Help:License selector

FIXME – the following instructions still need to be checked and updated.

The license selector is a feature (new in MediaWiki 1.6) that you can optionally add to the Special:Upload page on your wiki to help users put image copyright tags on their uploaded files. When a user chooses a license from the menu, the matching tag will appear on the image page after the upload.

To configure the menu, you need to be an administrator.

Precondition: Image copyright tags
Before you can configure the menu, you need to have image copyright tags on your wiki.

For example, here some tags that WikiFur has:
 * Public domain: Template:PDImage
 * Free license: Template:GFDL, Template:Cc-by-2.5, w:c:furry:Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5
 * Fair use: Template:cover, Template:comic-panel, Template:logo, Template:fursona, Template:screenshot, Template:press.

Make sure you have a good collection of templates for your wiki. Here, WikiFur has a mix of popular free licenses, and frequently used fair-use options. For example, WikiFur has many articles on webcomics, which is why there is a Template:comic-panel. A different wiki might need templates for free software licenses, or other different templates for licenses popular among that community.

Do not copy every template from the Wikimedia Commons copyright tags or the English Wikipedia copyright tags; your wiki will probably not have nearly as many files uploaded! Try to limit the number of templates so that you can fit them all into the menu.

Editing MediaWiki:Licenses
Now you need to edit the MediaWiki:Licenses file on your wiki. This is the part for which you must be administrator.

The syntax is a list. For example, w:c:furry:MediaWiki:Licenses contains the following:


 * subst:No license from license selector|Don't know|I do not know the license
 * subst:No license from license selector|Somewebsite|Found the image somewhere
 * Public domain
 * PDImage|Released into the public domain by copyright holder, copyright expired, or ineligible for copyright
 * Free license
 * GFDL|GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 or later
 * Cc-by-2.5|Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
 * Cc-by-sa-2.5|Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 2.5
 * Fair use
 * cover|Cover of a book, CD, comic book, DVD, or other creative work
 * comic-panel|Panel from a comic
 * logo|Logo of a company, organization or service
 * fursona|Depiction of a character or fursona
 * screenshot|Screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game or program, television broadcast, or film
 * press|Press pack image

You can look at their menu at w:c:furry:Special:Upload.


 * FIXME: Why does w:c:furry:Template:No license from selector not exist? What happens when some chooses "public domain", "free license", or "fair use" instead of an actual license?

Each list represents one menu item. Each menu item should use the form:

* template-name|License description here

Where is the license tag, and "License description here" is the label that will appear in the menu on Special:Upload. If you use multiple stars "**", they will indent that menu item's label.

Additional customisation
If you want to change the message above the upload form on Special:Upload, edit MediaWiki:Uploadtext on your wiki.