[Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

Sun Aug 27 15:14:14 UTC 2006

--- Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/27/06, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Garion96 wrote:
> > > On 8/26/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I agree this is an instance where chapters are
> very
> > >> useful.  I didn't mean to imply that nothing
> should be
> > >> sent on to the Foundation.  But if the
> individual
> > >> editors take care of the easy ones.  And also
> gather a
> > >> list of the exact contact info of people who
> requested
> > >> to deal with someone official.  Well providing
> that
> > >> list to one the commitees or something is a
> different
> > >> proposition than asking the Foundation to
> gather free
> > >> photos of celebrities for Wikipedia in general
> terms.
> > >>
> > >> Birgitte SB
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > Whether a chapter, the foundation or an officer
> for obtaining open
> > content
> > > material (I do like that idea) writes it doesn't
> matter yes. As long as
> > it
> > > looks official to the persons/companies
> receiving. But I also wouldn't
> > mind
> > > if the foundation itself did it, considering the
> (possibly legal) mess
> > of
> > > fair use images on en.wikipedia. Which is where
> this whole idea
> > originated.
> > >
> > > Garion96
> > Hoi,
> > The WMF does have a lot of work and too few people
> to do things. When
> > the Foundation is to these things as well, when do
> they have time to do
> > their Foundation work?
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> 
> 
> Yes, I do realise the foundation is small (in
> people) and does a lot of
> work. I do read this mailing list. :) Plus the idea
> was not that the
> foundation would always do those things. Just a one
> time standard letter and
> send copies to all those big companies. And hey,
> it's just an idea.
> 
> 
> Garion96
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> 

Since you really want this to happen here is my
suggestion.  Draft a letter that you think appealing. 
Put together a spreadsheet of with all the address and
appropriate personalizations for the mailing wizard
substitution thing.  Submit this together with your
proposal to both the communications committee and the
special project committees.  Maybe one of them will be
able to approve your letter and send it out all
official-like.  I don't really know if they would but
that has a better chance than anything else I can
think of.

I don't think my earlier message was clear on one
point.  I was not trying to make a judgment on whether
the Foundation should be doing this sort of thing.  I
meant get across that although the celebrities might
be more likely to release a photo to someone with an
official position within the Foundation.  The
likelihood of someone from the foundation actually
taking the task on, especially the all the legwork, is
very low.  From what I understand there is generally a
struggle to complete tasks that really do require
officialness.  Your original post seemed to be trying
to find the best way to obtain these photos in a short
time.  I don't think going through the Foundation will
lead to good results here, and it definately will not
be quick.  

Now this is just my take from reading this list every
day.  These sorts of things, regardless if they are
good ideas, are the kind of requests that just never
get done, in fact they normally don't even get
responded to.  I do not actually do any Foundation
work myself, I should probably not even be answering
you as it might be misleading.  The reason I did was
because I didn't expect anyone else to, and I thought
you had the wrong idea about what the Foundation
really was.  Most people in the projects have the
wrong idea about the Foundation, including me some
months back.  

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 