Forum:Videos on this wiki

Hi All, I wanted to leave a note here and ask you about videos on this wiki. I know that there is a policy against adding them currently, and I was curious why this is the case. We are currently working to give wikis more access to licensed video content, and have been in communication with anime content providers. One Piece is definitely one of the top animes available. Would the wiki be open to video in the future? Is there a specific type of videos you would want to see here? If you could provide me with some insight I would really appreciate it. Thanks! Sarah (help forum | blog) 23:26, September 6, 2012 (UTC)

Because of copyrights. The videos would be removed if we upload them, due to copyrights. Also, thanks to the copyrights laws of the USA, this wiki could be removed if we were to break the copyrights laws. At least, that is what someone said on the chat. Toei is surprisingly protective of their materials, so we do the best with still images and short gifs. Hope that can answer your question, Sarah.

By the way, you named the forum wrong. Should be Forum:Videos on this wiki, not Forum:VIdeos on this wiki. 23:34, September 6, 2012 (UTC)

I was the one who said that, and may I say, I'm not exactly the most quotable person in the world. Best to let an admin talk this one. 23:41, September 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response (and sorry for the forum title typo). The videos we are getting we will have the full rights to play here. We are building partnerships with companies, so that copyright isn't an issue. Since this is the case, would folks here be open to testing out adding more videos? Sarah (help forum | blog) 23:52, September 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Personally, no. I do not want videos on here, even if we have full rights to the videos. I went to other wikis with videos, and personally, I believe that wikis look less professional with videos and I don't want that on here. Plus, it will make new editors think that any videos related to One Piece is allowed, and might upload OP videos by fansubs, which is against the rule here, considering it's pirated. Or maybe useless videos we don't need and do not want, etc. We already have links to YouTube, when absolutely necessary. So yes, I'm against it. 00:02, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Just popping in to bring up a point: It is true that many fans on YouTube like to upload clips and episodes, however, because they too violate copyrights, they are instantly deleted as soon as Toei or FUNimation finds out. I also try to help FUNimation/Toei protect their property by alerting them of YouTube users who upload clips from the English Dubbed (I'm one of the fans that actually support the series since I do mean it when I say I love One Piece, so I wanna protect it too and let people actually buy the DVDs). I've done it many times now, and then when I check back to some of those users, their accounts are deleted or has a strike (I'm assuming on the latter. Don't have a YouTube account, but I know people gets strikes on their account if they do not remove their infringement clips after several warnings).

Posting videos from YouTube or even videos with full rights to them is like saying "COME ONE, COME ALL! INSTEAD OF WASTING YOUR MONEY, COME WATCH FREE ONE PIECE EPISODES ON THE ONE PIECE WIKI!" to the fans, thus killing FUNimation's contract with Toei completely. If DVDs don't sell, FUNimation Entertainment and Toei's partnership will be done with, and I absolutely refuse to let that happen.

However, depending on kind of videos the Central Wiki might be talking about here, it could possibly be good for promoting One Piece instead of killing it. After all, clips and trailers are to encourage the sells of DVDs for companies. Full episodes, however, is out of the question, in my opinion. It doesn't hurt to think about all the options, although I don't think putting videos here look very professional, either. Having Polls on the articles are bad enough since it clogs up space and serves no information-related purpose into the Wiki.-- Ninja Sheik  00:36, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

As Ninja pointed out, having videos on here could kill FUNimation and Toei's deal. Yes, it could promote FUNimation's dubbed One Piece, but really, better be safe than sorry. FUNimation is an excellent company and so far, I have no problem with them dubbing One Piece. 00:50, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Same here. I liked the Dubbed a lot better than the Subbed. Plus, I'm a writing a fic for One Piece (which I used the English quotes at top and bottom to convey the main point of each of my chapters. That fic was 95% of the reason why I was even working on the Appearances for the Straw Hats to begin with!) as well as trying to spread the word about FUNimation to my friends and favorite authors on FF. Net, and people on a ZoRo LJ Community. Plus, I love FUNimation a lot, and as a true fan of not just One Piece but other anime shows that have worked so hard on to get Dubbed and get the rights to, I'm completely against the idea of posting videos here.-- Ninja Sheik  01:01, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

I'm completely against the videos as well, Ninja, though the rest of the community would have to decide if we don't need videos or not. 01:04, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Any true fan of One Piece should realize the threat of what this could bring. Like I said, it doesn't hurt to think about it, but when it comes right down to it, there are more cons than pros if everyone vote to allow videos here.-- Ninja Sheik  01:09, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see how adding a bunch of videos to pages could increase the understanding of our articles. I wouldn't want us putting videos in places just because we can, we should put them in only in cases where they add understanding. We already get by just fine with images, and for the times where images don't work, GIFs are great. I don't think there's much of anything that can't be explained without images and GIFs. The only thing I could think of where a video would be useful would be if we could get themes/openings (and closing songs too). Otherwise, I can't think of anything where a video would be useful, and if they aren't useful, we shouldn't have them. 01:18, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

