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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/3/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">David Monniaux</b> <<a href="mailto:David.Monniaux@free.fr">David.Monniaux@free.fr</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">K P a écrit :<br>> Why do people have to be "endorsed" to develop and create free<br>> content? I am rather proud of Wikipedia's celebrity photographer, who
<br>> politely takes pictures for Wikipedia articles without any<br>> endorsement, just like the best of Wikipedia's editors, politely<br>> creating accurate content on encyclopedia-worthy topics, without any
<br>> endorsement from Wikipedia. Isn't this what Wikipedia is?<br>Because some pictures cannot be taken unless one has been granted<br>special access conditions to a "press area". It is for instance very
<br>difficult to take pictures of the speakers at a political rally unless<br>you're really in the front, which is reserved for the press and VIPs.<br>The same applies to a variety of events, or even to photographs of the
<br>inside of buildings, etc.<br><br>Practical example: members of Wikimedia France took photographs of<br>presidential candidates during the election run. In some cases, they<br>were simply shooting from the public (and thus had to deal with
e.g.<br>getting pushed when taking photos and the like), but the best quality<br>photographs were taken from the "press area", and they got access to<br>this area because Wikimedia France asked them to be authorized to enter
<br>this area. (At least for major candidates; minor candidates who do<br>around 1% of votes tend to have more informal procedures.)<br><br>Organizers of such events do not generally grant press access to random<br>individuals. They want professionals, with a press card (we cannot help
<br>there, at least in France, since press cards are only for professional<br>journalists), or at least, if we're lucky, they want an organization to<br>endorse the photographer.<br><br>Think of it this way: organizers cannot let every Tom, Dick and Harry go
<br>to front row and take pictures, for practical reasons. In the past, the<br>criterion for admittance was "being a press photographer", which meant<br>one doing press photos as a professional job. In the era of
<br>user-generated content, blogs, wikis etc. this criterion is becoming<br>somewhat of an annoyance. On the other hand, I can understand that<br>organizers and officials don't want hundreds of amateur photographers<br>
rushing in with their compact cameras...<br><br>Wikimedia France talked about this issue to various officials and<br>organizers, and everybody seems to agree that there is a problem. We've<br>been asked to provide proposals. We'll have to think about this seriously.
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<div>David,</div>
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<div>Thanks for the detailed answer to the question I asked--always a treat.</div>
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<div>I had been considering art and cultural events more than political events, but candidate pictures will also be important. In other words, on en.Wiki, we have to find a way to get credentials for photographers without credentialling them. I am going to see what I can do to get my favorite Wikipedia celebrity photographer access to political events.
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<div>KP</div><br> </div><br>