Talk:Kim Jong Un

Q1: Why doesn't the article mention the recent news about Kim Jong Un's death/illness?

A1: While many news organizations are reporting that Kim Jong Un may be dead or gravely ill, these reports are either speculation or from unreliable sources.

Q2: Shouldn't the article at least mention that Kim Jong Un might be dead or in grave danger?

A2: Our biographies of living persons policy puts a priority on maintaining factual accuracy, not on including all the possible information. Publishing speculative rumors of any person's death isn't allowed.

Nuclear Threat by Kim Jong Un is Unsubstantiated

There is no citation for the claim that Kim Jong Un threatened to use nuclear weapons against the USA. There is nothing in any record anywhere attributing this claim to Kim Jong Un, in other words, there is no record of this on video, audio, or in writing, or even by multiple witnesses, to support the western press claims that Kim Jong Un threatened to use nuclear weapons against the USA. If there is such a threat as this, surely it should be properly cited and reported. The UN resolution on this question is not in any way a citation related to a nuclear threat against the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.171.193 (talk • contribs)

Please sign your posts and post new discussions at the bottom, not at the top. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

picture

You should add a picture of him (kim jong un). Pictures of him do exist — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14zach.zoo (talk • contribs)

• Sure. If you can find a free license image of him, then by all means please upload it. Quite a number of people have thought they had such an image and have uploaded it only to find out it is in fact not free license. We've been having lots of discussion about this very point on this talk page. See below and also the archives of this talk page. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there much more to talk about here than some superficial obsession with a picture of Kim Jong Un? Who cares. Stop kidding yourselves, just because you have a comfortably heated room, a cup of coffee, and an internet connection. Start thinking about how to help starving, cold North Koreans, in spite of Kim Jong Un. Obviously Un, the U.S. and the U.N. are completely devoid of humanitarian ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.171.193 (talk) 05:38, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I know I'm not supposed to reply to this, but for the sake of wasting my own time, I'll bite. Having a read of your little rant that was later removed by another editor per policy (Wikipedia is not a forum), I'm quite certain that you're ranting in the wrong place. Your words will fall on deaf ears, because people are here to write an encyclopedia, and not to do anything else. This is Wikipedia, an encyclopedia written by contributors, not some kind of philanthropist humanitarian organisation. During your little rant, you went on and on about cold and starvation and all that nonsense - bluntly put, I frankly don't give a shit about all of that noise. I'm just an obnoxious faggot that's here to write an encyclopedia. Editors here discussing a photo of Kim Jong-un is superficial? Well, it's funny how almost 80% of reader feedback is confused why we don't have a picture of him. Of course we're here talking about how to improve the article, this is what Wikipedia article talk pages are for. We're not supposed to be here bawwing about how poor and miserable some people might be. If you want to make some kind of difference, go volunteer with the International Red Cross or something. Here, you're just talking to a bunch of nerds writing encyclopedia articles. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe you're a faggot. You're more like a Eurotoxin douche.

Fair use image

Considering the circumstances surrounding this person, wouldn't a fair use image be usable? Consider that he is the leader of a highly restrictive regime, and where photos of this person are highly controlled by its government. It would be similar to military projects that are restricted. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 11:02, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

See the talk above. It's been mentioned n times already. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:07, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It would be very easy for the North Korean government, or its news agency, to make a nice picture available. Until they do, or someone gets a chance to photograph him, I see no reason to bend the rules. He is a living person eager to make a good impression; that fact should determine our response. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Three times, I contacted the UN Mission of the DPRK and explained the search of public-domain photographs of Kim Jong-un and Ri Sol-ju for the purpose of posting on Wikipedia. The officer, that answered, referred me to www.kpna.kp. (so, no more calling the United Nations Mission of the DPRK; we do not want to WP:Hound).

After contacting various organizations in Washington, DC, for digital photographs, I could not find a copyright free open source.

