First up correct me I'm making the wrong assumption here
Pikiwiki is hosted on Israeli servers Commons is hosted on US servers
The problem that is arising is that there are differences between the copyright laws of the two countries and what is an acceptable free image use in Israel is significantly different to what applies in the US and its with this difference that problems have arisen. Some how we need to explain the differences to the Pikiwiki community and get their help in addressing the information we need to host images on US servers.
As a separate issue the purpose, position, and expectations of Commons within the wider Wikimedia community needs to clarified, when I came to Commons it was as repository of free media, primarily to design to support cross project use of that media without the need to have multiple copies of the same file stored on the servers. From where it sit that hasnt changed, the people/admins of Commons havent gone rogue but at the moment it appears that we as members of that community are under seige. While Cary's comments on commons, and this discussion have helped to stimulate further discussion I think the approach of take all the files fromPikiwiki then you(Commons community) can sort the copyright problems later, because that what your there for isnt helpful or reasonable.
I agree with Dror involving the Foundation in this because its a fundamental concern that needs to be fixed and something that has the potential to bite at the core of our society. Whats needed from the Foundation is physical assistance in assessing, transfering the images and ensuring that before they are hosted on Commons servers the image do comly with US and source copyright laws what isnt need is further bashing of the people on Commons who are trying to ensure the image can be hosted.
2009/6/5 W Knight wknight94@gmail.com
Just a point of fact: the upload bot is still blocked at this time: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&am...
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Abigor abigor@forgotten-beauty.comwrote:
Gerard,
The PikiWiki project is lead by three organisations and not only wikimedia Israel.
I don't think the problem is Commons accepting the project. But even if we see it as one of our sisterprojects it still needs to follow Commons Policies. The same counts for En.Wiki the can't upload fair use on Commons because the policy. There are other project that al almost the same like Http://www.wikiportret.nl or photosubmission project on En.wiki both the projects need to get otrs permission for every upload and give as source the projectsite. I think this would be a good way to go with Pikiwiki.
About the block, as far as I know the bot is already unblocked. But we have like 2.500 images already on Commons that need to be fixed before we upload even more images.
huib
Http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:Abigor msn: Abigor@forgotten-beauty.com
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