[Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Commons

[Erik Moeller]

Jimmy-
> I just wanted to say that I really strongly support the central
> ideas put forward by Erik here:
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons

Thank you for your support. I would like to again invite all interested  
parties (especially developers, but also writers, photographers etc.) to  
add themselves on the above page, so that we can together move this  
project forward after MediaWiki 1.3 has reached a stable state. As the  
above proposal states, I hope that we can also implement single sign-on in  
one fell swoop with the Commons itself, which would be one important step  
to bring the individual Wikimedia projects closer together.

As you correctly say, this needs decent planning. I think existing media  
files should be moved over gradually - not all at once, but automatically  
through a script that checks for allowed license tags, and moves those  
over at a limited rate, to ensure that humans can look over them. I hope,  
but can of course not predict, that the constant rate of files flowing  
into the Commons in the first few weeks will get people interested in  
building the structure and adding to it directly.

> p.s. I do not like the use of the word 'altruism' in his proposal, but
> that's just something he said on the side, not central to what he's
> talking about.  I wouldn't mention it, except that it's a
> philosophical peeve of mine.  :-)

Hmm, looks like we need wikiphilosophy-l now ;-). Alternatively, we can  
rephrase it as NPOV: "We can appeal to what *some people see* as altruism,  
while objectivists have argued that .."

Erik