Hello,
Last week-end there was the first round of the French presidential election. People from Wikimedia France have been working hard to attend meetings of the candidates to take plenty of photos of them and other politicians or artists supporting them. Wikimedia France has even issued a press release : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CP_Couverture_%C3%A9lection and < http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:French_presidential_election_%282... (browse the subcategories).
To get an official press card in France, more than 50% of your total income must come from your activities as a journalist or photographer < http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_presse_en_France%3E. Photographers and reporters from Wikimedia projects can obviously not get this precious pass. Though, an accreditation letter from an institution (along with a professional camera and a big amount of self-confidency) can be enough.
I know the English-language Wikinews provides such accreditations for reporters. The French-language one doesn't. We have been forced to contact each party and request temporary press passes for each meeting. Although we are very proud of what we have accomplished, it would be great if we had some accreditation letters as photographers. Should they come from Wikinews? Commons? Dunno.
Browsing through the archives of Wikinews Water cooler, I have found this discussion : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/Archive/15#Accredit...
Has there been any follow-up about this issue? If not, could we work on it?
2007/4/23, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com:
Hello,
Last week-end there was the first round of the French presidential election. People from Wikimedia France have been working hard to attend meetings of the candidates to take plenty of photos of them and other politicians or artists supporting them. Wikimedia France has even issued a press release : < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CP_Couverture_%C3%A9lection%3E and < http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:French_presidential_election_%282... (browse the subcategories).
To get an official press card in France, more than 50% of your total income must come from your activities as a journalist or photographer < http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_presse_en_France%3E. Photographers and reporters from Wikimedia projects can obviously not get this precious pass. Though, an accreditation letter from an institution (along with a professional camera and a big amount of self-confidency) can be enough.
I know the English-language Wikinews provides such accreditations for reporters. The French-language one doesn't. We have been forced to contact each party and request temporary press passes for each meeting. Although we are very proud of what we have accomplished, it would be great if we had some accreditation letters as photographers. Should they come from Wikinews? Commons? Dunno.
Browsing through the archives of Wikinews Water cooler, I have found this discussion : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/Archive/15#Accredit...
Has there been any follow-up about this issue? If not, could we work on it?
It seems to me that the accreditation can only be done by a legal entity, and thus the accreditor at least formally should be the Wikimedia Foundation or its French chapter. Of course they could leave the decision as to who to actually completely dependent on the advise by Commons or Wikinews or whatever. For PR reasons I think it would be good to have 'Wikipedia' written on the accreditations (along with Wikinews and Commons, and of course the WMF) - It's much better known than the other projects, and thus could give an air of seriousness to the user that otherwise he would not have.
I think we have had this accreditation conversation already, I can't remember where (foundation-l? wikinews-l?) or when. Sorry.
The answer is very simple: For those countries where accreditation is a legal matter (France is one of them), the Foundation, or the chapters, cannot and will not give this accreditation.
For those countries where the whole accreditation process is more open, then it could be imagined that the Wikinews community recognize some people as "wiki journalists" or something.
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
Delphine
On 4/23/07, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2007/4/23, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com:
Hello,
Last week-end there was the first round of the French presidential election. People from Wikimedia France have been working hard to attend meetings of the candidates to take plenty of photos of them and other politicians or artists supporting them. Wikimedia France has even issued a press release : < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CP_Couverture_%C3%A9lection%3E and < http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:French_presidential_election_%282... (browse the subcategories).
To get an official press card in France, more than 50% of your total income must come from your activities as a journalist or photographer < http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_presse_en_France%3E. Photographers and reporters from Wikimedia projects can obviously not get this precious pass. Though, an accreditation letter from an institution (along with a professional camera and a big amount of self-confidency) can be enough.
I know the English-language Wikinews provides such accreditations for reporters. The French-language one doesn't. We have been forced to contact each party and request temporary press passes for each meeting. Although we are very proud of what we have accomplished, it would be great if we had some accreditation letters as photographers. Should they come from Wikinews? Commons? Dunno.
