It doesn't always play out so rosey... Sometimes
someone spends hours
getting a photograph just right (because unlike wikitext, even in the
best case 98% of the work must be done by a single photographer) and
they are proud of their work. Then along comes a self appointed
wiki-photo expert... who goofs up the image to fit his tastes on his
uncalibrated display and insists that it's better. Perhaps the new
version is more contrasty, with over pumped saturation and
sharpness.... At first glance it's more eye catching, so other passers
by support the changed version, but it's lost it's depth, lost detail
in the shadow, or just lost it's ability to captivate for more than a
moment. Perhaps it's cropped to place the subject dead center,
destroying the careful balence achieved in the photo which guides the
eye...
We've had photographers leave in digust over this.
Wikinews permits unfree images (CC-BY-ND) as a result of this.
wha....?!?!?!! I can't believe it! How disappointing. According to
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Image_use_policy they also allow
NC images! Is that not the very definition of nonfreeness for
Wikimedia... is it really that they allow these because of photography
quality concerns, or something else?
FWIW I agree on the point of image-editing. I think the best approach
is, when the original uploader is offended at "improvements" to an
image, revert to their version and upload the edited version as a
separate file. Then the community can argue about which they prefer
and the original uploader doesn't feel their work is being "mauled"
(even if everyone else has incredible bad taste).
Brianna