Still undeterred, I went to Dandong in PR of China, which is across the Yalu River from Sinŭiju, North Korea and, at a museum dedicated to the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, all I got was a picture of a picture of his grandfather. See Talk:Ri Sol-ju Geraldshields11 (talk) 18:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC) Modified by Geraldshields11 (talk) 18:26, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Such effort is to be applauded! Nicely done Geraldshields11! --Hammersoft (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, he went above and beyond on this one. Impressive effort on behalf of the project, GS! Snow (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

So are we going to have an image or not? In the history of notable people not having any images of them on Wikipedia, this is the most ridiculous, and the reasons are obvious.--Xxhopingtearsxx (talk) 10:50, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Given that he is a living person and a public figure, a non-free image is inappropriate since it can be replaced by a free image. We just have to wait for that free image to be made and published. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Given that North Korea is a non-free country a free image is very hard to come by. Therefore the fair use image is the best solution, even if some people here are slow to realize that. Kim Jong-un has been in office for a year now and there still isn't a free image and that clearly shows that a non-free image is NOT inappropriate even though some people here want to stubbornly make us believe otherways. --Krawunsel (talk) 16:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

People can get into NK, it's highly regulated but its not closed borders. And we have plenty of free imagery from the country, so that's not an issue. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

So then where IS the free image of him? It's still a difference if it's a building or Kim Jong-un. Obviously it IS an issue, however many times you repeat it isn't. And, by the way, maybe you missed the comments above, from people who tried to obtain free images of Kim Jong-un and failed. I don't see how you could stick with your opinion if you had read those comments. --Krawunsel (talk) 16:16, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Because we are building a free content encyclopedia and a free image of Kim Jong-un is completely in the realm of reasonably possibility. We just don't have one now but our policy and the Foundation resolution don't allow us to include a non-free image just because a possible free one isn't presently available. --MASEM (t) 16:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If it is "completely in the realm of reasonably possibility!" where IS the image? And our policy absolutely allows us to use an image under the fair use rationale when there's no free one available. That's what the fair use rationale has been created for! By the way, you have once again disregarded the comments above, from people who tried to obtain a free image and failed. I think that should prove even to you that there is ample reason to use an image under the fair use rationale for the time being. It could still be removed if a free image shows up, unlikely as it is. --Krawunsel (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Our non-free content doesn't care that we currently don't have a free image that otherwise should be possible to get; it is replaceable (just not at the immediate time) and ergo its use would be a violation of that policy. I do see the comments of people that tried to contact gov't and press agencies for getting a free image but that's not the only way a free image can be obtained. As noted in early convos, the one for his father actually came from Russia due to a state visit, and thus the image was free due to the release by the Russian gov't. That's one way. Someone visiting NK may be able to get a picture (he is not a recluse person). Etc. This is a textbook case of how we apply our non-free content policy with the Foundation's requirements to living persons - we just have to be patient for the image to come about. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• We just had an RfC on this subject. By far the dominant view was no, we are not going to permit a non-free image to be used on this article to depict him. Wikipedia works on consensus. Consensus was strongly against the use of a non-free image. You are welcome to start another RfC if you like. However, given the recent RfC and that nothing has changed since that RfC, it is unlikely to come to a different conclusion. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

There's a site that posts things from the Korean Central News Agency, and I believe it's legitimate. On it, there's a link to a large photo gallery; nothing is in English, so I can't read it, but maybe it mentions something about image use. On the main site, there's also an e-mail option. This was released by the KCNA a couple of months ago, and I've seen it used by a number of different sources, so does anyone wanna try asking for permission? It's worth a try. Rockhead126 (talk) 22:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

If the gallery you're referring to is the one reached by following the "KNS Photo Service" link, then unfortunately it's not an option; it's a commercial site and, as best I can translate it, it's dubious they have ownership of the content in any event. As to the second option, it can never hurt to ask but bear in mind that any image donated would have to released completely for free use by the owner and I just have a hard time imagining that the KCNA is going to do that, especially given how little control they have over how the man is portrayed here as compared to their general mode of operation. Snow (talk) 09:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This here is a link to the original article from the online version of Rodong Sinmun. I'd say that contacting the newspaper about it would be our best bet, but I don't see any way to do so, unfortunately. :I Rockhead126 (talk) 02:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems that some people don't want to accept ANY option, they suggest options which don't work (even if you travel to North Korea, photographing is extremely restricted, and you are rather unlikely to meet Kim Jong-un walking alon the street and being happy to smile into your camera) and they debunk all other options. I've got a feeling that because North Korea is such a ferocious dictatorship, some people don't want to see the image of the head of that state in the Wikipedia at all. I'm afraid we'll never have an image of him in here. --Krawunsel (talk) 18:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The image used for previous leader Kim Il-sung happens to be an illustrated portrait, not a picture of Kim. Since there are, in fact, a fair number of pictures of Kim Jong-un in existence, I could take on of those pictures, and make an illustration of that picture, and we could use that. There's no problem with copyrights, ownership, etc. --Spartan7W (talk) 10:50, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

