[WikiEN-l] Questionable fair use claims: a case study

Thu Oct 20 18:05:24 UTC 2005

On 10/20/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
> We have this strange social culture built up around images which I
> believe is caused mostly by the fact that image deletion is instantly
> permanent, rather than being something that can be reverted. If we
> could revert image deletions as easily (or nearly as easily) as we
> revert deletions of random bits of unacceptable text, we would be much
> better able to pick and choose images wisely.

 I don't think that reasoning is correct. You'll usually get a fight just
trying to remove the image from an article, something which is easily
reverted. In fact, I've been blocked for removing a non-free image from the
main page. The [[Al Gore]] article used to be filled with them. Completely
unnecessary, and yet there was significant opposition to their removal. I
have no idea if this situation has yet been corrected, well over a year
later.
 It simply hasn't been made clear that reliance on fair use is only
permitted in cases where there is no alternative.

--Jimbo

 Anthony