I believe on some song articles, we sometime includes the section, External Links, which would has a link to YouTube with that song. Not sure if the openings and closing songs has YouTube links though. 01:23, September 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * I know for a couple of the songs (and probably more than we know) the youtube videos after the links have been taken down (and likely for copyright reasons). So if we can get the videos on here legally, with little/no chance of them being taken down later, that would be the best way to handle the songs/openings, IMO. 01:29, September 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, yeah, they can help out with the songs, but I still don't believe videos are necessary.... Though maybe I am just old-fashioned :P 01:34, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Like other users have already said, we don't allow them as a precaution. I can understand how they would be practical for things like songs, but we could do the same thing just by posting the links. Also, if we allow videos that opens the floodgates for people to upload whatever videos they want. I'm not talking about the risk of people uploading smut, but just stuff that has nothing to do with One Piece like funny clips, video game and movie trailers, and amvs just to name a few. It would just be too much clutter to regulate. 01:42, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

NO. No, no, no, no! No YouTube videos! Seriously, you guys DO NOT want do that. There was a discussion similar to this before on a wiki I edited before (not sure which, though), but adding YouTube videos on a wiki, where LOTS OF PEOPLE GO TO, I might add, is a terrible idea. YouTube videos are always taken down for copyrights reasons, unless it belongs to the companies' actual accounts where they promote their products (like the ones for movies and games). Adding the YouTube videos here would be saying that the wiki SUPPORTS violation of copyrights and infringement.-- Ninja Sheik  01:44, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

And if they did get taken down after getting put up here, it would be the same as a dead link or a link to a deleted pic. No one likes them, no one wants them, and they'd just be too much of a pain to track. 01:53, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Exactly what DP said. It's a pain to keep tracks of the videos and where they are linked on. And Ninja, no one here is considering using YouTube on here, I'm only informing JSD that there are a few external links to YouTube on some song articles. 01:56, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's bad. You guys better start taking them off. The One Piece Wiki is the biggest source of information on the series, like all wikis are. And again, no YouTube links whatsoever. Very, very, very bad. Why are there some YT videos on the songs' articles to begin with?-- Ninja Sheik  02:05, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

How should I know? Most of the links are on old song articles though, from what I can remember of. Probably most of them lead to a deleted video too. I would have to go though all of the music articles to check. 02:09, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

If we allow them, we would need incredibly strict video guidelines. We would need administrator/staff/copyright approval for EVERY VIDEO. It would be only for videos decided here in the forum. I actually agree strongly with NinjaSheik that having links to ILLEGAL videos is entirely the wrong call... If we can get legal videos, we should jump at the chance.

Plus, the "opening the floodgates" argument doesn't really make sense. Any user has the option right now to upload videos. They can physically press a button and upload a video, and the video gets uploaded. Our current rules can't stop that. New users do occasionally upload them, and they get promptly deleted. I don't see how adding a few videos would increase the number of users uploading them. Especially since video guidelines would have to be a thousand times clearer. If the video guidelines required that the videos are given to us by staff/FUNi/Toei, then users would still be unable to upload videos in any way. We would also have a very clear explaintion of the few instances we allow them. We would ban AMVsAnd for new videos to be uploaded, we should probably require a forum or something. If the guidelines are incredibly strict, the amount of work won't change for anyone. (And if for some strange reason it does, maybe that would mean it's time to have more than two active admins...)

If I can be given a good reason as to why allowing these legal videos is bad, I'll back down, like I generally do when given a good reason. Frankly, I just haven't seen one yet. If there's a good one, lemme hear it!

At the very least, if we don't allow the uploading of legal videos, we should remove the links to illegal ones. 02:14, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

So in a nutshell, that's a "no", Sarah. 02:21, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about now, I was talking about if we allowed videos on here. I know people already upload videos and those get deleted. What I'm saying is that irrelevant ones would be uploaded in greater number if we allowed videos on here, making us have to sift through the uploads and find the invalids. Something no one is crazy about doing. 02:25, September 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, like I was saying above, the only useful videos would be the openings. There are currently 15 openings. If we allow only the openings, those would all get uploaded at once. After that, any more videos that are uploaded would violate our video guidelines (unless it's a new opening, of course, in which case we wouldn't accept some random newbie's video anyways). If the video guidelines are strict enough, there would be no "sifting" through new videos, because they all would violate the guidelines still. That's what I'm trying to say. 02:40, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Before making a decision, let's ask Miss Sarah what type of videos she's talking about. Trailers could be okay, maybe short clips, but they must be used from FUNimation's or Toei's accounts. We don't want to encourage pirated YouTube uploaders or anyone to post clips that were not given permission to be upload on any site. I'm putting my foot down about what I said before. No full episodes. Absolutely none. The OnePieceOfficial site has that covered, and the site is already linked to the front page.-- Ninja Sheik  02:38, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

We shouldn't have trailers. Trailers are just designed to sell things. While our success as a wiki is tied to the financial success of OP, having trailers is just like trying to sell people things. They don't have any value to us as site that in meant to pass on knowledge. I think having trailers would lead us to a breach of neutrality, and at no increase in knowledge too, IMO. It's one thing to not have illegal videos here. It's another to start selling legal ones. Both of those things are bad.

