[Foundation-l] Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

[Robert Rohde]

For some applications (though not necessarily all), it might help if
the OTRS process was replaced by a standard online permission form
rather than having Wikimedians negotiate with outsiders in the hope of
getting them to say magic words.

I might imagine a process somewhat like the following:

1) User identifies some materials they would like to use on Wikipedia.
2) They upload copies to some "staging area".
3) They use a utility to prepare a standardized permission form for
the item(s) in question.
4) Through Wikimedia they send an email to the copyright holder
explaining the situation, and asking them to visit the online form to
give their permission
5) Once approved, the materials could be automatically moved to Commons, etc.

Presumably such a form would provide a standard explanation of what's
going on and selection of acceptable Wikimedia licenses.  Hopefully
such a thing would remove the problem with statements being unclear or
legally insufficient.

Obviously such a process could be embellished with additional contacts
between the Wikimedians and copyright holders, etc., but the above
could serve as a baseline.

Anyway, that's my idea.  I realize that in some ways it runs counter
to Milos's complaint, since it requires a new process rather than
cutting out bureaucracy per se.  However, I think having a fixed and
standardized approach for free content releases would ultimately cut
down on arguments.

-Robert Rohde