I just wanted to say that I really strongly support the central ideas put forward by Erik here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons
I can't say if I agree with every single detail of his proposed implementation, because I'm not really qualified to judge all of it.
But the central ideas, as proposed here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014826.html are valid and important.
I especially like the requirement of NO fair use materials on the commons proper. Fair use is often problematic and complex, and so I really want to encourage the creation of free alternatives even to fair use. (Even though, at the same time, I strongly support the concept of fair use and would like to see it expanded and strengthened and clarified legally.)
I think it would be very nice to be able to have portfolios of images of specific topics, even when we only use 1 or 2 of the images in a particular article on a particular wikipedia. For example, we might quickly end up with 50 different pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
One thing that I strongly recommend is that we get started on the right foot from the beginning on this site, *requiring* a certain level of documentation: what is this? where did it come from? what license(s) is it under? who is the creator? when was it created?
Part of the idea here is to create a central core of material that we *and* those who license our content can feel comfortable using.
(Toward that end, we should have a mechanism to store, but not display by default, high resolution images.)
--Jimbo
p.s. I do not like the use of the word 'altruism' in his proposal, but that's just something he said on the side, not central to what he's talking about. I wouldn't mention it, except that it's a philosophical peeve of mine. :-)
Jimmy-
I just wanted to say that I really strongly support the central ideas put forward by Erik here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons
Thank you for your support. I would like to again invite all interested parties (especially developers, but also writers, photographers etc.) to add themselves on the above page, so that we can together move this project forward after MediaWiki 1.3 has reached a stable state. As the above proposal states, I hope that we can also implement single sign-on in one fell swoop with the Commons itself, which would be one important step to bring the individual Wikimedia projects closer together.
As you correctly say, this needs decent planning. I think existing media files should be moved over gradually - not all at once, but automatically through a script that checks for allowed license tags, and moves those over at a limited rate, to ensure that humans can look over them. I hope, but can of course not predict, that the constant rate of files flowing into the Commons in the first few weeks will get people interested in building the structure and adding to it directly.
p.s. I do not like the use of the word 'altruism' in his proposal, but that's just something he said on the side, not central to what he's talking about. I wouldn't mention it, except that it's a philosophical peeve of mine. :-)
Hmm, looks like we need wikiphilosophy-l now ;-). Alternatively, we can rephrase it as NPOV: "We can appeal to what *some people see* as altruism, while objectivists have argued that .."
Erik
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
I think it would be very nice to be able to have portfolios of images of specific topics, even when we only use 1 or 2 of the images in a particular article on a particular wikipedia.
I'd like to support your proposal.
For example, we might quickly end up with 50 different pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Yes, those series are very useful. Don't hesitate to upload detailed pictures (with descriptions, of course) and link them together on a main page.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org