Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Content task force

message: How about adding DOC to the list of potential sources. Images of NZ native trees, plants, birds, and animals are hard to come by, and in great need here on Wikipedia. No photo of a rimu tree for instance. By way of contrast, in the US, images taken by Government entities are generally public domain - this US Geological Survey site [] contains hundreds of images of plants that grow in Hawaii, and commons has a template just for that site as a source. Luckily NZ and Hawaii share quite a few plants. But in NZ, the mindset is different. DOC is unprepared for requests to release images, I tried, and gave up because I had to deal with their legal advisor or somebody and they wanted to know what institution I represented, bla bla bla - not worth the effort in the end. Fact is, they have heaps of decent photos, and an article on Wikipedia has to be good for conservation. I guess if we could arrange some kind of official-sounding Wikipedia approach they might have a rethink Kahuroa 11:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: DOC

message: I've sent a couple of versions of this letter to a couple of people who have contacted me directly. I'd like to start sending it to more people. Probably starting with MPs and then perhaps working on to others. I'd like feedback on the working. Sample texts I'm working from are Wikipedia:Example_requests_for_permission.
Dear <Mr./Ms./etc.> <last name>:
I am one of the many volunteer editors of the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is among the most-visited sites on the Internet, ranking near the top ten according to the estimates of Alexa Internet (alexa.com), and it is likely that many people visit our article about you (<insert link to article here>') each day.
Unfortunately, our article currently makes use of an image of you that might be considered unflattering due to its comparatively low quality. / Unfortunately, our article on you currently does not have a photograph.
I am aware that there are many publicity images of you available, but since Wikipedia aims to be reproducible even for profit and even in nations where "fair use" provisions in copyright law are inapplicable, we cannot use an image that is not released under a so-called "free license". Essentially, the copyright holder of any image that we use must irrevocably permit anyone else to use it, modify it, or sell it, with the only permissible requirements being that the author be named and that any modifications be released under an identical license. (Exceptions may be made if there is no image available that meets these criteria, but that is not the case here.)
Example licenses that would permit us to use a better-quality image would be: the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/legalcode), or a simple "no rights reserved". You are under no obligation to release any material under such licenses, but I thought that for public-relations purposes, you might want to consider it given Wikipedia's great popularity. I have attached two sample releases below for these licenses.
We would especially be interested in a "head shot" photograph for the top of the article and another photograph of you in the course of your work.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, <name>
I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of attached WORK 
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public
domain. This applies worldwide.
In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this
work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are 
required by law.
I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.
DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER
I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the attached photograph.
I agree to publish that work under the free license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. 
I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws.
I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me.
I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.
DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER
Thoughts? - SimonLyall (talk) 09:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Draft Letter

message: Reads well. I like the personal pronouns. Lanma726 (talk) 01:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Thoughts

message: I have managed to get hold of somebody in the PMs office that I can email asking for specific photos in the Nat/PM's flickr stream to be released (ask, no gtee). If you have any suggested ones can you please list them below and I'll send an email next weekend (2-3 July) - 22:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be good if they could freely licence as many as possible, but      would be a start. Maybe show them the list? Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

text: You'd think that if you're the government, you shouldn't be afraid to share your pictures on the internet.--Anon 22:45, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  PM's office 

message: I have contacted the Labour Party asking for some photos that we could use, I explained the license situation in the first email. I received a response, which sounded promising. But they wanted to check my "credentials at Wikipedia". I explained to them that it was a free encyclopedia and that everyone can contribute, told them I've been editing on and off for 6 years and linked to my current account and the images of politicians I've uploaded. There hasn't been a reply since then, but I'm still hoping.
It's strange to me that political parties don't take more interest in Wikipedia. There is a page on every single MP. Wouldn't it be beneficial to them if there were proper photos for every MP, rather than crops from low res pictures?--Anon 22:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have heard back from the Labour Party. They've released a lot of their promotional photos that they have for the 2011 elections for use under CC-by-sa-nz 3.0! I've uploaded some today, I'll upload the rest tomorrow evening.--Anon 08:59, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Labour Party 

