Archive:Media Assets Workgroup
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This is a proposal for a workgroup and should not be relied upon in any way. It is conjunctive to the proposal for Fair Use Policy, Media.
Overview
The Media Assets Workgroup is Citizendium's "Media Procurement and Permissions Department". It will also play certain intermediate roles in the technical aspects of media on Citizendium. Its overarching mission is
Workgroup Mission:
To improve and safeguard Citizendium through media by serving its editors, authors, readers, content-providers, and re-users; to serve as a resource to Citizendium contributors in the media-related development of the project's corpus; to be an organized point of contact at Citizendium for media content providers.
For the purposes of The Media Assets Workgroup, "media" is defined as all visual, audio, video, and media-related template materials on all Citizendium pages.
Activities
Content and permissions assistance
While not replacing the function of other contributors in obtaining their own media content, The Media Assets Workgroup will function as Citizendium's "go to" place for contributors who seek assistance.
The Media Assets Workgroup can be enlisted to obtain:
- Media for articles
- Media released anew under open content licenses
- Media for use by permission
As well, the workgroup will:
- Seek to negotiate Memorandums of Understanding and formal block permission with media content providers on behalf of Citizendium.
- Maintain an "image request system"
- Maintain a "permission request system"
- Standardize how media is displayed on all CZ articles
An IMAP account or ticketing system, media-assets@citizendium.org, will facilitate these functions.
Media policy and help pages
Members of the workgroup will, in a non-exclusionary manner (any CZ contributor can still contribute), work together to author media policy pages.
- Resource pages of image sources
- Image request page
- Media policy pages
- Template policy pages
Templates
The workgroup will ensure that all templates are created in accordance with basic Citizendium policy as regards the form and function of templates, while leaving the specific content thereof to the relevant area editors and workgroups. Additionally, the workgroup will coordinate the creation and use of specifically media licensing tags within Citizendium. This is to ensure that all media is tagged in a standardized fashion.
Group communication
The workgroup shall maintain a mailing list for general announcements.
Organization
Workgroup Lead
Workgroup activities and initiatives will be overseen by the Media Assets Workgroup Lead (exact title yet-to-be-determined), who shall have syspop powers, subject to both the checks of the Editor-in-Chief and the majority of all constables, over media he or she deems to be substantially problematic as regards copyrights or other Citizendium media policies.
Responsibilities include:
- Official contact person and representative of Citizendium, under the Editor-in-Chief, as regards all media content on Citizendium English servers.
- Maintenance of pages and templates that fall within the purview of the Media Assets Workgroup.
- Image request page
- Media policy pages
- Media templates and related pages
- Act as a point of contact with:
- People or entities who contest usage of their media on Citizendium under the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or other statutory Act or law
- Large-scale content providers, inclusive of taking a leading role in negotiations for block permissions
- Oversee the workgroup mailing list and media help requests from Citizendium users
Appointment of:
- The Workgroup Lead must have carefully exercised sysop powers over media and will act as to uphold Citizendium media policies. To qualify for the position, he or she must have substantial demonstrable knowledge of media assets in open content projects and preferably at least 6 months duty as a constable. He or she may be appointed by the Editor-in-Chief under the advise and consent of the Executive Committee.
The Workgroup Lead will have access to the media-assets@citizendium.org account.
Assistants to the Lead
The Workgroup Lead will deputize Citizendium members as Assistants (exact title yet-to-be-determined) to help coordinate the responsibilities of the Lead and carry out projects under his or her direction. The minimum amount needed to perform the required tasks shall be deputized.
Appointment of:
- An Assistant must be a CZ contributor in good standing, have demonstrable knowledge of media assets in open content projects, and have a clear record of professional interactions with content providers and Citizendium contributors. Assistants may be appointed from volunteers by the Lead under the advise and consent of the Executive Committee.
Assistants will have access to the media-assets@citizendium.org account and may be selected by the Lead to head special projects.
It is expected that the role of Assistant to the Lead will serve as a significant incubator of new Citizendium constables. Certain Assistants may be entrusted with sysop powers to act on their own recognizance, under the careful oversight of the Lead, over exclusively media content that is uncontroversially infringing of copyright.
Workgroup members
Members of the Media Assets Workgroup will respond to requests from the larger Citizendium community to find appropriate media, to request that media be released anew under open content licenses, to determine authorship of media with questionable provenance, and to seek permissions for copyright restricted media.
Plans and goals
Urgent
- 1. Enlist volunteers to ensure that ALL media at Citizendium is properly sourced and tagged, or else deleted if such is not possible.
Short-term
- 1. Create Media Assets Workgroup "infrastructure".
- a. E-mail account.
- b. Mailing list.
- c. Consider adding a template "approval" system to avoid template chaos—to ensure each template is in accordance with other CZ policies and to have some basic standardizations, e.g., see Category:All media for examples of standardizations.
- 2. Write Media Assets Workgroup pages.
- a. How-to pages for workgroup "staff".
- b. Assistance request pages for CZ contributors.
- 3. Recruit
- 4. Clarify all media policy pages.
- a. Settle on certain standardizations.
- 5. Improve and expand general media help pages.
- 6. Write a synopsis help/policy page.
- 7. Expand media template construction and categories as required.
- 8. Have Flumotion installed (see play example) to stream audio and video (see how it works).
Mid-range
- 1. Customize the WikiMedia Special:Upload page for very high ease-of-use. What Wikihow has done is an example of how one can extend Mediawiki to have multiple edit windows on edit pages, see here.
- 2. Add a Special:ImportFreeImages function, see http://www.wikihow.com/Special:ImportFreeImages for an example.
Long-term
- 1. Negotiate Memorandums of Understanding between content-providers and Citizendium.
- 2. Allow only streaming of audio and video in WikiMedia for fair use media. (Very important to bolster fair use claims).
Pages planned
The below are tentative but give an idea of the direction envisioned for and by this workgroup. Every page under the purview of this workgroup will be categorized under Category:Media Assets Workgroup.
Governing workgroup policies
- Policy on Media Assets Workgroup - Founding policy for the workgroup.
- CZ:Media Assets Workgroup staff home - Explains to staff the parameters within which the workgroup is to carry out its functions. Will contain sub-pages as deemed befitting by the workgroup's for its self-organization.
General policies
- Media policy - main media policy page.
- Fair use media policy - Sub-page of above policy. An easy but necessarily rather lengthy yes/no checklist, it requires its own page.
- Policy regarding use of media from archives and museum collections - also a sub-page of Media Policy, this policy will need to be firmly established and explained in detail before negotiations for Memorandums of Understanding and block permissions begin.
- Template policy - The Citizendium has specific parameters and area-related designs for its templates. This page assists your unique creations to hit their mark.
Contributor help pages
- Help:Media - Main page for media help. Synopsizes and links to all sub-pages.
- Help:Media links - Help to find your own images. Contains many links, categorized by image type.
- CZ:Media acquisition requests - If you need assistance obtaining images, images released anew under free content licenses, or obtaining permissions for copyright restricted media, this is the place.
- Help:Templates - How and when to create templates that fit in to "the overall scheme" and work.
- Workgroup mailing list: media-assets@citizendium.org - For use by workgroup staff only. It is foremost to facilitate professional interactions with content-providers. Notifications of copyright violations should go to constables@citizendium.org.