I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair
use images, are
closely related. The sweet spot for WP seems to me to be accepting all formats
that improve content, recording the encumbered nature of their formats, and
actively working to replace any encumbered content with unencumbered content.
It is partly a matter of scalability and efficiency. A new contributor may find
dealing with strange new standards and formats a real barrier to
contribution. We
can have focused groups of volunteers which efficiently convert from
encumbered to
unencumbered formats, thousands at a time.... but it is far more
difficult to efficiently
create from scratch relevant content for thousands of articles at a time.
If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in the
public view of
the projects, perhaps we could have a special holding area for
uploaded content which
does not meet high standards of free-formatting, but could be
converted -- providing for
a way to indicate via links? that such content exists in association
with a page -- rather
than disallowing it altogether.
~~~sj~