[WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

Fri Sep 16 00:59:47 UTC 2005

On 9/15/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Now I think I understand where you are coming from. Correct me if I'm wrong,
> but you think that having NC and special use images displayed on a page whose
> text is licensed under the GNU FDL to be legally incompatible or even illegal.

No, I understand that images and text can be separately licensed.
Hence all of the image tags.

My basic point is this, and I'll leave it at this: we should either
have an explicit exception laid out to user pages (can have NC images,
for example) or we should not. Having a policy of informal tolerance
is not useful and not necessary. If there are exceptions, they should
be worked out formally. I don't think we should give anybody the idea
that they actually have a proprietary right to their user page -- it
is hosted by the project, its purpose is for the project, and it can
be redistributed like the project.

I am not trying to discourage community-building in any way. But I
think we should figure out what exactly a user page "is" and what we
allow or don't allow on it in a concrete sense.

> Where has such use been intentional? I've only seen cases where a reuser also
> publishes user pages just because they were included along with articles.

I don't know about intentionality. But I think the horror which spread
across this list when it was discovered that the Nazipedia had picked
up user pages and had people with their names proudly proclaiming how
they were loyal Nazipedia users was ample illustration enough of what
I'm talking about.

I think there are a number of dangers (none of them legal!) with
thinking that user pages are separate "personal" spaces if they
technologically and substantially aren't... and I think having them be
exceptions in any regards, including image licensing policies, should
be codified one way or the other. Those are just my two cents,
though...

FF