No, you can't do that. Your version would be a derivative work of any work you are starting from and therefore burdened by copyright. The trick with the Il-sung portrait is that, if you follow back to the original commons work, it is a photograph of a portrait of the leader displayed in a public location, and per the Freedom of Panorama laws then "A copyrighted work may be used without the permission of the copyright owner [...] When a copyrighted work in public places is copied." Thus, if there is an illustration of Jong-un displayed in a public location in N. Korea, we can start from there to make a free image. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Spartan, if you so wish, you can make your own unique caricature/illustration of Kim Jong-un. As long as it is not based off any specific work, and is your own original rendition then there should be no copyright issues. Eventually it will be replaced with a real image when he inevitably meets with a UN or US delegation. -Marcusmax(speak) 22:57, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll finish it up. (talk) 10:50, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. We've had this situation before on Susan Boyle before we could get a free photo of her; the first attempts were portraits painted by someone that released them for free, which were soundly rejected as both being derivative works and poor replacements. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

How can something be considered a derivative if it is the authors own caricature and is not based off another work? If the illustration is deemed misleading, "poor" or whatever else by the community then it can be easily removed. -Marcusmax(speak) 03:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Going back to the Susan Boyle case, there were two painting attempts made. One was based on a screenshot from her infamous appearance on television, and that was flat out considered an original work. Another attempt was made to not directly look like any known screenshots or photographs, but even then that was determined to be a derivative work problem (since it was a amalgamation of some of these) and thus not used. Here, Spartan's pic does seem to be an amalgamation of pics of Jong-un, so we still have the potential of it being a derivative work. (And as an aside, no offense to Spartan, but it was also a rather poor picture that would reflect negatively on WP, but that's a secondary issue). --MASEM (t) 16:32, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This is a link to an article about Kim Jong-Un that contains a very good image, I believe. Also note that the image was obtained by Reuters from the KCNA, then Reuters subsiquently released it to The Globe and Mail, plus other news agencies. I think then someone should contact Reuters via this page and see if Wikipedia could use it. 167.7.9.163 (talk) 16:25, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It would not be Reuter's copyright, it would be the KCNA. --MASEM (t) 16:32, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Well then perhaps we should ask Reuters who they contacted with the KCNA to get permission to use the photo. 167.7.9.163 (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of articles about living people which don't have photos. What's so special about this article? --Stefan2 (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Masem seems to want to talk everything dead. Whatever suggestion is made, he claims it's no good. I think the suggestion of Marcusmax is a very good one if we don't still decide on a picture used by way of the fair use rationale. I still think that's the best solution, whatever Masem thinks he must put against it. We should, however, remember that what Masem thinks is just one opinion. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's right with the things he says here. Let's just take action! And @ Stefan2, it's the only article on a contemporary head of state without an image in it. --Krawunsel (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's actually required by the Foundation; we are not allowed to use non-free images of living persons unless its known to be pretty much impossible to get a free image. It is not shown that this is the case for Kim Jong-un, since he's made several public showings. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• @Krawunsel; a number of people have "take[n] action" on this article and uploaded a purportedly free image, only to have the image deleted because it's not free. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Emailing the KCNA

Okay, guys. I've decided to send an e-mail to the address listed on the KCNA website, asking permission to use this, Kim Jong-un's official portrait. As I've mentioned before on here, I'm not entirely literate in the area of image copyright. I assume I need to ask for a letter of authorization like [File:Kremlin authorisation-English.pdf], but I'm not entirely sure how to word this beyond "To whom it may concern." Can someone help me out? Rockhead126 (talk) 18:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

There are some instructions on how to proceed at WP:CONSENT, WP:BRP and Commons:COM:OTRS. KCNA might find Commons:COM:OTRS/ko and Commons:Commons:메일 양식 useful. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm using one of the examples at WP:BRP as a template. No idea what Commons:COM:OTRS/ko and Commons:Commons:메일 양식 are about. Should I say, "For more information, you can refer to..." and then include links? Rockhead126 (talk) 18:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Any thoughts, people? Any changes? Recommendations? Obviously, this is a long shot, so I'd like to maximize our chances. Input is greatly appreciated.

