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". Staffed by both expert editors and author specialists, its mission is

To improve and safeguard Citizendium by serving its editors, authors, readers, media content-providers, and re-users.

While deferring to other content editors in nearly all cases, the Media Assets Workgroup has its own editorial purvey over media within certain narrow limits. The Media Assets Workgroup is governed and organized as other workgroups, but with several "tweaks" to streamline its functioning and to better facilitate its interactions with outside content-providers.

For the purposes of The Media Assets Workgroup, "media" is defined as all visual, audio, video, and template materials on all Citizendium pages.

Activities

General

Content and permissions assistance

While not in any way 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 with such. In cases where open content images are available, the Media Assets Workgroup can be enlisted to to obtain the images released anew under open content licenses, or by permission when open content substitutes are unavailable, not substantially equivalent, or impractical to obtain or request.

To carry out the above, The Media Assets Workgroup shall maintain help pages of sources that contributors may access to obtain appropriate images for themselves. For when this proves inadequate, The Media Assets Workgroup shall maintain an image request system, and a permission request system for obtaining and documenting releases. It shall maintain an IMAP account or tagging account, media-assets@citizendium.org or permissions@citizendium.org to do this.

As well, the workgroup shall negotiate with content providers to obtain block permission for Citizendium to use such content in approved articles.

Media policy and help pages Members of the workgroup shall, in a non-exclusionary manner (any CZ contributor can still contribute), work together to author media policy and help pages. Editors of the Media Assets Workgroup shall approve media policies, that are to then be approved through due process of the Executive Committee.

Group communication

The workgroup shall maintain a mailing list for general announcements.

Role-specific

Lead Editor

The Editor-in-Chief, through a due process of his or her choosing, shall appoint a Lead Editor to coordinate the efforts of the workgroup. The person shall serve for a minimum six-month and maximum three-year term, during which he or she shall report to the Editor-in-Chief and shall serve on the Executive Committee to advise the project over matters within his or her purveyance. The Lead Editor shall be empowered to appoint an Assistant to him or herself.

Editors

Editors and editorship shall be governed in accordance with current policies contained in the relevant sections of CZ:Policy Outline. It is anticipated that most editors shall be drawn in under the category specialty editorship. Media Assets Editors may:

• Acting individually or in panel, approve project-wide templates, in accordance with CZ:Approval Process.
• In panel, act as arbiter in difficult cases regarding "fair use", in accordance with CZ:Fair Use Policy, Media.
• Along with other content editors, request deletion of media content when

1. It is of such low quality it would be better to delete it and search for a replacement.
2. The media would reasonably be considered offensive to a living subject depicted therein (e.g., an image, especially the lead image in an article, depicts the subject in a way that may infringe their personality rights).

Specialists (aka, authors)

For purposes of The Media Assets Workgroup's relations with outside content-providers, and because of the specialized activities of the workgroup, authors shall be dubbed "specialists" and may only become members of the workgroup by two-thirds vote of other members. Specialist may do everything within the purveyance of The Media Assets Workgroup, except for the functions reserved for media assets editors.

Project Leads

Project Leads may be appointed by the Lead Editor and may be either editors or "specialists" (aka, authors). Project Leads shall be tasked with coordinating the development of Citizendium media assets and the Media Assets Workgroup along specific lines, such as negotiating block permission for use of archives, creating templates and categories, etc.