Some reflections about the governance of Commons

[Ting Chen-2]

Hello,

I had started a discussion on the Village Pump of Commons. I think
Commons is a very important project, and a very complicated project.
With more and more projects initiated by our chapters to encourage other
organizations or individuals to give their content free and upload them
to Commons it also becomes a fassade project of the Foundation and its
chapters. This and other reasons make me think that we should as broadly
as possible to discuss a few issues on Commons. The discussion is here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Some_reflections_about_the_governance_of_Common

--
Ting

Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/


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[Dedalus-2]

Commons *has* a community, though a small and vulnerable one, and regretfully declining community over the last years. Currently some twenty people contribute 100 edits or more a month, and some four hundred people contribute 5 edits or more a month, which is comparable to a "small" language Wikipedia. I thank Pieter Kuiper fully for admitting Commons isn't without it's own problems. I thank Ting Cheng, a community elected board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, for his lengthy elaboration recognizing an issue. I thank Dror for standing up. This Spring the WMF has initiated a year long strategy formation process asking input from all sides and parties involved around a series of questions concerning participation, reach and quality. (Strict) compliance with license(s) is considered a [[[quality]] issue by more than one regular contributor to Commons. Several image gathering projects do have several goals, most notably informing the public about free repositories of (for example) images which I will dub [[reach]] and hooking newcomers to become contributors of content, which I will dub [[participation]]. Initially dubbed [[governance of Commmons]] I would like to invite all participants in this discussion, and all participants in the [[massive upload conflict]]s to participate this year, just started, and ending summer 2010, in the overall Wikimedia Foundation strategy formation process. Help us all finding answers to all of "What should we do" and "How should we do" questions. In my belief all active participants to Commons should be give the time to reflect on the current issue, and give their opinion, if they want to, which can take a longer time than the wikibreak of Dror. Maybe it might be possible to generate a rough guideline in a year time about [[I started a project to have the public take images and upload them ultimately to Commons. How and when should I inform the community at commons about my project and under which conditions won't the community at Commons block all uploads from my project]]. After all, the Commons is a very special project. It has many more sysops than active contributors. And, as far as I know, a sysop is just a technical function, with the ability (some buttons) and not the authority to push them without 'community consent'. Governance at he commons and discussing about sysops might blur this a little bit. That might presuppose sysops having an organizational role or function they wouldn't have. And one last thing: Commons, like all projects, are independent of the WMF, the Board of the WMF can't impose anything on the project. So Ting showed a lot of courage by stepping into this discussion, and I thank him for that, again.

Dedalus
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[Andrew Turvey]

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----- "Dedalus" <dedalus@...> wrote:
> From: "Dedalus" <dedalus@...>
> To: commons-l@...
> Sent: Sunday, 14 June, 2009 18:57:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons
>
>> This Spring the WMF has initiated a year long strategy formation process ... I would like to invite all participants in this discussion, and all participants in the [[massive upload conflict]]s to participate this year, just started, and ending summer 2010, in the overall Wikimedia Foundation strategy formation process.

I'd be keen to be involved as we have a mass upload project planned for some time in the next 6-12 months. How can we do this?

>> And, as far as I know, a sysop is just a technical function, with the ability (some buttons) and not the authority to push them without 'community consent'.

Sorry, but that's very naive. Sysops are always more than a technical function - they have authority, like it or not.

>> And one last thing: Commons, like all projects, are independent of the WMF, the Board of the WMF can't impose anything on the project.

Again, not true. WMF always has the ultimate power to step in and impose a solution through "office actions". Not saying they necessarily should, but they can if they need to.

Andrew

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[Gnangarra]

>>', a sysop is just a technical function, with the ability (some buttons) and not the authority to push them without 'community consent'.

Sysops on Commons arent just handed the tools they first must seek a level of trust from the community that trust is because there are times when a person must act in the interest of Commons. As a long term sysop on Commons and one the higher end contributors sysops do have a level of authority and need to exercise their judgement more frequently without discussion then other larger projects (like de,en) one the problems is that at times there arent the experienced people around to enable a thorough discussion before acting.

This is a particluar problem with local copyright issues as an Australian I got a good understand of OZ law and know where to get more info, I also gained a fair understanding of US over time and out of necessity but I have a very limited smattering of it for elsewhere when there is the necessity to make a move if I cant get independent opinions/help then I would defer to safest solution for Commons

As Andrew said The Foundation has a significant authority to step in to issues and take the lead or if necessary dictate the end result. The reason being is that The Foundation can and does have a legal responsability, it would be also be the target of any action and initial Point of Call on documents.

The up coming GLAM event in Canberra is going to touch on this very issue, if you arent already aware of it it'd be worth see what this event achieves

2009/6/15 Andrew Turvey <andrewrturvey@...>

----- "Dedalus" <dedalus@...> wrote:
> From: "Dedalus" <dedalus@...>
> To: commons-l@...
> Sent: Sunday, 14 June, 2009 18:57:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons
>
>> This Spring the WMF has initiated a year long strategy formation process ... I would like to invite all participants in this discussion, and all participants in the [[massive upload conflict]]s to participate this year, just started, and ending summer 2010, in the overall Wikimedia Foundation strategy formation process.

I'd be keen to be involved as we have a mass upload project planned for some time in the next 6-12 months. How can we do this?

>> And, as far as I know, a sysop is just a technical function, with the ability (some buttons) and not the authority to push them without 'community consent'.

Sorry, but that's very naive. Sysops are always more than a technical function - they have authority, like it or not.

>> And one last thing: Commons, like all projects, are independent of the WMF, the Board of the WMF can't impose anything on the project.

Again, not true. WMF always has the ultimate power to step in and impose a solution through "office actions". Not saying they necessarily should, but they can if they need to.

Andrew

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[David Gerard-2]

[foundation-l added back to cc: as well as commons-l]


2009/6/15 Gnangarra <gnangarra@...>:

> Sysops on Commons arent just handed the tools they first must seek a level
> of trust from the community that trust is because there are times when a
> person must act in the interest of Commons. As a long term sysop on Commons
> and one the higher end contributors sysops do have a level of authority and
> need to exercise their judgement more frequently without discussion then
> other larger projects (like de,en) one the problems is that at times there
> arent the experienced people around to enable a thorough discussion before
> acting.
> This is a particluar problem with local copyright issues as an Australian I
> got a good understand of OZ law and know where to get more info, I also
> gained a fair understanding of US over time and out of necessity but I have
> a very limited smattering of it for elsewhere when there is the necessity to
> make a move if I cant get independent opinions/help then I would defer to
> safest solution for Commons

Yeah. The problem is that to be an admin on Commons requires you to be
a copyright law edge-cases nerd way beyond the point where any
reasonable person would just say "bugger it, just sue me." And the
persistence to deal with, what is it, 10%? of uploads being
unacceptable for one reason or another.

So you'll get people - and it's fewer and fewer - who tend to be
interested in Commons as a standalone project and are
indifferent-to-hostile to the service project angle.

The bureaucratic obstructionism - not active hindering (well, maybe
just a bit), just passive not-caring - accorded the recent Pikiwiki
problems is a perfect recent example.

Possible solution: active recruitment drive on client wikis of
underrepresented languages. Get interested sysops on those wikis to go
through suitable training to become Commons.

This requires setting out precisely what a Commons admin needs to
know. Establish clear and somewhat objective criteria for Commons
admins.


- d.

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[Rama Neko]

And this is more or less exactly what I see on top of the front page
of Commons: "Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, a database of 4,584,458
media files to which anyone can contribute and be sued about 10% of
the time".

The "service project angle" worries me too. I have noticed that many
articles of Wikipedia, the service project that makes it easier to
find media in Commons by providing encyclopedic context to our
content, utterly lack the proper links to our galleries and
categories.
        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
copyright violations.

In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.
   -- Rama



On 15/06/2009, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:

> [foundation-l added back to cc: as well as commons-l]
>
>
> 2009/6/15 Gnangarra <gnangarra@...>:
>
>> Sysops on Commons arent just handed the tools they first must seek a level
>> of trust from the community that trust is because there are times when a
>> person must act in the interest of Commons. As a long term sysop on
>> Commons
>> and one the higher end contributors sysops do have a level of authority
>> and
>> need to exercise their judgement more frequently without discussion then
>> other larger projects (like de,en) one the problems is that at times there
>> arent the experienced people around to enable a thorough discussion before
>> acting.
>> This is a particluar problem with local copyright issues as an Australian
>> I
>> got a good understand of OZ law and know where to get more info, I also
>> gained a fair understanding of US over time and out of necessity but I
>> have
>> a very limited smattering of it for elsewhere when there is the necessity
>> to
>> make a move if I cant get independent opinions/help then I would defer to
>> safest solution for Commons
>
>
> Yeah. The problem is that to be an admin on Commons requires you to be
> a copyright law edge-cases nerd way beyond the point where any
> reasonable person would just say "bugger it, just sue me." And the
> persistence to deal with, what is it, 10%? of uploads being
> unacceptable for one reason or another.
>
> So you'll get people - and it's fewer and fewer - who tend to be
> interested in Commons as a standalone project and are
> indifferent-to-hostile to the service project angle.
>
> The bureaucratic obstructionism - not active hindering (well, maybe
> just a bit), just passive not-caring - accorded the recent Pikiwiki
> problems is a perfect recent example.
>
> Possible solution: active recruitment drive on client wikis of
> underrepresented languages. Get interested sysops on those wikis to go
> through suitable training to become Commons.
>
> This requires setting out precisely what a Commons admin needs to
> know. Establish clear and somewhat objective criteria for Commons
> admins.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l@...
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko@...>:

> The "service project angle" worries me too. I have noticed that many
> articles of Wikipedia, the service project that makes it easier to
> find media in Commons by providing encyclopedic context to our
> content, utterly lack the proper links to our galleries and
> categories.
>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
> copyright violations.
> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.