To whom it may concern,

I am one of the many volunteer editors of the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is among the top 5 visited sites on the Internet, and its sister site Wikinews (en.wikinews.com) is a well-viewed news source.

Since 2006, our site has featured an article about the son of General Kim Jong-il and current leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un>. Unfortunately, the article lacks is an image of the subject, a problem unique among articles about current world leaders. Although many images of Kim exist online, these are all copyrighted and therefore our in-house policies forbid us including them with any article or news report we may produce.

The article would definitely benefit from a usable good quality image of Kim Jong-un, which is why I am requesting permission to use the photograph attached below, an official portrait, which was released by the KCNA in April of 2012.

Since Wikipedia aims to be a repository of images and information that anyone can use, even in nations where generous United States "fair use" provisions are inapplicable, we can only use images that are released under a so-called "free license", which permits anyone else to use, modify, or deal commercially with the image concerned if they wish, provided there is appropriate attribution and that any modifications are released under an identical license. (Exceptions may be made if there is no possibility of such an image being available by other means, but that is not practical here - we don't have the capability to take good quality publicity photographs of Kim Jong-un ourselves.)

Example licenses that would permit us to use a better-quality image would be: the GNU Free Documentation License <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html> or the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode>. Be assured if you do not grant permission or provide such an image, we will not use one without permission. You are under no obligation to release any material under such licenses, but for public-relations purposes, you might want to consider it given Wikipedia's great popularity.

With your permission, we would then credit you for your work in the image's permanent description page, noting that it is your work and is used with your permission, with a permanent link back to your website for any reader of the articles in which it appears.

You can read more at <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing>, and a range of "frequently asked questions" can be found at <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:FAQ>. A simple form of consent can be found at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Declaration_of_consent_for_all_enquiries>.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

(My name)

Volunteer editor, Wikipedia.

Rockhead126 (talk) 19:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

"image of the Kim Jong-un" should read "image of Kim Jong-un". --Hammersoft (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Edited. Good catch. Thanks. Rockhead126 (talk) 20:09, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Just a few suggestions: This is the DPRK we're talking about, and I'm quite sure that an employee of the KCNA might know about things such as The commons and privatised ownership. We might end up dealing with an individual who is extreme pro-socialist, anti-capital, anti-private ownership, and dreams of a worldwide socialist utopia, and I think it's quite likely given the nature of the people we'll be contacting. It might be the possible that by explaining how free (libre) content compares with copyrights in terms of public ownership and capital sales, we'd get more sympathy. I think it might be beneficial for us to change our wording to reflect this, to increase our chances of success. For example,

• Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, which aims to provide information to the masses, free of charge, as noted by our mission/core policy/whatever. We provide content without any restrictions, so that all people can freely access our encyclopedia and learn from it.
• Our encyclopedia can only accept images that are under a free license. We cannot use images that are under copyright, because the terms of such usage are rather restrictive, and do not conform with our blahblah etc freedoms that our website strives to aim towards. Content that is copyrighted is under the ownership of the private individual, so that they may sell their works for profit, whereas free license content can be freely used by anyone without reprimand.
• We believe that using an image of the son of the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, General Kim Jong-un, we can significantly improve the quality of our encyclopedia, and provide a better standard to everyone who wishes to learn from our encyclopedia. Currently we are unable to obtain a free license image of General Kim Jong-un, which is why blahblah etc etc
• Information should belong to the masses, and not be restricted to the individual so that they can use it for their own gain something something (man I dunno, make some kind of analogy that's easy for a far-left wing to understand, and makes them happy too) By providing us with a free image of General Kim Jong-un, we are able to freely provide a service to all etc etc
• They might not understand what are Alexa rankings and the significance of being within the top 5 highest traffic sites, they might not understand what is Creative Commons (and merely linking the URL might not do; keep in mind that these people have an entirely different mindset, and have grown up in a world detached from everything international), they might not even look positively towards calling anything related to the United States "generous". We have to explain things from the base up, and not assume that they know everything that we, the people of the outside world, know.
• Again, regarding "United States", it might seem tedious, silly and unnecessary, but it's these little things that count. Little things are quite important for North Koreans; take a picture of any statue of Kim Il-sung from behind, and they'll immediately deport you because to them, it's disrespectful. In my opinion, avoid mentioning things that shouldn't really be mentioned, such as the United States, to which even to this day the DPRK does not even recognise.
• I know you haven't done this wrong, but just a quick mention in case people come up with future revisions. In some cases, you can avoid saying some undesirable things by using others. Examples of how to put things nicely without actually lying: Don't say Wikipedia is hosted in the US, say that it is an international site with contributors from around the world (that's not a lie, isn't it?). Don't say we can't do things because rules say so, instead say that it's against our goals and visions. It might seem like doublespeak euphemisms, but it's better than going all-out blunt and losing the sympathy of the people we're trying to deal with. Another thing that you've done well, though, is that you should always use "DPRK" and not "North Korea", something they take offense at, and refer to leaders using their titles. Just another note for other people in case someone else wants to make another revision in the future.

