[Commons-l] English Wikipedia needs some help.

Mon Dec 25 12:27:59 UTC 2006

I think that one of our sister projects, the English Wikipedia, is
feeling a little ill and needs some help.

There is a vote going on about for a proposal which would dramatically
increase the amount of Fair Use Image permitted by policy in the
English Wikipedia. I'm not asking anyone here to go stack the poll,
especially since the poll count won't matter anyways.

I'm asking you to step in and help some of our newer contributors
understand [[Free content]].

Jimbo has already commented on the proposal:

"This is horrifyingly bad proposal which would reverse one of the
healthiest trends in the history of Wikipedia at the very moment when
major successes are being had every single day. We should NOT rely on
promotional images under unclear license conditions for a number of
reasons. First, we are powerful enough now to demand, and get, freely
licensed promotional images. This proposal undermines our credibility
in making such demands. Second, we undercut all the flickr-types who
are very very happily trying to create freely licensed alternatives.
Many photographers report that it is a lot of fun to see an article
improve from no picture, to *their* picture (freely licensed), and
disheartening when people whine about not being able to use the
professional photo, licensing be damned.

I very very strongly oppose this proposal.--Jimbo Wales 21:33, 23
December 2006 (UTC)"

To an extent this proposal is a reaction to some of the more recent
attempts to reduce the amount of excessive non-free material in
enwiki... but I fear the greater cause of this is the massive influx
enwiki has had over the last year.

These new users are familiar with sites like YouTube and MySpace and
the rampant copyright violations all over them, many started their
involvement with computers with things like Napster. They have a very
expansive idea of what Fair Use is which is inconsistent with the law.
This gives me great hope for the future of fair use law, but great
fear for the future of English Wikipedia.

They have learned wiki-ways much faster than they have learned of the
importance of Free content and I fear that if we do not educate them
now we will suffer an [[Eternal September]].

A failure of our most largest and prominent community to maintain a
commitment to truly free content, I fear, will not be contained to
just one project.

And example of this problem can be seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Elimination_of_Fair_Use_Rationale_in_Promotional_Photos/Vote#The_heart_of_the_matter

In the post below we see a newish (July 2006) user claim that the
discouragement to use fair use is a totally new event and, well, also
an evil plan by Jwales to line his pockets with money!

I'm asking here because:
* Of all the foundation projects, I think commons has the densest
concentration of active english speakers who truly understand and care
about Free Content.
* The character of the enwiki community does have a big influence on
us at commons.. They provide us with users, they are our customers,
and more than any other single group, they pick the board of the
Wikimedia Foundation.

So please, take a look at the threads.. Find some people who are
confused. Engage them in discussion, on the talk page I've linked
above.. or on their user talks.

Thank you in advance for your time and help,
[[commons:User:Gmaxwell]]