[Wikipedia-l] Re: Proposal: commons.wikimedia.org

[Michael Snow]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>What are the downsides?
>
>- The user interface is likely to be a bit clunky at first. We can fix  
>that.
>- This project can exceed Wikipedia in costs if it is successful. I  
>believe prominent fundraisers will cover us, if not, we can fix this by  
>limiting the scope of the commons.
>- People will upload all sorts of things which we don't want. We can fix  
>that the same way we deal with Wikipedia articles we don't want.
>- Changes to the software will be very specific to our needs, other  
>MediaWiki sites will probably be unable to interface directly with the  
>commons. Maybe we can authorize other projects on an individual basis to  
>interface with us.
>
If I may suggest another complication--I think using the name "Wikipedia 
Commons", or a variation on it, such as a commons.wikimedia.org URL, 
will give some people the impression that material there is licensed 
under one of the Creative Commons licenses. If this source repository is 
not going to restrict itself to any one license, its name should not 
suggest that it does.

For that reason, I prefer the Wikisource name, and I agree with mav that 
it seems like we could just expand our existing project instead of 
starting a new one. I'm not terribly familiar with the activity on 
Wikisource, but if Ec thinks the commons project would just compete with 
it, he's in a good position to know. Why should we dissipate our energy 
on setting up duelling projects?

--Michael Snow