Click "edit this page".

hardy wrote:

"Edit this page" DID NOT WORK the first time I tried it.

NOW I click on that, and I find all of the copyright
information, but what appears when I view the page itself
is the truncated version.

I'm going to edit to fit it into the space allowed.

Still, there should be a warning that it will get truncated.
This information is important.

hardy wrote:

It still doesn't work!! I edited the copyright information to
make it short enough to fit. But when I view the image page,
and reload, I still see the original truncated notice.

Looks fine to me.

There shouldn't be a warning about truncation because truncation shouldn't happen.

hardy wrote:

I now see that the correct information is under "summary",
but the original truncated notice is under "file history".
People reading the truncated version may be led to think
a license has been granted for all pictures on the department's
web pages, rather than those under a specified URL.

Is there any way to edit the TRUNCATED copyright information
in the "file history" section?

No, that's an upload comment. You cannot edit it ever, it's an event-specific one-time
comment, like all edit comments.

I'm duping this to 2537; preview and separation of the existing *comment* field from a
potential full description field.

• This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 2537 ***

hardy wrote:

... and the danger of misunderstanding persists.

Usually edit comments are not made so conspicuous,
right there on the page that was edited. What if
the edit comments upon creation of a new Wikipedia
article were always displayed conspicuously on the
page, and could never be altered?