WJhonson@aol.com schreef:
I'm not suggesting we have a rule for not using book covers. I'm suggesting that those people who interpret our policy to state that, are harming the project.
We *do* have a rule that says exactly that; it's not a matter of interpretation. Have you read [[Wikipedia:Non-free content]]? That complete page, including the guideline examples, is policy.
You may think that that rule is harming the project; evidently, other people think it isn't.
Some editors place the rules as gods over the community, without realizing that it is the community which made the rules.
No, in this case, it wasn't the community, it was the Foundation, and before the board resolution it was Jimbo who stated that the encyclopedia had to be free. This is one policy that cannot be changed by the community.
And a considerable part of the community doesn't want to change it, either. Some people think we should write an encyclopedia that happens to be free; other people think we should write a Free encyclopedia. This division in opinion about how large a part of our mission the freedom of the encyclopedia is, has caused a lot of discussion in the past, and this one about BCB is a part of that.
Unfortunately for some, these discussions will -- as I said -- change nothing, as the decision has come from above, like the ten commandments to Moses.
Eugene