On 9/26/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Let me ask you a question: How does including non-free images in Wikipedia help to accomplish the stated mission of the Wikimedia Foundation? Or are you effectively saying "screw the foundation"?
Trivially answered: A picture is worth a thousand words (or more), and the liberal use of images in encyclopedia articles is commonly accepted to enhance the usability and learning content in any encyclopedia, which one must assume should include Wikipedia.
Denying us the ability to use non-free images where appropriate and ethical and legal is denying our readers the benefits of a better encyclopedia. Which is pretty much the point of being here in the first place.
Nobody here is against replacing fair-use images with free ones. I've added a fair number of images to WP since I joined, some fair number of which I created, and if there were pictures which needed taking and I could conveniently take, I would do so. There's an entire category of missing pictures I've put a few tens of hours negotiations into trying to be able to take (so far, with no luck).
But denying us the fair-use image category is unreasonable, from a content point of view. It's putting "free" before "encyclopedia" in an unacceptable manner to many of us.