Commons:Deletion requests/File:Zoe Saldana signature.svg
We are Zoe Saldana's attorneys. She has requested that her signature be removed from this site. If you have any further questions, please contact: [email protected]. Thank you. 38.107.113.2 16:48, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
To add to this request, we point to [Signatures of living persons] which states: "Concerns about privacy and identity theft make it imperative that signatures be removed upon the request of the subject." Please heed this request. Thank you.
- I agree that the signature should be deleted. The first reason is that it is a violation of privacy. The second reason is that it's an artistic, flowery signature which stands on its own as original art. It contains an artistic but functionally unnecessary horizontal line in the first letter Z. Another artistic feature is the closing loop which is artistic and not functionally necessary. Binksternet (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose deletion This doesn't seem particularly artistic to me - seems like any other signature. It doesn't make any sense why deleting this would protect her privacy. She readily gives out her signature in autographs and her signature is already all over the internet. HAL333 (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
- Although I don't necessarily agree that it should be deleted or that this request has any legal standing, it is general practice on Wikipedia to remove signatures of living people upon their request. Mclay1 (talk) 02:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- Hi all. Checking in here on this request. How do we resolve this deletion request? Thank you! 38.107.113.2 19:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
- Support deletion. Per BLP. I believe we should ignore the fact that she has requested this via her lawyers and treat it as a request from the subject. I am unfamiliar with the Commons BLP policy, but common sense and a respect for privacy should rule here. -Arch dude (talk) 01:55, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
- Support deletion as not educationally useful and as a courtesy to Ms Saldana. The use has been removed from enwiki as a violation of en:wikipedia:biographies of living people policy, and Ms Saldana has requested its deletion. —teb728 t c 04:22, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
- Support deletion, per teb728. -- Hoary (talk) 09:53, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
Delete per the reasoning in w:WP:BLPSIGN#Privacy. For me the bottom line is privacy and the risk of facilitating identity theft. Or to put it another way, I would feel profoundly uncomfortable if my signature was hosted on Commons, hideous childlike scrawl that is.PS. I also think that since this discussion has been open for 10 months, and there is only a single oppose against now 7 supports, it is high time it is actioned. Just because those participating (on both sides) probably mostly came from enwp doesn't make the outcome any less clear or less valid, absent specific conflict with Commons policy or significant participation from more established Commons community members. COM:BLP, while rigged very differently from w:WP:BLP for obvious reasons, still recognises the issues being adduced in this discussion as the reasons for deletion, so that outcome would very much be in line with and based on Commons' policy. --Xover (talk) 10:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Kept: signature taken from publicly available source ([1]), COM:SIG is different from en.wiki policy and I don't think it should be deleted on copyright basis. In case they want to file a DMCA request, there is a separate way to do it. --rubin16 (talk) 15:58, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Based on previous DR, and on the discussion on UDR. Yann (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Yann. I opened the UDR because it seemed to be the closest process to w:WP:DRV. Reproducing my rationale from Commons:Undeletion_requests#File:Zoe_Saldana_signature.svg:
- User:Rubin16 kept this file contradicting consensus at the original DR (7 in support of deletion, 1 opposed), citing COM:SIG and stating "I don't think it should be deleted on copyright basis". I don't believe copyright was any of the original participants' primary reasons for advocating deletion. From my assessment, most advocated for deletion on privacy grounds and out of respect for a good faith request from the subject. It is not used on her EN article per consensus that there is no educational value for including it. My reading of COM:SIG is that it merely describes when signatures do or do not fall into PD. It does not require that Commons host a copy of a person's signature, even if it falls into PD, and especially not in the face of a good faith request for removal from the subject. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:52, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- @38.107.113.2, Binksternet, HAL333, Mclay1, Arch dude, 104.172.245.182, Teb728, Hoary, Xover, King of Hearts, Rubin16, Jameslwoodward, and JWilz12345: pinging members of previous discussions. Apologies to people who were pinged multiple times over this! Axem Titanium (talk) 15:22, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Delete. Good-faith request from the subject should be honored. Binksternet (talk) 15:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Delete Good faith request. . Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Delete. The undelete was based on a misinterpretation of COM:BLP, narrowly interpreting this as solely a copyright issue. The policy is actually quite clear about the non-copyright issue of privacy. I feel that the undeleting admin should discuss this at the policy level before undeleting. -Arch dude (talk) 16:31, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- To be clear, the file was never deleted in the first place. Rubin16 closed the above discussion as Keep, despite the supermajority consensus for delete. I took it to UDR because I couldn't find a better place for it, but I've been advised that simply opening a new DR is the best option. Axem Titanium (talk) 17:15, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Delete per nom. @Axem Titanium: note that COM:UNDEL is equivalent to en:WP:UNDEL; there is no close equivalent to deletion review, and re-nomination is the best option for this case. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 16:33, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Keep The signature is available elsewhere so if there is no privacy concerns keeping it on Instagram, I wonder why there are privacy concerns keeping it here. We do not accept censorship. Also, it is used on fiwiki, so if it is deleted per courtesy, it should be restored per any fiwiki user request. Noting that English Wikipedia policies or irrelevant: both here and in fiwiki. And DMCA is always the available path for copyright violations. Ankry (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- This isn't about censorship. A person should have the right to decide when and where their signature is deployed. Voluntarily posting it on Instagram (or signing a fan's autograph book) is substantively different from someone else tracing it and posting it online without their consent, is it not? Per COM:SIG, there's also no policy on Commons stating that it must host a PD image of a person's signature, merely that it may. I'm also not seeing why a hypothetical fi.wiki editor's request should outweigh the request of the person herself. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- The argument about “must host” isn’t valid: Wikimedia projects are based on volunteers’ work, so, any type of content could be desired to exist but there couldn’t be an obligation to exist. And when one decides that its work (a free one) could be used somewhere but not used in another source it is censorship and goes against the values of free knowledge. It is the same way when NPG hosts PD paintings but doesn’t allow others to publish them, even threatening to sue: User:Dcoetzee/NPG legal threat/Coverage. It is a free work, it is publicly available in a reliable and highly popular account, why do we need to delete it before it is deleted from Instagram? I am sure Zoe knows how to contact Pratt. rubin16 (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- This isn't about censorship. A person should have the right to decide when and where their signature is deployed. Voluntarily posting it on Instagram (or signing a fan's autograph book) is substantively different from someone else tracing it and posting it online without their consent, is it not? Per COM:SIG, there's also no policy on Commons stating that it must host a PD image of a person's signature, merely that it may. I'm also not seeing why a hypothetical fi.wiki editor's request should outweigh the request of the person herself. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Comment I have no strong view on the substance of whether this should be deleted or kept. I simply think that if there is a DR supermajority to delete in accordance with the subject's wishes, we should not overrule the consensus for not being based on any explicit policy; I think it would be a reasonable application of COM:IAR. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:19, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Keep. DR is a discussion, not a voting, and I don’t think that the majority itself counts: we have cases where a lot of people just state “we shouldn’t care about FoP”, for example. And I don’t want to discuss participants’ contributions but I wouldn’t call all of them active members of Commons, though they are active members elsewhere. I would have agreed with deletion if the image would have been leaked from some closed source, uploaded as dubious own work by an unknown user but here it is still published and available on Instagram. En.wiki policies don’t apply here, I don’t see any privacy issues here, so, no basis for deletion. rubin16 (talk) 18:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, DR is a discussion to form consensus, not admin supervote powerhour. That you disagreed with the consensus does not give you the right to override it in closing the previous discussion. "I don’t want to discuss participants’ contributions" - it sounds like you have, my friend. You said the quiet part loud: that you don't consider the perspectives of people who aren't "active" enough on Commons to be worth as much as yours. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- I would answer here and probably cover some comment below. I would repeat again, the number of votes doesn’t matter here, we evaluate validity of arguments used. I see that probably people who participated in the discussion feel that their arguments were just ignored, probably, it was not the best quality of my summary of the discussion, but I still think that the result itself is correct. It doesn’t matter how many people support some view when it is not supported by local policies and practices: there are dozens of DRs here, for example, where people suggest ignoring freedom of panorama when images of high quality are deleted en masse despite being highly used in Wikimedia projects. It is not an admin supervote or ignoring majority, it is the validation of arguments. So, arguments for deletion before mainly talked about en.wiki practice, attorney’s request, and low educational value. Low value is a subjective one, the image is used in Wikimedia projects and can be used even more, as it is typical for such articles