[WikiEN-l] There are no pictures in Wikipedia any more

[George Herbert]

On 9/28/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/28/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/28/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 9/28/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On 9/27/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Close on 50% of the images on en are non free. Text on the other
> > hand?
> > > > > A few percent maybe.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe you mean "a few percent" of all articles contain unfree exerpts
> > > > of a larger published work... I could stomach that.
> > > >
> > > > But saying "a few percent" of all article text is unfree... that seems
> > > > excessive, and hopefully incorrect.
> > >
> > >
> > > Well, it depends on what we're looking at, but I assume most articles
> > > contain at the very least quotations under copyright. I would be
> > surprised
> > > if the absolute number of articles with copyrighted text in them is only
> > a
> > > few percent. I would not be surprised if the overall proportion of
> > > copyrighted text in Wikipedia, however, is a few percent - that seems
> > about
> > > right. You can't write a proper, comprehensive encyclopaedia article
> > without
> > > quoting someone (be it a historian, the article's subject, etc.), unless
> > > you're intentionally going out of your way to make life difficult for
> > > yourself and your readership.
> >
> > I think this is untrue in many subject areas; in practice, no quotes
> > are needed for most technical articles and many popular culture
> > articles.  They should be more common in history and so forth.
>
>
> Haha, FA/GA reviewers these days are pretty strict about quoting critics in
> popular culture articles; in fact, I suspect the vast bulk of our unfree
> content, both text and images, is concentrated in this category.

Very few of our popular culture articles could make FA or GA now.
Eventually everything should aspire to that status (hah, maybe next
millennium, when we catch up with the article creation rate?  8-).

> > I don't mean to overemphasize the use of fair-use quotes in the
> > encyclopedia; I try to be realistic about it.  My point is that
> > whatever that use is, it is enthusiastically embraced as necessary and
> > proper.
>
>
> Yes. Unfortunately some people have gone overboard with the images; I'm by
> no means a "make everything free!" kind of guy, but sometimes seeing pop
> culture articles full of unnecessary imagery makes me wonder if we really
> need all this.

Right.  We're not a comic book, we're an Encyclopedia.  The Images
should inform (show what the thing looks like) and encourage interest
(look good, be placed well, not overwhelm the text or be overwhelmed
by it, but draw someone into the article as a whole).

Album covers are a very good balance, as standardly used.

A couple of images of a character, one by themselves to identify,
perhaps another in context with other characters or some key event, in
a popular culture character article, will help.

The ones that are image-happy are a detriment to themselves and the
Encyclopedia, from an encyclopedia standpoint much less an
image-fair-use-policy one.

> >  My derived point is that it's somewhat hypocritical to have a
> > different stance regarding appropriate and carefully chosen fair-use
> > images than for appropriate and carefully chosen fair-use text.
>
>
> Indeed it is.
>
> > We would probably do better to have more of both, rather than less, as
> > an Encyclopedia, for the Readers.
>
>
> The most important thing is to use them as necessary and appropriate; as far
> as possible, we must avoid any less (which harms the encyclopaedia) and any
> more (which harms the free nature of our encyclopaedia).

Right.  We generally have a functional balance at the medium, with a
limited usage which most people agree on.

There are articles with both too many and too few.  Both of those
should be corrected.

If image deletionists did the tag-and-rationale-as-required and
deleted only excess images, leaving the appropriate ones, I would be
happy.  There is a tendency to delete to excess in the hope that they
can push the balance point overall, which is merely destructive to the
community and the article value.

If image adders just added appropriate ones, I would be happy.  There
is a tendency for many of them (and the bulk of new images, I think)
to be added to excess in the hope that they can create cartoonish
image articles rather than enhance and attract and inform mostly
textual articles.  I don't think that they generally are as
intentionally trying to push the overall balance point but are
effectively doing so, and that's also merely destructive to the
community and the article value.

Blocking both sides equally would perhaps help establish the balance
point more effectively; however, the problem is identifying those
doing both to true excess and constantly enough to make it worth
pursuing.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com