--- On Tue, 17/5/11, Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org wrote:
From: Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Gendergap] Photo of the Day on Wikimedia Commons To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, 17 May, 2011, 15:04 On Tue, 17 May 2011, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
The images from today and yesterday are:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turbo_imperialis_01.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:On_the_edge_-_free_world_version.jpg
If you are unwilling to recognise the difference in
terms of educational vs.
artistic content, nothing I say is likely to make any
difference. Frankly,
it's not even worth discussing.
"Featured pictures are images that the community has chosen to be highlighted as some of the finest on Commons." Both today's and yesterday's main page images are featured pictures.
I am not making any judgement regarding educational or illustrative content, (both images are equally usable for educational purposes, albeit different ones) other than if two images are recognised to be of the same standard ("featured status") then they should be treated as having equal value to the project. If we want to treat artistic and illustrative works differently then we need separate standards to judge them by (instead of or as well as "featured status", I can see arguments for both). If we want to say that some featured pictures are more valuable to the project than others then we need some other status for one or other of the groups.
This never was justifiable as a featured picture to begin with. As it was, it scraped through in Commons 8:2:2,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:O...
with support comments that don't make a good case at all, and failed to attract support in German Wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kandidaten_f%C3%BCr_exzellente_Bilder...
Yesterday there were calls that we should not be featuring the work of non-notable Wikimedians full stop. Today were are featuring the work of an equally non-notable Wikimedian and there are no calls for the image not to be shown on the main page on these grounds.
There were no calls to stop featuring work of non-notable Wikimedians. If we did that, almost all photographs of buildings, plants, mountains would be disqualified. The actual point is quite different.
Commons does not host original art by non-notable Wikimedians that does not have an obvious educational use. That is Commons policy. Commons is not for fan art; DeviantArt is the right place for such images.
Even if you disagree with me and assert that the image does have educational value, featured picture criteria require notability (nope), high artistic merit (nope), high illustrative merit (nope, this is an independent work of art, rather than an illustration of anything pre-existing), or high historic merit (nope).
Andreas