Where to report hotlinking?

[Rayson Ho]

I found sites hotlinking photos on Wikimedia... is there a place that
I can report them??

Thanks,
Rayson

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[Al Tally]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Rayson Ho <raysonlogin@...> wrote:

I found sites hotlinking photos on Wikimedia... is there a place that
I can report them??

Thanks,
Rayson

I don't think hotlinking is a problem, though I may be wrong.

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(User:Majorly)

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[Huib!]

Hello,

I don't see why it should be reported, I mean MediaWiki makes it
possible for other wiki's to hotlink Wikimedia Content.

When Wikimedia doesn't allow or support hotlinking the should have
disabled it serverside.



--
*Huib Laurens*

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Email: Abigor@... <mailto:abigor@...>

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[Pedro Sanchez-2]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Huib! <Abigor@...> wrote:

Hello,

I don't see why it should be reported, I mean MediaWiki makes it
possible for other wiki's to hotlink Wikimedia Content.

When Wikimedia doesn't allow or support hotlinking the should have
disabled it serverside.

Indeed
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/InstantCommons
feature DOES exist (setting a configuration variable on a mediawiki installation allows to use directy commons images, outside wikimedia)

http://intelligentdesigns.net/blog/?p=91
(Erik Moller's blog)
 

--
*Huib Laurens*

Web: Forgotten-beauty.com <http://www.forgotten-beauty.com.com/>
Email: Abigor@... <mailto:abigor@...>

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[Rayson Ho]

Thanks for the replies. Media files should not be hot-linked... but
after a bit of googling, I still could not find what to do to report
them...

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia#Hotlinking

Rayson




On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Huib!<Abigor@...> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I don't see why it should be reported, I mean MediaWiki makes it
> possible for other wiki's to hotlink Wikimedia Content.
>
> When Wikimedia doesn't allow or support hotlinking the should have
> disabled it serverside.
>
>
>
> --
> *Huib Laurens*
>
> Web: Forgotten-beauty.com <http://www.forgotten-beauty.com.com/>
> Email: Abigor@... <mailto:abigor@...>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l@...
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

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[Huib!]

I believe the policy you're linking to isn't longer in use, or is a kind of double. Since the creation of the http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgForeignFileRepos plugin every mediawiki installetion can use Commons, and as far as I know its supported by the Foundation.

I checked the Foundation site but couldn't find a policy against hotlinking, so I don't think the Foundation doesn't want stuff hotlinked, and if the do the could do it very easy with a server configuration.

But again, why should the MediaWiki core supports Commons if the Foundations doesn't support hot linking?



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[Guillaume Paumier]

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Rayson Ho<raysonlogin@...> wrote:
> Thanks for the replies. Media files should not be hot-linked...

As far as I know, the latest official position of Wikimedia system
administrators was that hotlinking was not an issue.

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Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.gpaumier.org

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[Brion Vibber-3]

On 8/6/09 11:20 AM, Rayson Ho wrote:
> I found sites hotlinking photos on Wikimedia... is there a place that
> I can report them??

We strongly encourage reuse of our materials, and we don't mind hotlinking.

The nature of the web itself is very pro-linking; "hotlinking" is the
natural way to use an image on the web that exists in a stable location.
IMO hotlinking-phobia is mostly due to smaller sites discovering that a
large chunk of their bandwidth is being taken up by somebody else using
their image that they didn't want to be reused in the first place...
which is not the case we find ourselves in! :)

If we do find particularly egregious abuse we might poke an exception
for technical reasons, but that'll be something we'd do behind the
scenes. There's no need to report or try to shut down general hotlinking
of images from Commons, Wikipedia etc.

-- brion

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[ENGEL R.C.]

Some parts of this message have been removed. Learn more about Nabble's security policy.

 

> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 14:12:11 -0700
> From: brion@...
> To: commons-l@...
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Where to report hotlinking?
>
> On 8/6/09 11:20 AM, Rayson Ho wrote:
> > I found sites hotlinking photos on Wikimedia... is there a place that
> > I can report them??
>
> We strongly encourage reuse of our materials, and we don't mind hotlinking.
>
> The nature of the web itself is very pro-linking; "hotlinking" is the
> natural way to use an image on the web that exists in a stable location.
> IMO hotlinking-phobia is mostly due to smaller sites discovering that a
> large chunk of their bandwidth is being taken up by somebody else using
> their image that they didn't want to be reused in the first place...
> which is not the case we find ourselves in! :)
>
> If we do find particularly egregious abuse we might poke an exception
> for technical reasons, but that'll be something we'd do behind the
> scenes. There's no need to report or try to shut down general hotlinking
> of images from Commons, Wikipedia etc.
>
> -- brion
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l@...
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

---

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[Alex Brollo]

2009/8/6 Brion Vibber <brion@...>

On 8/6/09 11:20 AM, Rayson Ho wrote:
> I found sites hotlinking photos on Wikimedia... is there a place that
> I can report them??

