Image used without attribution

Question

Any number of questions, usually from first time users, embed images without acknowledging where they come from. Then the moderators manually make a comment prompting them to read the site rules.

Surely the 'upload image' tool should include at least a prominent message about this.

One stage further would be a number of radio buttons which, until one is ticked, disable the upload button. One asserts 'this is my own original work', another 'I have included attribution for this image in my text' (or something similar), another (to address Sam's answer) 'I have modified an image I found [here]'. Maybe there are more options, maybe not, I feel the more complicated it gets, the less useful it becomes.

Moderators have a hard enough job anyway, without having to mandronically do something that the system has a perfectly placed checkpoint to do.

It's similar to, but not a duplicate of, this question from 2013 which talks about Fair Use

Answer 1

That's a very good point.

There are some other related points around the referencing rule and how to apply it (where I've been making a list of issues to take to SE) which that change unfortunately wouldn't fix, but making the change you suggest would be a good start - thanks for that. I'll reference your post in a message to SE shortly, as well as adding the mod tag for SE attention.

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Just FYI as one example of a relevant problem I had with a user's lack of correct referencing a little while ago: They made a couple of small edits to a schematic copied from elsewhere and posted that adapted version on our site, without any reference or other indication of its original source.

When challenged, they claimed it was their schematic (without initially explaining why they said that) and told me that therefore no reference was needed. That would mean they would tick the "it's my work" box in this suggested change.

But I had found the original source :) and I already identified the small changes they had made (by using an image editor they had changed a couple of component values). It took several messages to get them to understand that copying someone else's work product and making a couple of small changes, does not turn it into their work product (sigh).

I won't bother going through other issues on my list - I just thought it might be interesting to post an example of the misunderstandings we see about when referencing is needed.