about celebrities to have signature images there. Attorney’s request isn’t a sufficient argument itself: it is just an IP request, we have DMCA or at least VRT to deal with such request and ensure that the request is valid. En.wiki practice isn’t automatically applied here (though it could hurt active en.wiki members, participating in this discussion) though we have local BLP policy and there is some common spirit in both policies. But local BLP says about undesired disclosure of personal information: when you don’t know that someone makes your photo, when photo was taken from some hidden place, when it is has low value, is unused but could make harm to a person (for example, a photo from a public nudist beach). It’s not a case here, it was publicly posted in a highly visible place, still available there. That’s why I discarded these arguments, despite being numerous, as invalid, but considered DR more a censorship attempt. rubin16 (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- What good is it to invite a DMCA takedown? It wastes everyone's time (ours, the WMF/VRT, the attorneys, etc.) when we could just be decent human beings responding to a good faith request? The outcome is the same but the former risks damaging Wikimedia's standing in the eyes of the law. Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Axem Titanium (talk) 17:09, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- I would answer here and probably cover some comment below. I would repeat again, the number of votes doesn’t matter here, we evaluate validity of arguments used. I see that probably people who participated in the discussion feel that their arguments were just ignored, probably, it was not the best quality of my summary of the discussion, but I still think that the result itself is correct. It doesn’t matter how many people support some view when it is not supported by local policies and practices: there are dozens of DRs here, for example, where people suggest ignoring freedom of panorama when images of high quality are deleted en masse despite being highly used in Wikimedia projects. It is not an admin supervote or ignoring majority, it is the validation of arguments. So, arguments for deletion before mainly talked about en.wiki practice, attorney’s request, and low educational value. Low value is a subjective one, the image is used in Wikimedia projects and can be used even more, as it is typical for such articles about celebrities to have signature images there. Attorney’s request isn’t a sufficient argument itself: it is just an IP request, we have DMCA or at least VRT to deal with such request and ensure that the request is valid. En.wiki practice isn’t automatically applied here (though it could hurt active en.wiki members, participating in this discussion) though we have local BLP policy and there is some common spirit in both policies. But local BLP says about undesired disclosure of personal information: when you don’t know that someone makes your photo, when photo was taken from some hidden place, when it is has low value, is unused but could make harm to a person (for example, a photo from a public nudist beach). It’s not a case here, it was publicly posted in a highly visible place, still available there. That’s why I discarded these arguments, despite being numerous, as invalid, but considered DR more a censorship attempt. rubin16 (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- Delete. Full agreement with Axem Titanium's nomination above. Incidentally, this would be no loss for Wikipedia: I don't see how a signature is encyclopedic information, unless perhaps (a) the signator is known for signing baseballs, plaster-casts or even books, or (b) the signature (or forgery thereof) has been at all widely discussed. It's extraordinarily trivial, other I suppose than for readers under the delusion that "graphology" is of any value. Or of course for help in fraud. -- Hoary (talk) 22:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Category:Signatures here has ~60k files with scan on depth level of 2 subcategories. en:Template:Infobox person has a parameter for signatures, the same as various other infoboxes across other Wikimedia projects. I am afraid that discussion of non-encyclopaedic status of this information isn't valid here as it is actually well used. And P109 (property on Wikidata covering signatures) has ~25k inclusions. rubin16 (talk) 06:30, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Keep If there wasn't so much debate above, I would have said speedy keep. It is simple: the file is in use, there is no copyright issue (per discussion above) and there is no privacy issue (subject has publicly posted it themselves and apparently it is widely available elsewhere). And to ask the question that should have been asked above: where is the evidence that this request actually came from or on behalf of the subject? All I see is an IP address. Brianjd (talk) 06:16, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Brianjd: If you request proof that we are indeed her attorneys, you are free to email me at [email protected] and I will confirm that I am indeed the same individual as the one communicating on this "talk" board. Any Google search of our law firm and Zoe Saldana's name should provide confirmation that our firm represents her. (38.107.113.2 23:48, 1 November 2021 (UTC))