If we can somehow make analogies with Marxist socialist theory or something, we might get a better outcome. Sounds crazy initially, I know, but keep in mind that people look positively towards, may I say, pandering, and saying nice things to them is exactly how CNN reporters get into North Korea in the first place (there's a Vice documentary that describes this). -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Having a more detailed read, I have a few points to make. You can choose to take into account some, any, all or none, these are merely my opinions, and could be right or wrong.

• Quote: "these are all copyrighted and therefore our in-house policies forbid us including them with any article or news report we may produce" - don't make it that we're merely using an excuse that our Wikipedia policies forbid us from using non-free content. Make it sound like we actually strive to provide free content. Something like "these are all copyrighted, and so we cannot use them as such material conflicts with the aims and goals of our free encyclopedia". Restrictions aren't an excuse, they are there to ensure that we create a free encyclopedia. Mentioning this will make someone who has grown up in a socialist setting and have learnt about the virtues of socialism all their life through their education, find our cause more appealing.
• Quote: "Wikipedia is among the top 5 visited sites on the Internet" - they probably don't understand, or don't care, or both. Most North Koreans don't even have free internet, and I'm sure an employee of the KCNA might know the basics of the internet, but not actually willing to dwelve too much into it.
• Explain what each of the licenses mean. Don't expect them to click a URL and read 30,000 words of boring drivel that they might not understand. The GNU Free Documentation License is written entirely in legalese, and I sincerely doubt that our poor KCNA employee would want to read this holy scripture from Richard Stallman.

Comments are welcome. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:53, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Jesus Christ you spergs just add a goddamn picture already — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.95.116.230 (talk) 00:03, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

• If you have a goddamn free license picture, we'd be happy to add it. :) --Hammersoft (talk) 04:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Kim Jong Un's Age Is No Longer a Mystery

See The Atlantic "Kim Jong Un's Age Is No Longer a Mystery" [1] it should say 8 January 1983, not 8 January 1983 or 1984

I agree. This should be updated.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/12/kim-jong-uns-age-is-no-longer-a-mystery/265983/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigdogproductions (talk • contribs) 19:36, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I also agree. If you search for "how old is kim jong un" on Google, you will see a large bold font with "30 years" and his birth date (1983). DrAndrewWinters (talk) 20:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The only thing that makes me question the 1983 birthdate is the fact that experts estimated that his birth was in "1983 or early 1984." The only way I could think of that one would come to this conclusion is with a source that lists an age, but not a specific date of birth, similar to what you see in census records. For example, (and keep in mind that this is totally hypothetical) but, if there was a leaked document that said he was 10 years old in March of 1994, you'd be able to come to the same conclusion (that he was born in 1983 or early 1984). Now that we know his birthday is January 8, it's reasonable to infer that he was born in 1984. The cook's a reliable source, and I'll still support the change so long as the section highlighting uncertainty about his age is left in; there's still a part of me that's unsure about this though. Rockhead126 (talk) 04:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Picture?

