Hello,
There's a bit of discussion about deleting old versions of fair-use files in the Hebrew Wikipedia and it may be interesting to other projects as well.
The main questions is: Should old versions of fair-use files be deleted? The two main points that support the deletion are that it saves space on the server and that keeping a version of a non-free file violates the fair use policy, because the old version of the image can be viewed, but is not actually used in any relevant article.
The first point, about saving server space, is probably irrelevant, because to the best of my understanding, space is a cheap asset in the first place, and the file is not actually deleted, but only has its description in the database changed to hide it from non-sysop users, so the deletion actually adds to the server load, although not much. (Correct me if i'm wrong.)
But what about fair use validity? Since i am not a copyright lawyer - and really don't want to be one - this is something that should be answered by more knowledgeable people.
Also, are there policies about this in other projects? Commons is irrelevant and i couldn't find anything about it in the English Wikipedia. If from the legal point of view old versions of non-free files should be deleted, then it probably should be implemented in all projects. (I would hate it and i apologize in advance for opening this Pandora's box.)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore