[WikiEN-l] Image statistics -- 374 000+ "fair use" images

Mon Jul 17 21:43:29 UTC 2006

On 7/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> It's recommended but not required. There aren't many reasons left
> to upload free images to en:, but there's some inertia resisting
> the change. Plus, in the absence of single signon, it would result
> in many more redundant logins to merge later, so my personal
> inclination is not to press the issue until after single signon is
> up and running.

It's not so much "inertia resisting the change" as "difficulty
migrating content to Commons". We don't even discourage people from
uploading free content to en.wikipedia. Buried in a whole page of
daunting instructions on the upload page is a note that "if you are
uploading a file under a free license (not fair use!), consider
uploading it to the Wikimedia Commons". Another obstacle is that the
descriptions of all the licences are totally different on Commons.

People would probably be happy to upload more to Commons if a) they
knew they should, and b) it was easier. Moving stuff from en to
Commons easily would be a big boost.

Steve