There are two problems with letting just anybody upload images:
1) Copyright law is very complex. Most people don't understand it.
2) Most people *aren't aware* that they don't understand it.
By letting everyone upload images to Wikipedia, we're telling them
that we trust them to understand what is and is not allowed. Then, we
turn around and bite them by deleting their images when, inevitably,
they make mistakes. It confuses people no end to be told that they
both are and aren't able to upload images correctly.
I see this confusion every day, in the questions on my talkpage, or on
OrphanBot's user and talkpages, or on the image-related pages in
Wikipedia:-space. I haven't had OrphanBot go through the 35,000 talk
pages that it's left messages on, but I expect that if I did, I'd find
hundreds more questions, unanswered because nobody ever saw them.
I also see this in the form of users floundering around, trying out
different templates to see which one will get the bot off their back,
or using clearly-incorrect templates based on a misunderstanding of
copyright, or making up template-like statements because they don't
understand what a template is, or providing "fair use rationales" that
amount to little more than a statement of "I once heard these words in
a copyright context".
I don't have the time to deal with this confusion by explaining
Wikipedia's policies to everyone, and most uploaders don't stick
around long enough to learn. The best I can do is respond to the
occasional user who finds their way to my talkpage.
Much of the image deletion policy is based around the fact that there
are maybe a dozen people on Wikipedia who understand the image use
policy well enough to enforce it, and are willing to take the time to
do so. At the same time, over two thousand new images are uploaded
each day, adding to the 553,000 images already on Wikipedia.
By making image uploading a privilege to be earned rather than a right
conferred by registering an account, we can relax the policy and deal
with uploaders individually, rather than automated notification of
problems and nearly-automated deletion of problematic images.
--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]