[Foundation-l] Another board member statement

[Andre Engels]

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 11:13 AM, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote:
>>It is not too broad; Commons has always distinguished itself in this
>>way from general purpose photo/media hosting services like Flickr or
>>YouTube.
>
> Andre Engels wrote:
>> I disagree. Pictures should be judged on their value for Commons, not
>> on something else. And that value is decided by what the picture _is_
>> (as Kat says, informational and/or educational) not by what it _is
>> not_. If the best (from an informational perspective) picture we have
>> of a subject is prurient or exhibitionist, then I want to keep it. If
>> on the other hand a picture has been done very tasty, but nobody can
>> find a reason to call it informational, then I won't shed a tear about
>> it being deleted.
>
> I had thought Sam said it nicely when he noted that Commons won its
> independence years ago. Not all 6 million and growing media items on
> Commons are going to be used on encyclopedia, news, and book articles.
> 'Twas not long after Commons went live that people started
> understanding the wisdom in the proposer/founder's design. Normal
> Commons usage was vastly exceeding objective media "requirements," and
> an crafting an exclusive policy for a free culture (Wikimedia) project
> just didn't make sense.
>
> There are whole entire art and curated art projects on Commons which
> have little connection to other Wikimedia projects other than that
> they advance free culture by being freely licensed.

So? I am not denying that. If you think, and others think, that such
art projects belong on Commons, then by all means put them there. And
then by all means get the images for it, and keep them. If they are
useful in such a project, then they have value for Commons. Commons,
in my opinion, should hold pictures that our projects can use - but
those projects do include Commons itself. Are these art projects
educational and/or informational? I think they are. And if they are,
then the pictures in them should be considered such too.

-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com