winning pedant arguments, not truth-seeking.
I'm putting the onus on you because I believe my case is more plausible. When you hear hooves, you think horses, not zebras, and if you're convinced a malicious agent has replaced your random sample with 100% zebras, I expect you to present something in favor of that.
The stated procedure they have doesn't enter the picture here, so I'm not even rejecting it. I'm saying they'll try to come up with any excuse to remove that photo.
What are you talking about? I'm offering to do it myself, I just don't want to go through the process you describe as onerous yourself, if it will be met with an after-the-fact justification, and a refusal to change one's mind.
I'm not talking about the onus of going through the work, I'm talking about the accusation that I'm not willing to change my mind. I'm the one that put forward a test, you and sarker are coming up with excuses for why it won't necessary prove anything, if it comes out the way I predict.
And by that logic I think that an organization that doesn't have a healthy balance of opinion in positions of influence will use their rules in a biased way.
Who told you the sample was ever random?
Very well. I'll copy sarker here.
If you upload the image to Wikipedia and state that it's free use (similar to the Charleston example), I do not think it will be removed due to missing licensing info (which is what happened last time).If they do remove it again, for any reason, I'll grant that this case smells fishy and that you were correct to doubt it in spite of information that pointed towards lack of malice.There are different available degrees of confidence about this. "They'll be marginally quicker than usual to delete the picture if it clearly breaks the rules" is one degree. "They will not stop at anything to keep this picture off the wiki" is another.
Looks random enough to me.
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The point of the "Licensing" section is to lay out why the image is allowed for use on Wikipedia/Commons. This can be if the image is freely licensed, or (on Wikipedia) if it's copyrighted but still usable under free use. If there is no "Licensing" section, then the image is subject to deletion. I am not sure what the point of confusion is here.
If you upload the image to Wikipedia and state that it's free use (similar to the Charleston example), I do not think it will be removed due to missing licensing info (which is what happened last time). Will it stay up forever and ever? I have no idea.
By the way, it seems that the image was not even deleted manually, but rather by automation.
You're claiming that the Wikipedia editors are just neutrally applying their internal procedures. We're claiming that the photo was removed because the Wikipedia editors don't want it to be published on Wikipedia, and are using any procedural rule as an excuse. A way to disprove my belief would be to reupload the photo and address the issues from the previous removal. What is a way to disprove yours? Isn't it unfalsifiable?
Maybe? This doesn't explicitly say anything about what could have happened to the image.
It's crazy that you would say this considering that I acknowledged that there are plenty of rules that can be bent to make things happen. My actual claim is that there isn't evidence that the photo was removed for this reason, and that the actual reason the photo was removed is actually quite unambiguous.
If you upload the photo to Wikipedia with licensing info and it gets removed, I'll agree that the licensing rule is also abused.
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