Pete,
The other day, Daniel Case referred on Commons to Commons' "failure as a community to formulate a clear policy about posting identifiable nudes in private places without any indication as to whether they have consented to publication of those images under a licensing scheme that allows for nearly unlimited reproduction, distribution and modification of them".
In reply you said, on Commons, "Daniel, I have no doubt that it happens on our site all the time, and it's horrible, and it's something we should stop if we possibly can."
Yet now, faced with those "horrible" things that happen "on our site all the time", and which come up time and again in gender gap discussions, you want to send us bird-watching and tell us about all the great things Commons does.
Shame on you.
Oliver said a very stupid thing. Your seizing on it to deflect from the fact that the spirit and letter of the board resolution are routinely ignored in Commons looks like a devious gambit that presents us with a wonderful opportunity to distinguish those who pay mere lip service to the idea of putting those "horrible" things right from those who actually want to.
As for the greatness of Commons' expertise in intellectual property law, a journalist friend of mine shared the following anecdote in discussion on Wikipediocracy a couple of days ago:
---o0o---
My latest magazine piece (here if anyone is interested) is about Ambon, Indonesia, a place few professional photographers go to anymore. The photo desk couldn't find anything decent to illustrate the story, and I suggested maybe trolling through Wikipedia commons for old Dutch public domain stuff. Photo editor cut me right off, told me they'd introduced a strict policy a few years ago of never user anything from commons because they invariably draw take-down notices and threats. Even in the case of pictures of public domain works (an old map for instance), no doing. He said the pictures themselves are frequently stolen from museums or government archives. The lawyers told us that commons has such a bad reputation for accurate licensing that a downstream user such as ourselves could ultimately be considered culpable if anyone chose to go that route.
---o0o---
There was a coda to that when I found that his publication actually have some Commons images on their website (though never in print editions, apparently). I gave an example from last week:
It turns out it was a copyright violation: it is used on
postzambia.com in two articles dated three months prior to the Commons upload, which was done by a drive-by account that never edited before or since.
And before someone clever comes along and suggests The Post probably took it from Commons and put it on the articles' web pages three months after publication, let us note that there are dozens of photographs of Mr Scott on
postzambia.com, as you would expect for a Zambian newspaper, whereas Commons has exactly one: that one.
So much for Commons' intellectual property expertise. Yes, Commons may have lots of information on freedom of panorama in countries all around the world, most of which may be accurate, but what good does it do if the site is riddled with copyright violations.
Keep watching the birds. They're beautiful.
Andreas
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:50 PM, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
I have to say I share Russavia's bafflement around this issue.
The accomplishments people have made on the platform of Wikimedia Commons are, in my view, staggering. Just this morning, a couple Wikipedian friends told me about the photography of JJ Harrison, somebody who has uploaded an extraordinary collection of bird photos, among many others. It's worth a look.[1]
The collection of freely licensed photos and other files at Commons is enormous, diverse, and useful. It is fairly well organized. Tons of useless junk gets weeded out. Hundreds of Wikimedia projects are supported in their various missions.
All this happens in spite of there being a firehose of junk and copyright violations pointed at Commons every single day.[2] In spite of the fact that native speakers of many, many languages have to find ways to work together. In spite of the fact that people bring astonishingly varied projects and dreams and hopes and expectations to their work on Commons.
What is the thing that makes all this possible? The dedication of the volunteers. The people who sit down at their computers day after day to pitch in whatever way they see fit. Sorting through deletion nominations, filling requests to rename files, considering policy changes, and -- my personal favorite -- gradually amassing probably the best compendium of knowledge about certain aspects of international intellectual property law ever assembled in human history.
When I hear people refer to this community as "broken," I am amazed how out of touch they are with the reality and exquisite beauty of what Commons is. I can only assume they are overly influenced by a small number of edge cases that have come to their attention god knows how, and have generalized on those experiences to draw a fallacious conclusion.
With all that said, of course, there's a tremendous amount of stuff that could and should be done to make Commons work better, to make it a more inviting and respectful environment, to make it more effective at advancing the Wikimedia mission.
But one thing I am damn sure is not part of that solution is offhand insults directed at the community of dedicated volunteers who sustain and nurture Commons. Even if there are unhealthy social dynamics in the way the site functions (and there certainly are), I can't begin to imagine what theory of progress would rely on calling them out as a reflection of the overall health of the project.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
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