[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project boring to death

[Erik Moeller]

On 7/27/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think you are all missing Antheres point. Who cares whether it's
> fair use or not? Do we really have to be so anal about the rules that
> we will infact bring this to IfD, instead of just quietly ignoring the
> copyright issue in this very special unique case. We are people, for
> christs sake, not automatons! Sometimes, process is not that
> important.

Fair use is an extremely important exemption to copyright law. There
are good reasons to prohibit it e.g. in the User: space, and to
require users to upload their own works as free content. But there is
no single good reason why a photo that is important to Wikipedia's
history, and that cannot easily be obtained as free content, wouldn't
qualify as fair use in the Wikipedia: namespace.

It's dogmatic thinking about these issues that is dangerous. But
"quietly ignoring" doesn't solve the problem -- it only means that
sooner or later it will come up again, either in this case or in
another similar one. Not quietly ignoring it, but talking about it, to
me demonstrates a greater sense of responsibility and empathy.

With that said: I think that our memorial page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ADeceased_Wikipedians
demonstrates that there are a lot of people who do care about how we
preserve the memory of Wikipedians who have passed on. Caring about
knowledge, ultimately, is always caring about people. Because
knowledge is nothing without the human beings who collect, derive, and
use it -- and who, in doing so, always build upon the works of the
generations who came before them. To honor the members of our own
community therefore is a natural expression of the love of knowledge,
and the love of humanity.

Erik