On 11/22/2009 05:57 PM, David Gerard wrote:
2009/11/22 Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org:
And in defense of the bureaucratic morons, you might be surprised the number of super positive generous people that want their work on Wikipedia that are completely unwilling to allow 3rd parties to use their work. I don't personally make people say "The Great Sentence of Our Holy Secrets" but I would like some indication that they are ok with other people using their work commercially. Many people simply aren't, and it hasn't crossed their minds that when they give something to Wikipedia that is what they're signing up for. I think we owe it to those people to make sure they understand.
+1
This "free content" idea regularly EXPLODES PEOPLE'S HEADS. They really, seriously, don't get it. Even when they say they do, they frequently don't.
The bureaucracy around submitting photos for Wikipedia is a goddamn pain in the arse ... *but* there are extremely good reasons it came about.
What's the "shoot on sight" percentage on Commons like now? I understand it was 10-12% a coupla years ago. (GMaxwell, I vaguely recall you giving this figure, please correct if I'm wrong.)
- d.
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I am contributing to various Wikimedia projects since 2003 and I contributed my first piece of free software in 1999. Since late 1990s I am actively ideologically supporting free software in my country and in my part of the world. It is hard to imagine to me a kind of surprisingly new behavior from the side of people who makes their first touches with free software and free content. Actually, I am able to present many anecdotes related to such behavior. Actually, I am fully supporting position of both of you.
If you read the content of the link which I posted inside of the first email, you could see that I had passed a variation of the same process. "Please, make the content free." "Yes, I will do it if it doesn't assume commercial interest." ... However, I've got permission as it is needed after one more ask.
The point is that I came into the dead end with the demand to mark what may and what may not be included into Wikipedia. (Besides the fact that situation "Please repeat the next: ..." is solidly stupid if you have ~60 years old professor at the other side.)
If I think constructively, I will need to do the next:
* Analyze all the sites and find some generic way to cover given permissions as simple as it is possible. Probably, I will need some help (and I'll get it). * Write as shorter email as it is possible with as less as it is possible points. * Explain to the professor that this way of getting permissions is necessary even I think that it is stupid. * Send it to OTRS again and hope that I wouldn't have to do the process again.
This task will consume a lot of time. Instead of spending that time on more constructive Wikimedian tasks, I will do it just to raise legal safety from 99% to 99.5%.
Keep in mind that this is not about non-free content, this is not about a possibility that professor didn't understand all consequences of his approval; this is just about The Form. The Bureaucracy. Note, also, that this cooperation exists for four years. I don't think that it is reasonable.