On 7/19/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
We need a culture change. We need it now.
The English Wikipedia is no longer a free content encyclopedia and is not working towards our mission of providing neutral educational content under a free content license.
Are you sure that using only free images is part of Wikipedia's mission to be a free content encyclopedia?
Images weren't even part of the project until a year(?) after it was founded. (We used to just link to images on third-party websites!) And when we did add images and other media to the site, there were no qualms about using copyrighted ones, as long as it was legally permitted (fair use, with permission, etc.) I don't understand why this has changed.
Either we need to drop the charade that we are a free content encyclopedia,
What does the uploading of non-free images have to do with the fact that we are a free content encyclopedia? All of our encyclopedic content is free, and always will be. I don't see this changing because of our use of non-free images.
(And our use of non-free images is only *decreasing* over time, as our ability to use certain types of images is restricted further and further by agenda-pushing policy makers. It's a far different situation now than it was when I started editing four years ago.)
If the people are on this mailing list are unable to make decisions on
this, who should I take this matter to? I'm of the understanding that Jimbo wanted this list to be the main source of business work, so to speak.
Mailing lists only attract a small percentage of Wikipedia's (technically-oriented) user base, and don't represent the community very well. I, for example, have strong feelings about our use of non-free content, but think that mailing lists suck, and try to avoid reading and posting in most cases. (I only noticed this post by accident.) The mail interface is clunky and outdated, and the social aspects generate too much noise with not enough signal.