On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. A non-free image that isn't on any article and doesn't claim fair use is taken out and shot in short order, and this is entirely the right thing to do. If someone is upset by this, that's a problem of manner of action and education of the uploader, rather than the action itself or its timing.
However a non-free image that IS on an article and complied with all applicable policies & practice at the time of its upload might be worth a few moments longer, especially when it was uploaded years ago and the contributor may have left the project since.
As it is, I'm increasingly inclined to the view several people have expressed here that the mechanism of requiring a new hoop for fair-use images to jump through every six months or so, and expecting original uploaders to respond within a couple of days to a notice or the image gets deleted, is in effect a program of trying to get rid of fair use images even if they are within our defined scope for using them.
This process will inevitably cut down the use of fair-use images in enwp down to a tiny subset where there are a group of people who'll spring to that image's defense.
It could be argued that this will be the group of images where we really NEED fair use images, but this is a change in de facto policy.
-Matt