Browsing through the archives of Wikinews Water cooler, I have found this discussion : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/Archive/15#Accredit...
Has there been any follow-up about this issue? If not, could we work on it?
It seems to me that the accreditation can only be done by a legal entity, and thus the accreditor at least formally should be the Wikimedia Foundation or its French chapter. Of course they could leave the decision as to who to actually completely dependent on the advise by Commons or Wikinews or whatever. For PR reasons I think it would be good to have 'Wikipedia' written on the accreditations (along with Wikinews and Commons, and of course the WMF) - It's much better known than the other projects, and thus could give an air of seriousness to the user that otherwise he would not have.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 4/23/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
I don't see how endorsement leads to publisher statute. One of the missions of the foundation and of the local chapters is to help users from Wikimedia projects to develop and create free content. Taking advantage of Wikimedia / Wikipedia popularity to get accreditations that will allow users to create free content doesn't mean this content will be published on Wikimedia websites, nor it will be published on Wikimedia websites on behalf of Wikimedia.
On 4/30/07, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/23/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
I don't see how endorsement leads to publisher statute. One of the missions of the foundation and of the local chapters is to help users from Wikimedia projects to develop and create free content. Taking advantage of Wikimedia / Wikipedia popularity to get accreditations that will allow users to create free content doesn't mean this content will be published on Wikimedia websites, nor it will be published on Wikimedia websites on behalf of Wikimedia.
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau
But why do people have to be "endorsed" to develop and create free content? I am rather proud of Wikipedia's celebrity photographer, who politely takes pictures for Wikipedia articles without any endorsement, just like the best of Wikipedia's editors, politely creating accurate content on encyclopedia-worthy topics, without any endorsement from Wikipedia. Isn't this what Wikipedia is?
KP
K P a écrit :
Why do people have to be "endorsed" to develop and create free content? I am rather proud of Wikipedia's celebrity photographer, who politely takes pictures for Wikipedia articles without any endorsement, just like the best of Wikipedia's editors, politely creating accurate content on encyclopedia-worthy topics, without any endorsement from Wikipedia. Isn't this what Wikipedia is?
Because some pictures cannot be taken unless one has been granted special access conditions to a "press area". It is for instance very difficult to take pictures of the speakers at a political rally unless you're really in the front, which is reserved for the press and VIPs. The same applies to a variety of events, or even to photographs of the inside of buildings, etc.
Practical example: members of Wikimedia France took photographs of presidential candidates during the election run. In some cases, they were simply shooting from the public (and thus had to deal with e.g. getting pushed when taking photos and the like), but the best quality photographs were taken from the "press area", and they got access to this area because Wikimedia France asked them to be authorized to enter this area. (At least for major candidates; minor candidates who do around 1% of votes tend to have more informal procedures.)
Organizers of such events do not generally grant press access to random individuals. They want professionals, with a press card (we cannot help there, at least in France, since press cards are only for professional journalists), or at least, if we're lucky, they want an organization to endorse the photographer.
Think of it this way: organizers cannot let every Tom, Dick and Harry go to front row and take pictures, for practical reasons. In the past, the criterion for admittance was "being a press photographer", which meant one doing press photos as a professional job. In the era of user-generated content, blogs, wikis etc. this criterion is becoming somewhat of an annoyance. On the other hand, I can understand that organizers and officials don't want hundreds of amateur photographers rushing in with their compact cameras...
Wikimedia France talked about this issue to various officials and organizers, and everybody seems to agree that there is a problem. We've been asked to provide proposals. We'll have to think about this seriously.
On 04/05/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
Organizers of such events do not generally grant press access to random individuals. They want professionals, with a press card (we cannot help there, at least in France, since press cards are only for professional journalists), or at least, if we're lucky, they want an organization to endorse the photographer. Think of it this way: organizers cannot let every Tom, Dick and Harry go to front row and take pictures, for practical reasons. In the past, the criterion for admittance was "being a press photographer", which meant one doing press photos as a professional job. In the era of user-generated content, blogs, wikis etc. this criterion is becoming somewhat of an annoyance. On the other hand, I can understand that organizers and officials don't want hundreds of amateur photographers rushing in with their compact cameras... Wikimedia France talked about this issue to various officials and organizers, and everybody seems to agree that there is a problem. We've been asked to provide proposals. We'll have to think about this seriously.