We strongly encourage reuse of our materials, and we don't mind hotlinking.

The nature of the web itself is very pro-linking; "hotlinking" is the
natural way to use an image on the web that exists in a stable location.

I'm happy from this since I currently use hotlinking from Commons into web communities, forums and so on. More, if I have some interesting personal picture to share into a community, and I presume that such a picture could be useful to any other user of the web here or there into the net, I usually upload it into Commons then I hotlink it. So, a "free hotlink policy" can directly encourage upload into Commons; nevertheless a good categorization (a very difficult aim) is mandatory, and this aim could be difficult to obtain when the uploader is mainly interested to hotlink his uploaded file. So, while encouraging "free hotlink policy", I advocate any effort to ameliorate categorization and to make it easier and easier.

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[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

See also
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-July/044917.html
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel/Archives/2008-12#Proposal_to_disable_hotlinking

Nemo

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[Platonides]

Alex Brollo wrote:

> I'm happy from this since I currently use hotlinking from Commons into
> web communities, forums and so on. More, if I have some interesting
> personal picture to share into a community, and I presume that such a
> picture could be useful to any other user of the web here or there into
> the net, I usually upload it into Commons then I hotlink it. So, a "free
> hotlink policy" can directly encourage upload into Commons; nevertheless
> a good categorization (a very difficult aim) is mandatory, and this aim
> could be difficult to obtain when the uploader is mainly interested to
> hotlink his uploaded file. So, while encouraging "free hotlink policy",
> I advocate any effort to ameliorate categorization and to make it easier
> and easier.
>
> --
> Alex

We shouldn't encourage hotlinking.
Technically, it's not an issue but you shouldn't consider it a
"supported" usage either. Basically, you're on your own.

Although most images are kept invariant and we try not to break the
links, images *do* get deleted/renamed.
You have no guarantees that the image won't get deleted (specially if
you're the uploader and it's not a educational image).
Moreover, the content of your blog/posts could be modified by uploading
a new image over the one you use. We strive to avoid image vandalism,
but after all, this is a wiki. And your readers expectation will be that
it's the image you originally wanted to link to, not that it's a
wiki-modifiable image.

If you're hotlinking from your web, you should copy the image and
include the image that is on your web space (you can link to the image
page for more versions, license compliance, etc.).

If still want to hotlink commons images, you should
*Enable email notification on your preferences
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences when you get a
message on your talk page. This way you won't miss a notification about
a delete request for an image you uploaded.

*Watchlist the images you use. This way you can from time to time view
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist and verify nothing
nasty has happened to those images.

(You can also opt to receive an email when there're changes to those pages)




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[Alex Brollo]

2009/8/7 Platonides <Platonides@...>

We shouldn't encourage hotlinking.
Technically, it's not an issue but you shouldn't consider it a
"supported" usage either. Basically, you're on your own.

Don't matter, I'm an old wikipedian... deeply involved into the spirit of the project. Nevertheless, I work too into other web projects, and when I feel that an image deserves to be shared for its content and instructional character, I upload it into Commons. I keep a backup of all my images obviuosly. :-)

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[Rayson Ho]

Thanks for all the answers guys!

Rayson



On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:24 AM, Alex Brollo <alex.brollo@...> wrote:

>
>
> 2009/8/7 Platonides <Platonides@...>
>>
>> We shouldn't encourage hotlinking.
>> Technically, it's not an issue but you shouldn't consider it a
>> "supported" usage either. Basically, you're on your own.
>
> Don't matter, I'm an old wikipedian... deeply involved into the spirit of
> the project. Nevertheless, I work too into other web projects, and when I
> feel that an image deserves to be shared for its content and instructional
> character, I upload it into Commons. I keep a backup of all my images
> obviuosly. :-)
>
> --
> Alex
>
> _______________________________________________
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>

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[Hay (Husky)]

Of course, even though hotlinking is allowed technically, you still
need to comply to the licensing terms for those media files, e.g. give
attribution to the author and put a link to the license text.

