On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Erik Moeller wrote:
On 3/2/07, Robert Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
This is effectively banning fair use from all but the absolutely most active projects and mandating that there is no fair use.
I don't agree that the project has to be among "the most active". A similar policy has been in place on Wikinews for a while (new editions were not permitted to enable local uploads unless they had a fair use policy in place). Wikinews is orders of magnitude smaller than Wikipedia, yet editions like the Polish Wikinews managed to come up with a reasonable fair use policy. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I'm a fan of letting individual projects set their own guidelines, and not of efforts that make things harder for non-English or small projects; but this policy doesn't seem to do that -- it just provides a clarification of a rule that has already caused confusion.
use uploads can be permitted. I don't see this as a major issue at all -- it's not like the survival of any of our projects depends on fair use -- nor do I agree with your characterization of this decision as "micromanagement". To the contrary, this is pure "macro"management: setting a standard which all projects must follow.
Right.
SJ