Forum:Reforming Tardis:Video policy

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Opening post

So I know the forums have become infamous recently for overly-long forum OPs. So I want to keep this as simple as possible.

Many moons ago, I made a forum post with the goal of reforming our image use policies. Today, I want to do the same, but for Tardis:Video policy. To me, there are numerous ways that our rules are unhelpful and out-dated. Many of our rules which are written down are no longer consistently followed, being abandoned in the field of policy through implementation. Below I want to quickly sum up my thoughts.

Part 1: Allowing non-admins to upload videos

For some time on Tardis Wiki, it has been an established rule that only admins can upload video content, despite the video upload feature being accessible to all users. In the past, some admins would even block users who did not follow this rule, as is the procedure on Tardis:Video policy.

However, many non-admins have videos they need uploading for their various projects. Thus, Tardis:Video recommendations was created, with Tardis talk:Video recommendations existing as a place for non-admins to jot down video links for admins to upload. Now, I have never known a time on this site where this feature was regularly used. One or twice a year, an admin will remember this exists and will get it caught up. But it has never functioned properly as a compromise.

Today, you'll find that this rule is outright ignored by most users, and for good justification. We simply don't have the workforce we used to because FANDOM is less popular as a site than it was ten years ago. While at one point, Tardis had several admins known to be active every day, today this is far from the case.

And since we have fewer admins, what purpose is there in assigning them needless busywork while they could be doing important tasks? If it gets to a point that we need more admins not to do normal admin stuff but to do very boring office work... Then we just need to change our rules, it's as simple as that.

So here is my suggestion. Registered editors who have accounts should be allowed to upload videos. The idea is that we build an expectation of everyone uploading content understanding our standards - what we allow, what we don't, etc. The right to upload videos can then by revoked once we encounter bad-faith actors or people who just don't understand the rules.

Part 2: Widening what videos are allowed

So this one has some tiers. According to the official rules on our website, these are the restrictions of what can be uploaded to TW:

1. Only YouTube videos can be uploaded
2. Only material from BBC affiliated YouTube channels can be uploaded

These two rules are, to put it lightly... Not actually the rules we follow. I've seen admins upload content from Vimeo, and of course we allow official BBV uploads and the like. So really, these two rules should be revised on paper. We should allow uploads from any site that FANDOM's upload tool supports, and we should allow uploads from any "official" source, regardless of it's the BBC or not.

Part 3: Fair use

So this part is going to be the most controversial. I think we should have a less intense policy when it comes to certain fair use content - specifically documentaries.

I have seen numerous videos created by folks like Christel Dee and Dalek 63*89 which absolutely would be awesome for our infoboxes, but officially we ban any use of these videos because they use promo images (and in some cases brief clips) without BBC permission. But I would argue said cases are fair use - and since this is an American Wiki officially, fair use matters here.

One specific documentary I very much want on the site is Tom J's Remembering Seven Keys to Doomsday. This is easily DVD-level quality, and is worth including. But I'd even go as far as to suggest occasional videos like Chris McFeely's TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on DEATH'S HEAD for non-DW topics.

Now, I've struggled for a while over what the standard would be here. I'm certain we would avoid reviews with more of a focus on historical analysis, and there's a potential threat of self-promotion by small creators. One might argue it should have something to do with quality, or people involved being connected to official productions, or even popularity... But I think it's too difficult of a topic to assign just one variable to.

So my advice would be that we A) judge each potential fair use video case-by-case with no specific standard, and B) only admins be allowed to upload videos like these. This would easily stop violations of T:NO SELF REF while allowing a better selection of content.

Part 4: Referencing (and citing) videos online

So one of our most asinine rules is that not only is it against policy to link to any videos online, it is against policy to describe to another user how to find a video.

For instance, I am currently researching the famous Doctor Who pinball game. There are many videos online showing how to play this game, and even vintage instructional videos which came with the machines. If I tell someone "Oh [username] uploaded [video title]," that is against policy and can result in me being blocked.

That, by itself, is a stupid rule we should get rid of. However, a much bigger issue is that in the current era, there are many video hosting websites which we actually can't upload to the wiki. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok all, as far as I know, have video content which can not be imbedded easily through the FANDOM system.

So the obvious flaw here is that through these archaic rules, there is no way to properly reference the existence of non-YouTube content on the Wiki. For instance, a while ago I saw a video on Twitter of someone working on the 2023 specials using the phrase RTD2, showing that it's official terminology that needs a page... But I can't cite this video because it can't be uploaded and can't be linked to due to site policy. That's stupid.

Generally, there should be an understanding that Tardis Wiki is not going to be sued for acknowledging content exists elsewhere online. Even if the BBC takes something down, they would never in a million years sue a fan wiki for saying "So and so uploaded this thing to YouTube if you want to see it." This is especially important for lost media (which should never be uploaded here but should be something we can discuss on talk pages) but generally we should have a level-headed mindset about how the world actually works.

Conclusions

So I hope this one was easy on your eyes. To sum everything up - we should allow Vimeo uploads, uploads of official but non-BBC videos, links to sites which can't be imbedded but are important, the ability to lead other users to content which exists online ("Search these key words and look for a video by this creator"), the ability for non-admins to upload content if they prove to understand the rules, and selective documentaries by non-official entities if judged and uploaded by the admin team. OS25🤙☎️ 21:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Great OP. I fully support this proposal. However, I would amend the bit about which videos we can upload to say that any non-official videos can be uploaded too, just as long as they are within topic and it makes sense for us to have it. Danniesen ☎ 21:25, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

To add an example to the above... the Behind the Scenes for The Curse of Fatal Death (TV story) exists on YouTube, but it’s not been uploaded by any official account, but rather an account called "Bob Thackray". We should be allowed to have that, as it's not really to be found anywhere "official" such as BBC or Red Nose Day or the like. Danniesen ☎ 21:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Will discuss in more depth later. Preliminary thoughts: we might also want to flesh out some rules for videos specifically for the discussions section. Because, well, there's basically no real ruleset over there except "whatever an admin thinks is appropriate". A compromise, if people thinks this goes too far, is to grant another role to some prominent editors and let them also add videos as well as admins, (content-mod is probably the most obvious, but that's kinda a hassle, it grants a ton of access. Rollback is probably less egregious if we wanted to go down this route. But we still don't let people have rollback for a reason.) I'm actually fairly skeptical of the fair use stuff here in the sense that I'm skeptical that this is fair use. But I also don't really care, for the same reason I'm not super concerned about R2. (IP holders are just landlords, don't @ me.) But that might be motivating for others. Najawin ☎ 21:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

In general, I agree. However, I'd rather not allow non-official uploads, including fair use documentaries. I would very much like to allow citing and linking to these types of videos, though. I've been watching a lot of Josh Snares documentaries recently and some of them are easily the same quality as official documentaries and would be great sources to be able to cite. The same can be said for Dalek 63•89. We allow citing unofficial reference books and websites. I don't see why unoffocial documentaries should be any different. It's not just unofficial stuff I'd like to be able to link and cite, though. Official channels can upload behind the scenes content and I feel we should be able to cite these directly. I have some more thoughts on a topic not brought up in the OP but it's a bit more in depth than I have time to write up right now so expect to see another message tomorrow. Bongo50 ☎ 21:48, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I'd also like to specifficaly affirm that, speaking as an admin, I'd love to relax the rules on non-admins uploading videos. We don't have any equivelant for images and it would make my work as admin a little easier. Tardis:Video recommendations can becomes very messy if it's not kept on top off. Bongo50 ☎ 21:50, 22 August 2023 (UTC)