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COM:GOF
??
COM:GRANDFATHER
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COM:OLDFILES
It is a general practice on Wikimedia Commons to prove that permission was given to release files created by third parties under a free license by getting that party to send an e-mail to the
Volunteer Response Team
(formerly OTRS team). However, the OTRS system has only been in use on Wikimedia Commons since 2006. The OTRS e-mail address was first mentioned on
Commons:First steps
on
15 March 2006
and
Commons:Volunteer Response Team
was created on
11 September 2006
.
Yet there are many older files on Wikimedia Commons which have been uploaded with e-mail permission. Between
8 January 2006
and 15 March 2006, uploaders were required to add a quote of the permission grant by the copyright holder. An
earlier revision
of Commons:First Steps mentions that the permission field of the
{{Information}}
template should contain:
"Short quote of the permission of the copyright owner of this image in case of a individual permission."
Prior to 8 January 2006, it was only required that the file be properly licensed and attributed, with no specific statement of permission being required on the image page.
It has been a custom on Wikimedia Commons to
grandfather
in these files, rather than to delete them. See for example
this discussion
at the
Administrators' noticeboard
.
If there are reasons to doubt the authorship or permission of the author of one of these files, attempts should be made to communicate with the named author, to better establish the situation (and preferably obtain
VRT
evidence). The
precautionary principle
still applies ? if real doubt remains, the file may be deleted in a deletion request.
An example of a grandfathered old file (GOF) which was deleted and then undeleted based on this principle can be viewed
here
.
Grandfathered old files should be tagged with the
{{Grandfathered old file}}
template which assigns them to the hidden category
Category:Grandfathered old files
. This tag can be applied only to files uploaded prior to 1 January 2007.