On 12/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Possibly we should start a separate project ... a
service project for
> other Wikimedia projects to use as an image repository, to avoid
> duplicated images between wikis. Since Commons thinks it's toooo
> haaaard to stoop to that any more. Does that sound like it might be a
> useful idea?
I think that would be kinda redundant.
Well, uh, *yeah*.
Commons was not started as a free-culture media repository of
spectacular cultural potential. It was started as a shared image
repository service project for the Wikimedia projects. Here we have
Commons admins claiming it's toooo haaaard to do the job Commons was
invented for, so they'll start behaving in an actively hostile manner
to other Wikimedia projects.
I don't think I've seen anyone on commons
claim that duplicate images
are too hard to stop (or that they are a major problem when we can't
stop them).. rather, it's impossible to fix the copyright status of an
image when a drive-by user uploads since they never set an email, and
never check back (most likely they create a new account for their next
upload). ... and even when we can get their attention we often find
ourselves understaffed in the language the uploader speaks.
So when a new language starts using Commons for its images - the way
all projects are supposed to with their free-content images - then
Commons needs to add an admin or two from that project. If Commons
can't do the job with the admins it has now, it needs to add a new
procedure to allow admins from said projects to be trusted to do the
same job on Commons.
Else Commons fails in its original purpose, and will need replacing
with a project that will work.
- d.