Delete The signature facilitates identity theft, and one's signature is, for some people, a very personal thing, like other matters covered by BLP, and requests to remove such that do not directly contradict policy should be honoured. The reasoning behind w:WP:BLPSIGN#Privacy applies (while COM:SIG, being narrowly about copyright, does not).@Rubin16: That you do not see any privacy issues here only means that you do not see any privacy issues. The seven other people participating in the deletion discussion did, and overruling them when there was no clear policy mandate to do so was in effect just an "admin supervote" (whether you intended it that way or not). While our policy does permit admins to have supervotes—for better or worse—employing it in this case was not the best idea: as we can see the issue just popped right back up again, alienated those community members who had participated in that discussion and now feel their concerns were ignored, discouraged others from participating in these discussions (because "What's the point? The admin will just decide on a whim anyway."), and resolved precisely nothing (because now the issue is up for discussion again). It also makes us look pretty gosh darned amateurish to everyone watching from the outside: we're supposed to be a collaborative and consensus-driven project, but only if the admin that happens to be the one closing the discussion happens to agree with the community members participating? It doesn't really matter whether the community was right or wrong, so long as there was no direct policy forbidding that outcome it should have been honoured. And if you, as an admin, feel strongly enough about it to challenge it, you should recuse yourself from acting as an admin on the issue, and go challenge it through normal community processes (UDR) and as a normal member of the community.PS. That a community member cites a policy on a different project as a rationale does not in itself invalidate their position. While it may not be policy here, a lot of policies on other projects have strong implicit or explicit rationales (i.e. they explain why the policy is that way) and citing them cites that rationale as an argument rather than as a policy per se. We should also keep in mind that policies on other projects, particularly the other large projects like the most popular Wikipedias, have often had the benefit of long and thorough community discussions and as such represent a strong consensus among a sizeable part of the wider Wikimedia community. Their policies are not binding here, but that doesn't mean their positions should be ignored or dismissed out of hand. BLP issues, in particular, is something enwp has had to grapple with extensively, so the rationales that underpin their policies in that area are the result of a lot of discussion and adjustment in light of practical experience. It would be beyond arrogant to dismiss it solely because it wasn't "invented here". --Xover (talk) 08:44, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Xover: Actually, @HAL333 also said they could not see any privacy issues here. HAL333 explicitly discussed this point and @Rubin16 implicitly addressed it by saying that the signature was taken from a "publicly available source". The other side may have had numbers on their side, but they have yet to produce a convincing explanation: how can something that is widely available to the public, including from the subject themselves, constitute a privacy issue? Brianjd (talk) 09:18, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Brianjd: You're somewhat proving my point. HAL was indeed the lone person that disagreed in that discussion, and they did so by stating their rationale and that they found the arguments of the majority unconvincing. That's entirely fair and I am grateful they took time out to participate in the discussion: not everyone will agree on such issues, which is why we have discussions and community processes. But they also implicitly acknowledged the fact that all those !voting for deletion did provide arguments and rationales for their positions. Rubin's close against a 7:1 majority, and your dismissal now as "mere numbers", both discount their arguments as actually invalid just because you do not agree with them.And to address the actual argument you are making—which relates to your stance on the issue, to which you are entirely entitled, but in no way invalidates those other people's positions—there is a world of difference between the signature existing as one among those of 9 others' on an open letter, in JPEG format, on Instagram, where images are generally recognised as being protected by copyright, and as an extracted and traced vector (SVG) version that is hosted on a massive file repository known (in fact, defines itself fundamentally as) for only hosting freely reusable media, and labelled as "public domain". Not least of which is the ease with which it can be rescaled and manipulated to forge a document (for, e.g., purposes of identity theft, or mere harassment, Joe jobs, etc.). It is also not up to us, or anyone else, to decide what Zaldana feels is an invasion of her privacy. We may some times be forced to decline to accommodate such requests when they are in direct contravention of our policies and the requester too out of step with the average norms for what constitutes a violation of privacy, but that does not generally give us the power of definition over this. Context matters: signing an open letter for some presumably good cause, or signing an autograph for a fan, does not imply that you somehow lose the right to complain about a third party extracting and posting a high-resolution vector trace of the signature in isolation. Absent copyrightability (which I don't really see anyone arguing, and which I would be hard to persuade applied) they can't demand it be deleted, but they certainly can, as they have, ask for that courtesy. 7:1 in the deletion discussion were willing to accede to that request. Xover (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Xover: I wasn't discounting their arguments as "invalid". I was discounting them as "missing". Like I said, nobody explained how something widely available to the public can be considered private. That seems like a reasonable question to ask.
