Bryan Derksen wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
en.wikipedia is utterly failing at executing the Foundation's mission, and it is THE flagship project.
This is unwarranted hyperbole.
I agree. Such hyperbole does nothing for finding solutions.
If we're utterly failing, why is Wikipedia a top-10 website that's rapidly gaining cachet as the first place to look for general information, why is Britannica in terror of us, and (specifically on the "free" front) why is the Wikipedia database being used by literally hundreds of mirrors?
The photo archives are scared too. Once enough free material is available on-line the markets for their proprietary stock will collapse.
Also, bear in mind that "free" is only one half of our fundamental goal. The other half is "encyclopedia". Adding fair use content may restrict the "free" half while enhancing the "encyclopedia" half, so it's hardly an obvious net loss.
The same rationales that we use for fair use images can be used by others who wish to use Wikipedia's material in the same context (as an educational encyclopedia), so it's not like the fair use images are completely useless for people wishing to reuse our content. They just have to make the judgement for themselves which licences are compatible with their use and strip out the bits that aren't.
I have always felt that a policy where we would not allow fair use because we could not guarantee that it would be fair use when used by a downstream user has been unrealistic On the other hand pushing our use of fair use to its extremes would be foolish.
Ec