[Foundation-l] Banning Fair Use

[Andrew Whitworth]

From: Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
>As I feared would be the case, this new foundation policy has become a call 
>to arms by deletionists to institute a massive removal of all fair use 
>content on all Wikimedia projects.  I don't know if this was the intent, 
>but on at least en.wikibooks, the most active bureaucrat there has demanded 
>that all fair use content be eliminated from Wikibooks. And has used this 
>policy to strength his own counter claim that we should never have allowed 
>fair use onto that project in the first place.

As the most active of the three bureaucrats on that project, I can only 
assume Robert is talking about me. This is a gross miscategorization of my 
words and actions, and should not be used to cause alarm among foundation 
members.

After reading the resolution, I suggested in a local forum that we needed to 
finalize our EDP policy proposal (which is an "unofficial" de facto standard 
at the moment), we needed to increase our monitoring and tagging of fair use 
images, and we needed to educate administrators about the use and misuse of 
fair use media. I specifically called for people not to delete any fair use 
media until our EDP policy was finalized, and so far no images have been 
deleted because of this.

>... unless you have already "approved" an EDP (whatever that means.... and 
>the process of approval is certainly vague here)

It's not vague at all, en.wikibooks has a method for approving new policy, 
and we are employing that method now to our own EDP. Again, no cause for 
alarm here.

>Because of the earlier discussion about fair use that was started by Kat 
>(before this policy was written), this same bureaucrat on Wikibooks also 
>deleted and rewrote the fair use policy to simply say that fair use was 
>banned, presuming authority on the part of the WMF.

A mistake on my part, which I personally reverted when I learned of my 
errors. I had been under the impression that Kat's essay carried more weight 
then it actually did, and that the forthcoming WMF resolution would be 
significantly more restrictive about fair use then our previous policy on 
the matter was. I was right, and there are significant restrictions on it.

>But because this is a smallish project with only a handful of users who set 
>policy, it makes it easier for some users to wildly mis-interpret what has 
>been said.

And it is also easy for people like this to wildly misinterpret the actions 
of their fellow wikimedians. It's easier to raise alarm if you lie and say 
that our project is going to hell in a hand basket. It's harder to raise 
that alarm when you admit that our project is functioning normally, and is 
making a community effort to meet the expectations of the WMF resolution.

In the future, if you are going to lie about me, do it in private so I dont 
need to call you out about it in public. It's just rude.

--Andrew Whitworth (b:User:Whiteknight)

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