- When I first tried to view the Instagram post, the site was having technical issues. Then it turned out that viewing the post requires an Instagram account, which I do not have. But I have now viewed an archived copy, which matches your description - a description not previously provided.
- I still don't agree with deleting this file. But at least we now have a valid argument for doing so. So we can let the community debate it.
- Nitpick: There are nine signatures total, so eight other signatures besides the one being nominated here.
- Brianjd (talk) 03:03, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Brianjd: You're somewhat proving my point. HAL was indeed the lone person that disagreed in that discussion, and they did so by stating their rationale and that they found the arguments of the majority unconvincing. That's entirely fair and I am grateful they took time out to participate in the discussion: not everyone will agree on such issues, which is why we have discussions and community processes. But they also implicitly acknowledged the fact that all those !voting for deletion did provide arguments and rationales for their positions. Rubin's close against a 7:1 majority, and your dismissal now as "mere numbers", both discount their arguments as actually invalid just because you do not agree with them.And to address the actual argument you are making—which relates to your stance on the issue, to which you are entirely entitled, but in no way invalidates those other people's positions—there is a world of difference between the signature existing as one among those of 9 others' on an open letter, in JPEG format, on Instagram, where images are generally recognised as being protected by copyright, and as an extracted and traced vector (SVG) version that is hosted on a massive file repository known (in fact, defines itself fundamentally as) for only hosting freely reusable media, and labelled as "public domain". Not least of which is the ease with which it can be rescaled and manipulated to forge a document (for, e.g., purposes of identity theft, or mere harassment, Joe jobs, etc.). It is also not up to us, or anyone else, to decide what Zaldana feels is an invasion of her privacy. We may some times be forced to decline to accommodate such requests when they are in direct contravention of our policies and the requester too out of step with the average norms for what constitutes a violation of privacy, but that does not generally give us the power of definition over this. Context matters: signing an open letter for some presumably good cause, or signing an autograph for a fan, does not imply that you somehow lose the right to complain about a third party extracting and posting a high-resolution vector trace of the signature in isolation. Absent copyrightability (which I don't really see anyone arguing, and which I would be hard to persuade applied) they can't demand it be deleted, but they certainly can, as they have, ask for that courtesy. 7:1 in the deletion discussion were willing to accede to that request. Xover (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Xover: Actually, @HAL333 also said they could not see any privacy issues here. HAL333 explicitly discussed this point and @Rubin16 implicitly addressed it by saying that the signature was taken from a "publicly available source". The other side may have had numbers on their side, but they have yet to produce a convincing explanation: how can something that is widely available to the public, including from the subject themselves, constitute a privacy issue? Brianjd (talk) 09:18, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Comment There is a lot of talk about w:WP:BLPSIGN and "policy". For what it's worth, that page is not a policy, or even a guideline. It is merely an essay. Brianjd (talk) 09:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Brianjd: It is being discussed as "policy" only by those who wish to dismiss it by casting it as being "not Commons policy". That argument is fallacious: nobody is arguing that any policy, much less the policy of a different project, requiires the file's deletion. They are citing a pre-existing wikipage that explains the rationale for their their !votes at more length than is convenient in a discussion. You know, like w:WP:ESSAY. Xover (talk) 20:31, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Keep In use in fi:Zoë Saldaña, signature is publicaly and notoriously available in a public forum in an open letter about an public and newsworthy subject and to the ones saying that it "violates" w:WP:BLPSIGN#Privacy, first welcome to Wikimedia Commons, a sister project to English Wikipedia (i.e. diferent projects, diferents policies, i.e. policies and guidelines in one project are not policies and guidelines in another, even when said "policies and guidelines" is merely an essay, i.e. "nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.). Tm (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- Being available publicly on another platform does not mean that the subject automatically consents to her signature being available in all contexts for all time. Signing a letter in support of a coworker is extremely different than a signature being uploaded to Commons by a 3rd party user explicitly against her will, is it not? One can consent to publicly displaying it in one limited context without relinquishing all rights to privacy forever. