On 21/11/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
I also think WP could do more to cynically play on European chauvinism than it has so far. 1/2 :-) A public statement by Jimbo, saying something like "we will not accept unfree ESA images in WP, and while we don't want WP to present a US-only view of space exploration, it's up to the Europeans to fix this", would likely get reported widely, and hopefully put some pressure on ESA to change what is at best a sloppy practice.
Yes. The reason Wikipedia is full of NASA and CIA World Factbook images is because those resources are public domain. That's not US-centrism - it's using images because they are free content. If there's a problem with not enough ESA images, it's up to the ESA to fix that; somehow NASA has survived.
I understand this is pretty much what Anthere said to a group of French government figures - if you want to compete with the flood of US imagery, make it just as available.
- d.