WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 7/19/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
en.wikipedia is utterly failing at executing the Foundation's mission,
and
it is THE flagship project.
This is unwarranted hyperbole. If we're utterly failing, why is Wikipedia a top-10 website that's rapidly gaining cachet as the first place to look for general information, why is Britannica in terror of us, and (specifically on the "free" front) why is the Wikipedia database being used by literally hundreds of mirrors?
Our mission says nothing about striving to become a top 10 website.
True. But it does say we're trying to become a good encyclopedia, and the fact that we're a top 10 website is evidence that we're succeeding in that goal. Or are you suggesting that the vast numbers of visitors we're getting are coming for something _other_ than encyclopedia content? I can't imagine why else they'd be coming to Wikipedia if not to read encyclopedia articles.
The same rationales that we use for fair use images can be used by others who wish to use Wikipedia's material in the same context (as an educational encyclopedia), so it's not like the fair use images are completely useless for people wishing to reuse our content. They just have to make the judgement for themselves which licences are compatible with their use and strip out the bits that aren't.
Then we might as well liberally allow fair use, since we're unconcerned with derivative uses.
I'm suggesting that there's a _balance_ to be found here. Since we keep everything non-free tagged with explicit non-free labels, people who wish to create derivative works that can't make use of fair use exemptions the way we do can easily strip out the content that they can't use.
There's material on Wikipedia with licences that are even less restrictive than the GFDL but it would be silly to decide to strip out everything licenced under the GFDL solely for the sake of freeing things up even more. Again, different competing goals must strike a balance.