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:16, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Axem Titanium: This seems like a straw man. This nomination is about an image that the subject is still distributing to the public themselves. Brianjd (talk) 06:54, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it is. The circumstances I gave are quite specific to this particular case and no one here is advocating that all signatures be deleted from Commons. It shouldn't matter that the subject is "still distributing" it. They should be able to choose the time and place of distribution, whether that makes sense to us or not. What's known is that the subject has requested deletion from Commons and I'm not seeing a compelling Commons policy reason to keep it over such a request. COM:SIG does not supply such a reason. Merely asserting that "it's public already" as a justification does not appear to be rooted in policy, unless you can point to one that says as much? Axem Titanium (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- The policy to keep the image is COM:SCOPE: it has value and is used in Wikimedia projects (it was you who removed it from fi.wp, not Finnish community itself). Value is proved by the fact that thousands of other articles are also illustrated with signatures. And there is no policy to delete it here, especially as it is still publicly available now with millions of views worldwide. rubin16 (talk) 16:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- I was complying with a request from Ms. Saldaña's attorneys on the page at fi.wp. Fi's BLP page is similar to en.wp's in that private information may be requested to be removed by the subject. It was restored by another user against policy after YOU closed the previous DR against consensus. I'm not going to make a blanket argument that signatures of public figures are broadly non-educational. But is that supposed educational purpose greater than a request for deletion from the subject? I don't think so. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:55, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- The policy to keep the image is COM:SCOPE: it has value and is used in Wikimedia projects (it was you who removed it from fi.wp, not Finnish community itself). Value is proved by the fact that thousands of other articles are also illustrated with signatures. And there is no policy to delete it here, especially as it is still publicly available now with millions of views worldwide. rubin16 (talk) 16:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it is. The circumstances I gave are quite specific to this particular case and no one here is advocating that all signatures be deleted from Commons. It shouldn't matter that the subject is "still distributing" it. They should be able to choose the time and place of distribution, whether that makes sense to us or not. What's known is that the subject has requested deletion from Commons and I'm not seeing a compelling Commons policy reason to keep it over such a request. COM:SIG does not supply such a reason. Merely asserting that "it's public already" as a justification does not appear to be rooted in policy, unless you can point to one that says as much? Axem Titanium (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Axem Titanium: This seems like a straw man. This nomination is about an image that the subject is still distributing to the public themselves. Brianjd (talk) 06:54, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- Being available publicly on another platform does not mean that the subject automatically consents to her signature being available in all contexts for all time. Signing a letter in support of a coworker is extremely different than a signature being uploaded to Commons by a 3rd party user explicitly against her will, is it not? One can consent to publicly displaying it in one limited context without relinquishing all rights to privacy forever. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:16, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Elly: Apologies for the informal nature of the request, we are trying to be respectful of Wikipedia's community (you all). In our experience, there is usually vehement rejection of any request that comes with even a veiled threat of formal legal action. If there is any doubt as to whether our law firm is "serious" or that we represent Zoe Saldana, a simple Google search of our name and hers together should confirm that we are a real law firm that represents Zoe Saldana. (38.107.113.2 23:34, 1 November 2021 (UTC))