-- Hay

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:00 AM, Rayson Ho <raysonlogin@...> wrote:

> Thanks for all the answers guys!
>
> Rayson
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:24 AM, Alex Brollo <alex.brollo@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 2009/8/7 Platonides <Platonides@...>
>>>
>>> We shouldn't encourage hotlinking.
>>> Technically, it's not an issue but you shouldn't consider it a
>>> "supported" usage either. Basically, you're on your own.
>>
>> Don't matter, I'm an old wikipedian... deeply involved into the spirit of
>> the project. Nevertheless, I work too into other web projects, and when I
>> feel that an image deserves to be shared for its content and instructional
>> character, I upload it into Commons. I keep a backup of all my images
>> obviuosly. :-)
>>
>> --
>> Alex
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Commons-l mailing list
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

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[Delphine Ménard]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 10:59, Hay (Husky) <huskyr@...> wrote:
> Of course, even though hotlinking is allowed technically, you still
> need to comply to the licensing terms for those media files, e.g. give
> attribution to the author and put a link to the license text.

Yes, I was thinking that. I suppose hotlinking is done through the
"raw" url, which means access to the licence page is simply not
happening. Not a problem if people actually credit the authors/respect
the licence by adding the necessary info on their website. Not too
cool if they don't.

Cheers,

Delphine

--
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get lost.
Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

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[Hay (Husky)]

 2009/9/16 Delphine Ménard <notafishz@...>:
> Yes, I was thinking that. I suppose hotlinking is done through the
> "raw" url, which means access to the licence page is simply not
> happening. Not a problem if people actually credit the authors/respect
> the licence by adding the necessary info on their website. Not too
> cool if they don't.
Indeed. Hotlink just means that you put the URL of an external source
into the "src" attribute of an <img> tag, e.g.

<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Titan-crystal_bar.JPG/300px-Titan-crystal_bar.JPG"
/>

Because it's not the server of the website that loads this url, but
the users browser it is a bit difficult to see if an image is actually
hotlinked, although it can be prevented.

-- Hay

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[Delphine Ménard]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 13:00, Hay (Husky) <huskyr@...> wrote:

>  2009/9/16 Delphine Ménard <notafishz@...>:
>> Yes, I was thinking that. I suppose hotlinking is done through the
>> "raw" url, which means access to the licence page is simply not
>> happening. Not a problem if people actually credit the authors/respect
>> the licence by adding the necessary info on their website. Not too
>> cool if they don't.
> Indeed. Hotlink just means that you put the URL of an external source
> into the "src" attribute of an <img> tag, e.g.
>
> <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Titan-crystal_bar.JPG/300px-Titan-crystal_bar.JPG"
> />
>
> Because it's not the server of the website that loads this url, but
> the users browser it is a bit difficult to see if an image is actually
> hotlinked, although it can be prevented.

I don't think Wikimedia should prevent it though, for all the reasons
mentionned earlier in this thread, just that we want to make sure
people use the right licensing terms. I haven't read all the links, so
maybe all is explained on meta or Commons :)

Delphine
(lazy)

--
~notafish

NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get lost.
Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

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[Alex Brollo]

2009/9/16 Hay (Husky) <huskyr@...>

Because it's not the server of the website that loads this url, but
the users browser it is a bit difficult to see if an image is actually
hotlinked, although it can be prevented.

-- Hay

What about adding/editing some basic EXIF data (author,licence) into uploaded Commons files that support them, like jpg? They can be deleted by a malicius user into downloads, but they will be saved when hotlinked. I don't know if any EXIF managing is currently done on Commons files; IMHO it could be useful, for a number of reasons, and not only for hotlinking.

As a "hotlinker" (far from a very active one), thanks for your comments, as I told you I use hotlinkg mainly into "volatile" communication tools like forums and not into websites. It would be great if an informative box would be added to File: page, containing a brief mention to general Mediawiki politics about hotlinking and  the html code for a correct hotlinking, if really needed.

Alex

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[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Alex Brollo <alex.brollo@...> wrote:
> What about adding/editing some basic EXIF data (author,licence) into
> uploaded Commons files that support them, like jpg? They can be deleted by a
> malicius user into downloads, but they will be saved when hotlinked. I don't
> know if any EXIF managing is currently done on Commons files; IMHO it could
> be useful, for a number of reasons, and not only for hotlinking.
[snip]

EXIF data is fine, but it doesn't really suffice for attribution: No
on will find it; it's effectively not there.

Unfortunately all that metadata is currently stripped for any
thumbnails. So in the common case that they hotlink a thumb you don't
even get that much.

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