Hi Kevin,

My comment here expresses my personal opinion only.

I understand how bringing this issue to Wikimedia-l could seem appropriate because Commons is a project that has an unusual degree of cross-wiki influence and activity. While it's ok to notify Wikimedia-l that this issue is being discussed, the main body of the discussion should stay on-wiki on Commons [1]. Per the essay about wikidrama on English Wikipedia [2] and the "Principle of Least Drama", it is best not to make "the same point in multiple places", as split discussions are often more difficult to follow and spread the drama to more places. Also, when placing notices of discussions from other wikis to this list, I think it is best to follow the detailed guidelines for Requests for Comment from English Wikipedia [3] which ask users to write "a brief, neutral statement of the issue". In general, cross-wiki and cross-list *advocacy* (not mere notification) from anywhere else to this mailing list could be considered canvassing [4]. I think you were well-intentioned in posting a notice to this list but I would ask you to do it a bit differently in the future.

Thank you for raising the issue for discussion. I think you have good points, and you should make them on Commons, where it appears that other Commons contributors agree with you that this situation could have been handled differently [1].

Pine

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#Dead_bodies.3F [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drama [3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing