Hi Berthold,
the short version:
1) All files will continue to be accessible via
wikivoyage-old.org. For how
long only depends on Wikivoyage e.V. but Roland suggested multiple months
would not be a problem.
2) Files need to be transferred by the community because
- not all files may be eligible for Commons due to its licensing policies
(freedom of panorama standards and other copyright specifics). Some files
may be eligible under the new EDP that is being developed, but then they
would have to be uploaded to the local wiki.
- licensing and description templates as well as categories may need to be
updated to work on Commons.
- files should generally be checked for copyright issues, we need to sort
out different standards and practices for things like email permissions to
grant the rights to use an image, and so on.
Our legal department has strong reservations about a bulk transfer, and I
have strong reservations from a community perspective. This is not just
Wikivoyage being hosted by Wikimedia, this is Wikivoyage becoming a
Wikimedia project. That means taking the time to do this properly.
Technically it is easy for anyone to do a bulk transfer. The reason this
hasn't happened is precisely that people want to take the time to do it
right.
If people are really worried about having red links, we can defer the
migration date until more files have been transferred. Technically there's
nothing forcing us to do it next week. Hans however will have greatly
reduced availability after that and we currently depend on him to produce
the database dumps.
It continues to be my recommendation to live with the red links at launch,
and to just make it a priority to do the files migration through November.
We can help with tools advice/support, and I would not underestimate the
Wikimedia community's ability to pull this off.
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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