[Foundation-l] Racism in Commons

Wed Mar 5 20:10:54 UTC 2008

>  You have to admit that some of the cartoons on
>  that page are a tad on the offensive side.

I'd say they're extremely offensive - that's the point of them.
However, having them on commons in no way endorses the message of the
artist, they are there so they can be used in academic, neutral
discussion of the issues.

I would completely understand (although, not agree with it) if the
Hebrew wiki decided not to use those particular images on the grounds
of them being offensive. That is, however, quite a different thing to
boycotting commons altogether which only goes to hurt the Hebrew wiki
(there may be a few images that will not be uploaded to commons by
users of the Hebrew wiki that would have been otherwise, but that's a
very minor loss compared to the loss to the Hebrew wiki).

Of course, at the moment, all the evidence points to this being one
person's crusade and not a genuine consensus of the Hebrew community,
so it's a moot point.