On 12/07/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
We've got people endlessly arguing over the meaning of "minimal" in item #3 of the resolution. In one debate, we had people actively arguing that the use of 133 fair use images on the article constituted minimal use, because in each case one image was used to identify a single subject, therefore it was in essence 1 image per use, not 133. I kid you not.
My answer to these is "um, no" and rogue-delete if need be.
How many times do we have to debate these issues? How much energy do we have to exert? How often do we have to end up in RfCs, mediations and RfRs (all of these have happened, some of them multiple times) over this issue?
Every time someone decides there's a hitherto-invisible "I wanna" clause in the fair use provisions of copyright law.
This has to stop. We need a bright line defense, a clear line of delineation to end this nightmare. If the Foundation expects en.wikipedia to come into compliance by Spring of '08 it must take action to give us the tools necessary to accomplish this. We're working on 200,000 images used in tens of thousands of ways. We have virtually no direction, no bright line to point people to and say "This is policy. This is resolution. Period." We need a considerably clearer delineation and we need it now.
I suggest an in-practice delineation. Point me at stuff needing doing. I'll happily put a list somewhere, e.g. my user space.
- d.