- Hi 38.107.113.2. Thanks for your explanation. If it would help the discussion here, we could verify the relation between you and the mailadress [email protected]. I could write to that address from the VRT system. Please ping me if needed. But - from my personal experience - if we receive a request as yours on mentioned VRT system (in the Dutch language queue I am mostly involved in), we always advise to contact the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation. They can consider all legal aspects and can take action directly. You are very kind and respectful to the community, which is very pleasant. However as you will note from the interesting discussion above, it does not seem to help the admins on Commons to deviate from the first decision by rubin16. Kind regards, Elly (talk) 10:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Elly: Apologies for the informal nature of the request, we are trying to be respectful of Wikipedia's community (you all). In our experience, there is usually vehement rejection of any request that comes with even a veiled threat of formal legal action. If there is any doubt as to whether our law firm is "serious" or that we represent Zoe Saldana, a simple Google search of our name and hers together should confirm that we are a real law firm that represents Zoe Saldana. (38.107.113.2 23:34, 1 November 2021 (UTC))
Delete Thank you for opening this up once more. We are trying to be respectful of Wikipedia's community's processes, but we hope our vote carries more weight than others when considering deletion of the image. Again, if anyone wishes to contact us, I am available at [email protected]. I would also like to clarify that the initial basis for our request is [Signatures of living persons] which states: "Concerns about privacy and identity theft make it imperative that signatures be removed upon the request of the subject." Please heed this request. Thank you. (38.107.113.2 23:34, 1 November 2021 (UTC))
- From the VRT system I did sent on November 7 an email to the given mailadress for confirmation of the identity, Ticket:2021110710005083. Today, I received confirmation. The person writing form IP 38.107.113.2 appears to use the mentioned email adress. Ellywa (talk) 11:04, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Delete as uploader. In addition to the above, I can also confirm from personal communication that the IP user is a representative of Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner & Gellman, who are verifiably Saldaña's attorneys. – Rhain ☔ 23:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Deleted. Someone has to close this request since the second opening on October 2021. I think the privacy issue and the wish of the owner of the signature (through the attorney) is important to take into account. This is countered by the fact that the open support letter with the signature is not deleted on the source page on Instagram and the signature is still available for everyone to copy it and use it as they would like. And it is countered by the fact many signatures exist on Commons without copyright issues.
Because arguments pro and con seem to balance each other, I counted the opinions of the people who took the trouble to comment. Of course, this is a last resort, because the Commons deletion policy is to close DR’s on the basis of arguments. King of Hearts referred to COM:IAR (ignore all rules). In addition, he stated “if there is a supermajority we should not overrule consensus”. I also agree with that. There appears a large majority for deletion of the file. Therefore, I decided to delete the file.
As some of you will think this is a wrong decision, I will add the aspect that the signature is used today on only two articles on the projects (fi and de), while there exist articles about ms. Saldana in 65 languages. So most users might think the signature is not so relevant for the biography of the person. But if you want to contest the decision, please do. I would like to cite User:Missvain Thanks everyone for participating and if you disagree with this decision please take it to Commons:Undeletion requests - unless there is a tech issue. (CCBYSA3.0/GFDL). Ellywa (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
- Agree with deleting the file
- Attorney User:38.107.113.2 (original request, repeated later)
- User:Binksternet (two times the same opinion)
- User:Mclay1 (on basis of general practice to remove signatures upon the request of the person)
- User:teb728
- User:Hoary (two times the same opinion)
- User:Xover
- User:Jameslwoodward
- User:Arch dude
- User:JWilz12345
- User:Axem Titanium
- User:Rhain (original uploader in August 2019)
- Agree with keeping the file
- User:HAL333
- User:Rubin16 (admin to close first request, later commented the same)
- User:Ankry
- User:Brianjd
- User:Tm
- User:Ellywa
- Unclear/no opinion
- User:Yann (opened second request)
- User:King of Hearts