message: Some good news - I've been in touch with a political blogger who has access to the parliament and, I'm assuming, is around there a lot. While he has no current photos that he can share, he's volunteered to take photos of some of the MPs when the new parliament meets again and to release them under the CC license.--Anon 00:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. I see you have filled in most of the labour party. David Farrar has indicated to me he'll try and get some photos - SimonLyall (talk) 09:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Parliament 

message: I gave Archives New Zealand a call today and talked to the duty archivist (what a cool title). The good news:
* They have extensive photographs from government departments, official bodies and publications ( this included the "National Publicity Studios" ). There is a list of some of them here.
* Most of the material is under crown copyright so they can make decision to release if they want (unlike National Library who mostly hold donated works and are limited as to what they can do).
* For the sort of thing we want ( official photographs, public places, etc ) there is a good chance they could release them under a CC-by license.
However:
* Almost no photos are scanned and online
* A good percentage of material is un-indexed.
* Some material most of arranged to be available for a visit. I think you can "browse" a little material that is on microfiche etc.
* If they need to do any sort of research there may be a charge
* We have not got the official word that things can be released under a CC license.
What I think we need to do:
* Identify a small amount of material to start off with ( perhaps a dozen photos of PMs, GGs or a major event ).
* Somebody in Wellington goes in with a good camera to get copies of the photos.
* We send in an official request for the photos to be released into CC-by
Thoughts? There website is  and the search site  lets you refine searches to photographs etc. - SimonLyall (talk) 09:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure? Whenever I search their site any photos are from collections like "The Evening Post" or "K E Niven and Co :Commercial negatives" where there is no indication as to who actually controls the copyright. When I asked previously they seems very concerned about keep a close eye on any re-use of images so as not to scare off donations. I can find images and cartoons on their website that are just a year old, are you seriously telling me they control the copyright of those?  - SimonLyall (talk) 21:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I know that using images from the Turnbull Library section of the National Library eg in a book is quite expensive Hugo999 (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives New Zealand 

message: I have created two subcategories of :Category:New Zealand MPs for North Island electorates, ie :Category:New Zealand MPs for Wellington electorates and :Category:New Zealand MPs for Hutt Valley electorates. 
This is so that articles on any MP can have the appropriate subcategory added if they are amended. That is, unless anyone wants any other subcategories of :Category:Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives by electorate
for the greater Auckland or Wellington areas? Eg covering the Porirua and Kapiti areas?  Hugo999 (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Zealand MPs for Wellington & Hutt Valley electorates 

message: I recently approached the National Party on flickr to see if they would be interested in licensing their photos CC-BY-SA instead of CC-BY-NC-ND. Here's the response:
Harry,
Thank you for your message.
National is happy with the current BY-NC-ND licence on our Flickr photos (non-commercial, no derivatives, with attribution). This licence has been chosen because our photos come from many sources and the licence covers them all.
Some of our photos are available for purposes outside the licence, with explicit permission. If you’d like to use an image or images in a way that doesn’t meet the BY-NC-ND licence, please request permission from us. Just let us know which photos you would like to use and how you would like to use them.Thanks and kind regards
nznationalparty
Good to know I guess! Ballofstring (talk) 00:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I was in touch with them 2 or 3 years back and got a similar response. That said, their offer of 'ask us on a case-by-case basis and we'll consider' is certainly an improvement. Schwede66 06:03, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Approached the Nat Party (re Flickr licences) 

message: Ballofstring, with reference to your project page entry to this topic, that's a nice piece of work indeed. If you wanted to further improve that, you could consider adding a section to it what all the various abbreviations means, and why NC or ND are not permissible. I request flickr license changes a lot, and many photographers miss the finer details. I've gone to the trouble of writing some detailed instructions for changing flickr licenses; feel free to make use of it, too. Schwede66 07:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Schwede66 Thanks for the feedback! I've updated the post to give a bit more background about CC, and although it's a bit longer, hopefully it should answer people's questions! - Ballofstring (talk) 08:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done! Schwede66 09:00, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Politicians and openly-licensed photography 

message: I moaned to my local Labour MP yesterday about the permission not coming through from the party hierarchy. And what do you know? After weeks of inaction, the permission has finally been sent to the OTRS team. The licenses should thus be changed shortly and there should be no risk of anything getting deleted. Yeah! Schwede66 01:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Great stuff! Thanks for all your work (and moaning) in getting these images here. Kiwichris (talk) 05:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Labour Party images