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
I can't say if I agree with every single detail of his proposed
implementation, because I'm not really qualified to judge all of it.
But the central ideas, as proposed here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014826.html
are valid and important.
I especially like the requirement of NO fair use materials on the
commons proper. Fair use is often problematic and complex, and so I
really want to encourage the creation of free alternatives even to
fair use. (Even though, at the same time, I strongly support the
concept of fair use and would like to see it expanded and strengthened
and clarified legally.)
I think it would be very nice to be able to have portfolios of images
of specific topics, even when we only use 1 or 2 of the images in a
particular article on a particular wikipedia. For example, we might
quickly end up with 50 different pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
One thing that I strongly recommend is that we get started on the
right foot from the beginning on this site, *requiring* a certain
level of documentation: what is this? where did it come from? what
license(s) is it under? who is the creator? when was it created?
Part of the idea here is to create a central core of material that we
*and* those who license our content can feel comfortable using.
(Toward that end, we should have a mechanism to store, but not display
by default, high resolution images.)
--Jimbo
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. :-)