On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:22 AM, David Moran <fordmadoxfraud(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't think it's helpful or useful to
classify images that aren't
currently being used in an article somewhere as second class, or more
readily deletable. There are, I think it safe to say, TONS of images on
Commons that aren't being used anywhere. So what if we have male nudes far
in excess of what would ever need to be used in one article? The point of
commons isn't as a hosting substitute for Wikipedia's article, it is as a
repository of free images. For most purposes, people will only need one
image out of a group, but offering a variety from which they can choose can
only be beneficial.
If the free-ness of an image can be reasonably disputed, fine, go ahead and
delete it, but don't start setting up separate standards for deletion based
on an image's use.
It's also worth considering hypothetical books at Wikibooks or courses
at Wikversity that teach the art of nude portraits, for which a large
wealth of such images would be needed as examples. A simple search on
Amazon for "nude photography" returns many such books [1]. Just
because the nudity-related articles on Wikipedia can't use all of
these types of images doesn't mean that they are useless to our
projects.
Obviously non-free images are a different topic entirely, and if these
images are unacceptable for other reasons then they should be handled
accordingly. However, deleting an image just because it is not
currently used at Wikipedia is awfully short-sighted.
[1]
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo…
--Andrew Whitworth