Commons:Requests for comment/scope

‎A thought experiment: staaay on topic, staaaaay on topic...
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Revision as of 12:27, 15 March 2013
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:I would answer it this way: all of the images are in scope no matter how many millions there are. They would be deleted for reasons of redundancy ([[Commons:Deletion_policy|2.3.5 not 2.2]]). To try and take a real-world example: a category for a very widely photographed building has shots of the whole structure from almost every angle you can take a photo from. If there is a mediocre-quality shot then it is less useful, if it's terrible then it's in danger of getting chucked. If someone treks into the middle of the jungle and takes a rubbish photo of an ancient temple, but they're the only person to do it, then the photo is safe because it's the only one we have. See also: rare vs common species categories. In-scope media is regularly deleted for other reasons --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 11:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 
:I would answer it this way: all of the images are in scope no matter how many millions there are. They would be deleted for reasons of redundancy ([[Commons:Deletion_policy|2.3.5 not 2.2]]). To try and take a real-world example: a category for a very widely photographed building has shots of the whole structure from almost every angle you can take a photo from. If there is a mediocre-quality shot then it is less useful, if it's terrible then it's in danger of getting chucked. If someone treks into the middle of the jungle and takes a rubbish photo of an ancient temple, but they're the only person to do it, then the photo is safe because it's the only one we have. See also: rare vs common species categories. In-scope media is regularly deleted for other reasons --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 11:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 
::The policy you cite is worded in such a way that it covers only duplicates which are inferior in quality: "At deletion requests you will need to provide reasons why a particular file is inferior to the alternative version." (All the deletion templates it lists in that section make similar reference to "better" versions of the images.) In my hypothetical example all the images are of the same quality, and they are all unique, so I don't think that 2.3.5 of the deletion policy applies. On the other hand, [[Commons:Project scope]] also addresses redundancy, but in a way that is more specifically applicable to this thought experiment: it says that "files that add nothing educationally distinct to the collection of images we already hold covering the same subject" are not in scope. The question is therefore at what point, if any, does adding more unique, good quality images on a single topic violate this clause? —[[User:Psychonaut|Psychonaut]] ([[User talk:Psychonaut|talk]]) 12:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 
::The policy you cite is worded in such a way that it covers only duplicates which are inferior in quality: "At deletion requests you will need to provide reasons why a particular file is inferior to the alternative version." (All the deletion templates it lists in that section make similar reference to "better" versions of the images.) In my hypothetical example all the images are of the same quality, and they are all unique, so I don't think that 2.3.5 of the deletion policy applies. On the other hand, [[Commons:Project scope]] also addresses redundancy, but in a way that is more specifically applicable to this thought experiment: it says that "files that add nothing educationally distinct to the collection of images we already hold covering the same subject" are not in scope. The question is therefore at what point, if any, does adding more unique, good quality images on a single topic violate this clause? —[[User:Psychonaut|Psychonaut]] ([[User talk:Psychonaut|talk]]) 12:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
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:::I'm struggling to relate this thought experiment to something that might actually happen. Critical imagination failure on my part. Though I know someone will come along and slap me in the face with that bloody license plate category any second now. Which is actually a good demonstration of the fact that there is currently no limit when it comes to media of ''exactly'' the same quality --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 12:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
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:::You are right that the scope version of redundancy is more relevant. But there is unfortunately is no well-defined point. It's an arbitrary decision based on "how many images do you need to illustrate something?" So there is one point of arbitrariness to focus on (the arbitrariness is what upsets people most about the scope policy in general, I think --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 12:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

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