Why no picture? He's probably the most photographed world leader besides Obama.75.224.4.116 (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

We need a free (as in speech) image to comply with Foundation policy on non-free photos of living persons (read: we don't allow them). He may be well photographed, but those are all press pictures and unusable here. See the above sections for more details. --MASEM (t) 20:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's a case of so ronery syndrome, seeing as this is a case of "So Ronery: The Next Generation". LOL 198.151.130.40 (talk) 01:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

FAQ

Just created Talk:Kim Jong-un/FAQ, it's quite a rough piece of work that gets the general idea across, feel free to brush up some things here and there. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email

Drawing

File:Illustration of Kim Jong-un.jpg Someone has made a drawing of Kim Jong-un. Is this permitted, or is the illustration a derivative work of some copyrighted photo? --Stefan2 (talk) 15:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if it is not a derivative work (I'm pretty sure it is, I've seen that pose before), that's a poor substitute for a photo. Again, we've had cases where people have proposed artist-drawn works where a free photo has yet to exist but is possible (Susan Boyle) and consensus is not to use artist-based works, as they are poor substitutes. --MASEM (t) 15:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Concur. There was a similar debate regarding a drawing of Colton Harris-Moore. It's gone too. It's hard to be certain, but I'd wager this image is a derivative of this, which we know from prior deletions is not a free-license image. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• The creator of the image says is a "rendition, referenced to several photographs". See Portal_talk:Korea#Portrait_of_Kim_Jong-un. Curious that he should be asking there whether to put the artwork on this article rather than here. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oof. I just did a mash up of this image and that image I referenced earlier. Once you scale them, and provide a transparency to one of them, the overlay is blatantly close enough to conclude this is a derivative work. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• I've nominated it for deletion on Commons. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I agree that a photo is much better than a drawing, but I also wanted to find out whether the drawing was a copyright violation. Thanks for finding the source! --Stefan2 (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The above linked image/drawing has now been deleted from Commons as a derivative of a copyrighted work. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there any conceivable invocation of Fair Use?

I realize this has been extensively discussed, but it's something that's really just bugging me (and, I'm sure, a lot of other people). I've gone through the talk page archives, and it seems like no one can find a free-license picture of Kim Jong-un. Is it safe to assume at this point that "no free alternative (to a copyrighted picture) exists"? Does anyone think that we could upload a low-res photo of Kim and use it under the Fair Use policy?

Again, I know the idea of a picture has been extensively discussed. I'm not asking "why is there no picture?". I'm asking if there is any way we could get a picture under the Fair Use Doctrine at this point. What are your thoughts? Sleddog116 (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of politicians and government-people lists 12,924 politicians without photo. What is so special about this one? Sure, some of the people in that category are dead, but many of them are still alive. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it's because he's a head of state.

Dear associated press, can you spare a picture of Kim Jong-un for our little encyclopedia? Thank you. How hard is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.47.70.89 (talk) 01:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

'Human Rights Violations'

What an outrageous double standard from Wikipedia! There's no word of criticism permitted on U.S. President Barack Obama's biography, nor Presidency of Barack Obama page; yet Kim gets an entire section DEDICATED to it.Beingsshepherd (talk) 12:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Beingsshepherd

• That would seem to be an issue for those articles, not this one. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• Not necessarily; for congruency's sake, we could sanitize articles such as this, on the same specious grounds as those found it the aforementioned Talk pages. I ask in the hope of finding more reasonable people here, than the fanclub of stonewalling zealots that guard those pages round the clock.Beingsshepherd (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Beingsshepherd

• • I don't plead guilty. I am supportive of North Korea and wish them well, but, frankly, imprisonment for life at hard labor of entire families for political disagreement is wrong, and notable. However, it is quite possible that Kim Jong-un may not be fully informed, despite his formal position. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• • As to Barack Obama, take it there. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• Sure it's notable, but lopsided when looking at the big picture. Should we start an aggressively biased, zero tolerance censorship here; as is evidently permissible, for many sugar-coated, U.S. establishment Wiki articles; free from all negativity? I’m willing.Beingsshepherd (talk) 20:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Beingsshepherd

• • No we shall not. Wikipedia policy is neutral point of view, not sympathetic point of view; softballing Obama is a violation of our policies. User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
  • North Korea is a outlier. What they could or ought to do with political dissidents is not clear, but nobody, ever, has done what they are doing. User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:38, 6 March 2013 (UTC)