[Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
If you worry then you should not post arguments as fact and when you post
argument as fact you should not say that you are a casual onlooker. Either
you know what you are talking about and have an opinion that is founded on
whatever or you are just fanning the flames.

If you had paid any attention, you would know that the content of the
pikiwiki project is freely licensed. The question is very much about to what
extend the i has to be dotted and the t has to be crossed. If anything I
think that Commons is doing poorly. It should have at least 10 times the
amount of freely licensed content. This is in my opinion not happening
because of a broken conception of what Commons is about. It is broken
because all kinds of things are conflated in one heap. Conflated are freely
licensed, educational, artistic and quality. It is a mess that makes our own
projects choose for Flickr.
Thanks,
       Gerard

2009/6/15 Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net>

> David Gerard wrote:
> > 2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko at gmail.com>:
> >
> >
> >>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
> >> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
> >> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
> >> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
> >> copyright violations.
> >> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
> >> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
> >> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.
> >>
> >
> >
> > I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins.
> >
> > Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?
> >
> I don't know if this makes me insular and derisive, but as a casual
> onlooker to the Pikiwiki episode, I do worry that there is an attempt to
> strongarm Commons into accepting material that would not normally be
> able to get in. It worries me because if Commons loses its reputation as
> a reliable source of free media, the that loss effectively contaminates
> everything in the project - potential users will be unsure if my own
> photos were really self-made, or I'm putting free licenses on material
> that is not mine to give away.
>
> For projects that have committed to only using Commons for media, the
> pressure to accept borderline material is going to be intense, and it's
> always going to be a secondary concern that the files are going to be a
> problem for other clients of Commons. Projects experiencing that kind of
> pressure should maybe consider re-instituting local uploads, which
> allows for more gradual migration of material as it is determined to
> meet Commons' standards, and takes away the pressure on Commons admins
> to make snap decisions on tricky copyright issues.
>
> Stan
>
>
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