Short clips are unnecessary as well. GIFs and images do fine. I don't think there's any context where they don't work besides songs and the openings. 02:51, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Well, you guys allow Polls inside the articles, too. And they serve no knowledge (and I even suggested we get rid of them, although I have no problem with the one on the front page). You even allow Speculations into the wiki, they serve no purpose besides voicing everyone's OPINIONS on the article (which I really wish you guys get rid of. This wiki is a source of information, not a source for opinions).

Reading back to Miss Sarah's comment at the top, she'd ask us what type of videos the wiki would want to put there. If Central Wiki is trying to get FUNimation and Toei to agree to such things, chances are at 50% or lower that they will agree to it. If they do (which would be freakin' miracle that they do), like I said, no episodes allowed since OnePieceOffical has that cover, and that would only ruin their business with Toei. No AMVs, of course. So the only thing left would be trailers, short clips, and songs from One Piece. I really don't want any kind of videos on the wiki, FUNimation has its sites for those things, YouTube account and all, so I don't see the point. I don't mind videos for the songs, but they have to be from FUNimation's account. No one else or it would seem like that the wiki is encouraging piracy, of course.

However, from experience, FUNimation is always trying to encourage the fans to buy the anime shows they licensed, correct? We gotta think about this in a business way. Companies are protective of their property, and they have very good reasons to be. A deal goes both ways. What do you think they would want in return if they would let us post any sort of videos here?-- Ninja Sheik  03:05, September 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * As a fan, of course I want to see OP sell, and I want to encourage people to buy it. As a wikian though, I don't think that kind of thing should be in our articles. Our articles should come from a neutral perspective. The long-standing motto of our site is "We're a wiki first, and a fansite second." I want to see OP sell, but not bad enough to violate our wiki's ideals. 03:15, September 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Same here. I want the wiki to be seen in a professional, neutral perspective, too. That's why I hate the Polls, the Speculation pages that are around. They should be rid of since they serve no use for the wiki at all besides putting down the words that all fans are thinking. They don't have serve a purpose, so such things should be remove from a wiki, a place to provide information on the series they are writing about, not what people THINK about it. You guys can keep the Poll in the front and just change every week to something different. In any case, I'm still voting a hardcore no on the videos idea. No videos of any sort.-- Ninja Sheik  03:19, September 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * We're a "fansite second". We're still a fansite in some regard, not solely a wikia. That is why I will defend the rights of the fan-side of our wikia to the death. End of discussion, we're getting off topic. Also, please put your signature in a template, it's huge in source mode. 03:29, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I don't think Sarah was about uploading full episodes but short clips, was she? And in this case, a short videoclip to show attacks etc. could be better than a GIF as:


 * Videos have a smaller file size while having a greater resolution and less artifacts due to reducing the colors from 16.7 million to 256.
 * Videos load on demand, and not when the page loads. They are still until activated, and not running until stopped.

I've been strict in my wikia on that topic, too - because of the copyright issues. But if wikia ensures they solve the problem and gain the rights to at least use short clips on their pages, then I say: If they host them, why not? -- [ defchris ] · [ Diskussion ] · 07:55, September 7, 2012 (UTC)

We're pretty fine without videos. This has been discussed a couple of times, and I guess it's still a no.

The copyright is not a problem here, since for what I understood Wikia is collaborating directly with the official companies and even without that short clips are not a copyright infringement I think.

I don't know why you are so caution about uploading videos: first we decide what kind of videos allowing here, and I think they wouldn't be so much, but I don't understand the argument "if we allow videos, then we will increase the uploads of irrelevant videos", I mean it's like saying "if allow images here, it will increase the uploads of fanarts" which doesn't make sense to me. But most of all, I think we should definitely not forbid videos just because it's a pain dealing with them, that's stupid. We should forbid videos only if we think they not necessary to this wiki (which some of you think). In my opinion, I'm open to upload videos about songs, opening/ending and movie trailers (since it's common to display the trailer in a movie page). Lastly, I think many of you are associating "videos" with "fan videos", which I don't think it's the case because allowing videos doesn't make this wiki less "serious" if the video complete a page or the interface.