[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons: Service project or not?

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

> OK, the question has popped up so many times, that I think it would only
> be
> fair to give it a separate topic on this list :)
>
> Now I'd like to have a discussion about this, and not just assumptions.
> Let's not be childish and say "yes it is, no it's not" (which some of the
> discussion comes down to) but lets play around a bit with arguments.
>
> This discussion is btw not new at all, I remember to have discussed over
> it
> several times, and I've had both opinions probably in time. Mostly this
> discussion comes up when a project (in the past at least several times
> this
> was the Dutch Wikipedia, as some might remember) felt that the commons
> community was damaging the content they uploaded there without them having
> a
> say over it. The even more important question is, however, when comes the
> moment when the two are in conflict?
>
> I doubt any project actually cares whether commons has out of scope images
> (well, a few might, but that is actually commons people then imho, not
> wikipedians/wikisourcians etc), not what the categorization is like. As
> long
> as it works, they can upload their stuff, it is safe, and they can use it.
> The problems often came when a few "bad people" (paraphrasing it as it was
> received by the Dutch Wikipedians at the time, no insult intended) were
> damaging their content (at the time, it was for example about Coat of
> Arms-png's being deleted) and they felt not heard or helped by others.
>
> I think that is currently a repeating pattern in some way. A smaller
> group,
> with all best intentions, decides to "harm"  a collection of content, and
> people feel attacked by that, and react in a not-so-positive way.
>
> That is where the service project and the independent project clash. Were
> it
> merely service, the commons would abide the wish of the wikipedians
> (wikisourcians etc), were it independent, the Wikipedians would have bad
> luck and live with it.
>
> So now please share with me, in those conflict situations, which should it
> be, and, most importantly, why? I'll believe service project is great in
> ideal situations, as would be independent, as long as everything goes
> fine.
> But in these border cases?
>
> eia
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