On 7/27/06, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote:
What are the good reasons to "prohibit fair
use" in the User namespace
that don't apply to the Wikipedia namespace?
The user namespace is treated by most of its inhabitants as a space of
personal ownership, and its content is almost unregulated. For
instance, something like [[User:SPUI]] can survive only because it is
a user page, and indeed, attempts to get rid of it would be dealt with
as vandalism. Allowing fair use in that space is likely to lead to
more MySpace pages, with random celebrity photos, O RLY type crap, and
boobie-shaking GIF animations. Allowing only free content in the User:
space is a way to limit it, whereas the content of the Wikipedia:
space is already regulated by the community.
To me, this is not only about the legal validity of the use, it is
also about its impact, and whether it is desirable.
Erik