FWIW, the prospective Wikimedia UK (which is still waiting on Delphine getting around to returning a signed copy of the agreement) has expressly planned to accredit people as it helps free content. Because we're *so* not the publisher of WMF-hosted content and have no leverage over them.
- d.
On 5/3/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
K P a écrit :
Why do people have to be "endorsed" to develop and create free content? I am rather proud of Wikipedia's celebrity photographer, who politely takes pictures for Wikipedia articles without any endorsement, just like the best of Wikipedia's editors, politely creating accurate content on encyclopedia-worthy topics, without any endorsement from Wikipedia. Isn't this what Wikipedia is?
Because some pictures cannot be taken unless one has been granted special access conditions to a "press area". It is for instance very difficult to take pictures of the speakers at a political rally unless you're really in the front, which is reserved for the press and VIPs. The same applies to a variety of events, or even to photographs of the inside of buildings, etc.
Practical example: members of Wikimedia France took photographs of presidential candidates during the election run. In some cases, they were simply shooting from the public (and thus had to deal with e.g. getting pushed when taking photos and the like), but the best quality photographs were taken from the "press area", and they got access to this area because Wikimedia France asked them to be authorized to enter this area. (At least for major candidates; minor candidates who do around 1% of votes tend to have more informal procedures.)
Organizers of such events do not generally grant press access to random individuals. They want professionals, with a press card (we cannot help there, at least in France, since press cards are only for professional journalists), or at least, if we're lucky, they want an organization to endorse the photographer.
Think of it this way: organizers cannot let every Tom, Dick and Harry go to front row and take pictures, for practical reasons. In the past, the criterion for admittance was "being a press photographer", which meant one doing press photos as a professional job. In the era of user-generated content, blogs, wikis etc. this criterion is becoming somewhat of an annoyance. On the other hand, I can understand that organizers and officials don't want hundreds of amateur photographers rushing in with their compact cameras...
Wikimedia France talked about this issue to various officials and organizers, and everybody seems to agree that there is a problem. We've been asked to provide proposals. We'll have to think about this seriously.
David,
Thanks for the detailed answer to the question I asked--always a treat.
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.
KP
On 4/23/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
The answer is very simple: For those countries where accreditation is a legal matter (France is one of them), the Foundation, or the chapters, cannot and will not give this accreditation.
For those countries where the whole accreditation process is more open, then it could be imagined that the Wikinews community recognize some people as "wiki journalists" or something.
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
Would it be possible for the WMF to make a deal with an actual publisher? They could, say, give us a press pass in return for us giving them a free license to use the photographs. The St. Petersburg Times is run by a non-profit and is right down the street. Maybe they'd be willing to hook up the WMF with a press pass to use for events they weren't sending anyone to anyway?
Just a thought. I don't know much about how these things work.
Anthony
On 04/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Please remember that as soon as the organisation "endorses" any person to contribute content to the projects, it puts itself in a "publisher" kind of position, which we need to avoid at all costs, since the organisation is *not* a publisher.
Would it be possible for the WMF to make a deal with an actual publisher? They could, say, give us a press pass in return for us giving them a free license to use the photographs. The St. Petersburg Times is run by a non-profit and is right down the street. Maybe they'd be willing to hook up the WMF with a press pass to use for events they weren't sending anyone to anyway?
Just a thought. I don't know much about how these things work.
That's a pretty good idea, actually. We find the publisher a volunteer who we know is a decent person - just the sort of job for our shiny new Volunteer Coordinator - the volunteer agrees with the publisher that the material will be freely licensed*, the publisher issues accreditation and lets the material flow in (and out).