I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins.

Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?


- d.

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[Gnangarra]

2009/6/15 David Gerard <dgerard@...>

2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko@...>:

> The "service project angle" worries me too. I have noticed that many
> articles of Wikipedia, the service project that makes it easier to
> find media in Commons by providing encyclopedic context to our
> content, utterly lack the proper links to our galleries and
> categories.
>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
> copyright violations.
> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.

I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins.

Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?

Commons foundation is as a service project, its also more than just that its also a community where some very talented artistic people choose to use their skills to improve many projects at once.  This community is probably the most aware when it comes to an artists rights, the protection of those rights and its also the most exposed to violation of those rights. There is no grey area to work in if its a violation then its deleted end of story, if an account is to frequently a source of such problems then it gets going to get blocked, but a block on Commons isnt as stigmatised as it is on other projects that is because the community does realise that sometimes a block is a necessary evil while we find someone to help translate and ensure that person undestands whats happening.

Commons admins Insular not really, derisive definately absolutely not, cynical absolutely especially with claims of I've got the permission of my neighbour but its not in english so you cant read it anyway.

Do we need a big talkfest on how Commons should be managed, of course we need it because at the moment there is a general lack of understanding in the wider 'pedia community about copyright and its variants between countries. We also need to approach bulk upload issues with a less bold approach we need to have a way of ensuring copyright is addressed at source before the files arrive on our(foundation) servers when it does it meets US laws. The Pikiwiki incident shows that our communitcation in this area is lacking, it also shows our admins are cautious and err on the side of protecting the project. In the end if we are going to fix the problems highlighted by this incident we need to work together, we dont need insults, witch hunts, crusades etc.

Commons is unique for many reasons its multilingual, it supports all other projects directly, an action there could be seen in every project within moments, its the only project in this situaution it would benefit from a Foundation person like Cary is to OTRS. For these bulk collection type events this foundation person could provide a point of contact to ensure that the copyright and source details are sorted before uploads occur, this would also give a degree of privacy to the source making public announcements a possible publicity event. If an issue is observed then the uploading account has a notice directing the Commons admin as to what is happening, who to speak with and in what language again offering some privacy and continuaty in communications. It also means that an admin can let the Foundation person know theres an issue so that someone is able to ensure things get resolved in a timely fashion and isnt dependent on the admin or some public specticle like Pikiwiki experienced.


 

- d.

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[Daniel Kinzler]

> Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?
>

Huh? Insular? Folks at commons are happy to provide a service. They just expect
to be respected for doing it - and also be tied in in return, for example by
good references  to gallery pages.

Also, in my view, strange as it seems, being picky about copyright is actually a
feature of commons. Because, if it's on commons, you know that it's safe to use
it. At least, that is how it should be.

-- danielö

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[Stan Shebs-2]

David Gerard wrote:

> 2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko@...>:
>
>  
>>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
>> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
>> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
>> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
>> copyright violations.
>> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
>> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
>> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.
>>    
>
>
> I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins.
>
> Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?
>  

I don't know if this makes me insular and derisive, but as a casual
onlooker to the Pikiwiki episode, I do worry that there is an attempt to
strongarm Commons into accepting material that would not normally be
able to get in. It worries me because if Commons loses its reputation as
a reliable source of free media, the that loss effectively contaminates
everything in the project - potential users will be unsure if my own
photos were really self-made, or I'm putting free licenses on material
that is not mine to give away.

For projects that have committed to only using Commons for media, the
pressure to accept borderline material is going to be intense, and it's
always going to be a secondary concern that the files are going to be a
problem for other clients of Commons. Projects experiencing that kind of
pressure should maybe consider re-instituting local uploads, which
allows for more gradual migration of material as it is determined to
meet Commons' standards, and takes away the pressure on Commons admins
to make snap decisions on tricky copyright issues.

Stan


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[Gerard Meijssen-3]

Hoi,
If you worry then you should not post arguments as fact and when you post argument as fact you should not say that you are a casual onlooker. Either you know what you are talking about and have an opinion that is founded on whatever or you are just fanning the flames.

