Archive:Media Assets Workgroup

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.

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Overview

The Media Assets Workgroup is Citizendium's "Media and Permissions Department". It will also play certain intermediate roles in the technical aspects of media on Citizendium. Its overarching mission is

To improve and safeguard Citizendium by serving its editors, authors, readers, media 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 for Citizendium to 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 shall 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 block permission on behalf of Citizendium with media content providers.
• Maintain an "image request system"
• Maintain a "permission request system"

An IMAP account or tagging account, 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 and help pages.

• Resource pages of image sources
• Image request page
• Media help pages
• Template help pages

Templates

The workgroup will coordinate the creation and use of media licensing tags within Citizendium. This is to ensure all media is tagged in a standardized fashion.

Group communication

The workgroup shall maintain a mailing list for general announcements.

Organization

Workgroup Lead (exact title yet-to-be-determined)

Workgroup activities and initiatives will be overseen by the Media Assets Workgroup Lead.

Responsibilities include:

• Maintenance of pages and templates that fall within the purview of the Media Assets Workgroup.
  • Image request page
  • Media help pages
  • Media templates and related help pages

• Act as a point of contact with large-scale content providers
  • Take a leading role in negotiations for block permissions

• Oversee the workgroup mailing list and media help requests from Citizendium users

The Workgroup Lead will have access to the media-assets@citizendium.org account.

Appointment of: The Workgroup Lead must be a constable, plus have substantial demonstrable knowledge of media assets in open content projects. He or she may be appointed by the Editor-in-Chief under the advise and consent of the Executive Committee.

Assistants to the Lead (exact title yet-to-be-determined)

The Workgroup Lead will deputize Citizendium members as assistants 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 and have demonstrable knowledge of media assets in open content projects. 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.

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.

Assistants and members may be selected by the Lead to head special projects.

Plans and goals

Urgent

1. Enlist volunteers to ensure that ALL media at Citizendium is properly sourced and tagged.

Short-term

1. Create Media Assets Workgroup "infrastructure".

a. E-mail account.

b. Mailing list.

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 MediaWiki Player installed.

Mid-range

1. Customize Special:Upload for very high ease-of-use.

Long-term

1. Negotiate Memorandums of Understanding between content-providers and Citizendium.

2. Build streaming audio and video capabilities into MediaWiki. (This is for consumer ease-of-use and to bolster fair use claims).

3. Improve MediaWiki Player to play multiple formats and streaming media.