I hear many time that people think this is a great project, but in fact
the Commons' administrators were quite hostile towards it from its very
beginning. Like in many other issues, most of the complaints were
technical, but I cannot believe that technicalities are the problem
here. None of the images lack source. The person who contributed the
images and relinquished his/her copyrights is always mentioned, but not
in the field where the administrators expect it. The fact that the
"description" template is produced automatically makes this minor error
very easy to ignore or fix. An administrator merely needs to look two
lines below, and if it is really disturbing, an automated process can
fix the error in the future. Many people upload images manually and the
risk of error there is much higher. The fact that these technicalities
were enough to block the project (not the bot, but the whole project, as
this bot is actually the door between the localized interface and the
Commons) makes me wonder whether these technicalities are just an excuse.
The Commons, the Wikipedias, the Foundation and the chapters are all
part of one structure. The Commons' administrators have more privileges
than any other element in this structure. They are entrusted with a huge
international project, seen by people from five continents, they are
selected for indefinite period of time, and they don't have to reveal
their identity. It is also unclear who they are accountable to. These
privileges mean that the administrators need to be extremely careful and
cooperative. The fact that none of the administrators ever thought of
contacting a chapter to consult it about local copyright arrangements or
to suggest project related to the Commons is an indication that most
administrators are not aware of the structure within which they operate,
and don't understand the way Wikimedia works.
Being an administrator at the Commons doesn't necessarily mean deleting
images whose source is unclear or approving controversial material on
the account that it is "educational". Being an administrator also, and
most importantly, means knowing the way the Wikimedia movement works,
being interested in new projects, offering help, and being fully
cooperative with new initiatives. Think about it - had one of the
administrators sent a template code to the email of the Pikiwiki
project, the whole "source issue" would have been resolved. However, the
administrators chose to take a passive approach, complain about the
minor error without explaining it properly, and blocking the project
eventually. This is not how things should work. The administrators also
must remember that the rules are there to serve the community. It is not
the community that need to serve the rules. The spirit of the project
always comes before the technical rules. If obeying the rules becomes
more important than the spirit of the project, then it's a sign that the
project is decaying.
Dror K