[Foundation-l] Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

[Milos Rancic]

On 11/22/2009 05:57 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/11/22 Judson Dunn <cohesion at sleepyhead.org>:
>
>> And in defense of the bureaucratic morons, you might be surprised the
>> number of super positive generous people that want their work on
>> Wikipedia that are completely unwilling to allow 3rd parties to use
>> their work. I don't personally make people say "The Great Sentence of
>> Our Holy Secrets" but I would like some indication that they are ok
>> with other people using their work commercially. Many people simply
>> aren't, and it hasn't crossed their minds that when they give
>> something to Wikipedia that is what they're signing up for. I think we
>> owe it to those people to make sure they understand.
>
>
> +1
>
> This "free content" idea regularly EXPLODES PEOPLE'S HEADS. They
> really, seriously, don't get it. Even when they say they do, they
> frequently don't.
>
> The bureaucracy around submitting photos for Wikipedia is a goddamn
> pain in the arse ... *but* there are extremely good reasons it came
> about.
>
> What's the "shoot on sight" percentage on Commons like now? I
> understand it was 10-12% a coupla years ago. (GMaxwell, I vaguely
> recall you giving this figure, please correct if I'm wrong.)
>
>
> - d.
>
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I am contributing to various Wikimedia projects since 2003 and I
contributed my first piece of free software in 1999. Since late 1990s
I am actively ideologically supporting free software in my country and
in my part of the world. It is hard to imagine to me a kind of
surprisingly new behavior from the side of people who makes their
first touches with free software and free content. Actually, I am able
to present many anecdotes related to such behavior. Actually, I am
fully supporting position of both of you.

If you read the content of the link which I posted inside of the first
email, you could see that I had passed a variation of the same
process. "Please, make the content free." "Yes, I will do it if it
doesn't assume commercial interest." ... However, I've got permission
as it is needed after one more ask.

The point is that I came into the dead end with the demand to mark
what may and what may not be included into Wikipedia. (Besides the
fact that situation "Please repeat the next: ..." is solidly stupid if
you have ~60 years old professor at the other side.)

If I think constructively, I will need to do the next:

* Analyze all the sites and find some generic way to cover given
permissions as simple as it is possible. Probably, I will need some
help (and I'll get it).
* Write as shorter email as it is possible with as less as it is
possible points.
* Explain to the professor that this way of getting permissions is
necessary even I think that it is stupid.
* Send it to OTRS again and hope that I wouldn't have to do the process again.

This task will consume a lot of time. Instead of spending that time on
more constructive Wikimedian tasks, I will do it just to raise legal
safety from 99% to 99.5%.

Keep in mind that this is not about non-free content, this is not
about a possibility that professor didn't understand all consequences
of his approval; this is just about The Form. The Bureaucracy. Note,
also, that this cooperation exists for four years. I don't think that
it is reasonable.