If you had paid any attention, you would know that the content of the pikiwiki project is freely licensed. The question is very much about to what extend the i has to be dotted and the t has to be crossed. If anything I think that Commons is doing poorly. It should have at least 10 times the amount of freely licensed content. This is in my opinion not happening because of a broken conception of what Commons is about. It is broken because all kinds of things are conflated in one heap. Conflated are freely licensed, educational, artistic and quality. It is a mess that makes our own projects choose for Flickr.
Thanks,
       Gerard

2009/6/15 Stan Shebs <stanshebs@...>

David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko@...>:
>
>

>>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
>> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
>> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
>> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
>> copyright violations.
>> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
>> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
>> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.
>>
>
>
> I'd hope this isn't a summary of the views of other Commons admins.
>
> Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?
>

I don't know if this makes me insular and derisive, but as a casual
onlooker to the Pikiwiki episode, I do worry that there is an attempt to
strongarm Commons into accepting material that would not normally be
able to get in. It worries me because if Commons loses its reputation as
a reliable source of free media, the that loss effectively contaminates
everything in the project - potential users will be unsure if my own
photos were really self-made, or I'm putting free licenses on material
that is not mine to give away.

For projects that have committed to only using Commons for media, the
pressure to accept borderline material is going to be intense, and it's
always going to be a secondary concern that the files are going to be a
problem for other clients of Commons. Projects experiencing that kind of
pressure should maybe consider re-instituting local uploads, which
allows for more gradual migration of material as it is determined to
meet Commons' standards, and takes away the pressure on Commons admins
to make snap decisions on tricky copyright issues.

Stan

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[Huib!]

Hello,

I don't think we need to see Commons as a Service project, All Wikimedia
projects need the other projects.
Wikimedia is build on all the projects and saying that a project is only
a service project can make the people feel bad that are working on that
project.
I think the view that Rama uses can be seen in a lot of ways, and
regarding the point of view that you uses you can make all projects into
a service project.

We have now a discussion in  a "private" place about how people have to
change Commons, isn't it a better idea to make this a discussion on
Commons or on Meta (if you want a neutral place). Commons has a great
communety with people that are spending all there time on Commons, and
whe have photographers that can easely make money with there pictures
but chooses to release it under a free license.. I rather see a onwiki
discussion so we can hear there say's also..

Just my view here but I cant send the email without a notice about this..

I'm seeing a discussions or even multible discussions about how Commons
needs to change to be a better service project. But when Commons needs
to change, will we change all other projects also? There are still
images getting deleted because we couldn't get the source information or
other important information because the file was already deleted local,
there is a bug to give Commons adminstrators view permission for deleted
files globally, there has been a vote on Meta and still it isn't
activated (more than a year waiting time). Things like that will make
Commons also a better service project.. Or isn't that important enough?

Huib



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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/15 Huib Laurens <Abigor@...>:

> I'm seeing a discussions or even multible discussions about how Commons
> needs to change to be a better service project. But when Commons needs
> to change, will we change all other projects also? There are still
> images getting deleted because we couldn't get the source information or
> other important information because the file was already deleted local,
> there is a bug to give Commons adminstrators view permission for deleted
> files globally, there has been a vote on Meta and still it isn't
> activated (more than a year waiting time). Things like that will make
> Commons also a better service project.. Or isn't that important enough?


Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing Commons needs.

(and this is something of what I meant when asking for constructinve
suggestions on what to do to improve things - in both directions.)

cc to wikitech-l - do you have a bug number for this?


- d.

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[Huib!]

Hello,

Here is the page on meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_deleted_image_review
That one links to the vote that passed with 80% support.
And for the bug:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14801

Best regards,

Huib


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[Samuel Klein-2]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 1:04 PM, Stan Shebs<stanshebs@...> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> 2009/6/15 Rama Neko <ramaneko@...>:
>>
>>
>>>        Furthermore, I sometimes have the feeling that contributors of
>>> Wikipedia expect us to host all sorts of unacceptable media in return
>>> of the service that they provide; while we of course appreciate the
>>> service projects, this is a problem, particularly when these files are
>>> copyright violations.

I don't have this feeling.  There's some misunderstanding, though,
with different conversations happening on different wikis.   A better
facility for discussion pages that are not tied to a particular wiki
(or are replicated on more than one) would help mediate this.

>>> In the particular case of Pikiwiki, it would of course be very
>>> caricatural to say that all their images are copyvios. There are lots
>>> of out-of-scope party snapshots, too.

Fuzzy party pictures are an icon of the times.


David Gerard writes:
>> Anyone else? Or is the Commons admin community this insular and derisive?

Yikes.  I find the Commons community to be rewardingly inclusive...

> I don't know if this makes me insular and derisive, but as a casual
> onlooker to the Pikiwiki episode, I do worry that there is an attempt to
> strongarm Commons into accepting material that would not normally be
> able to get in. It worries me because if Commons loses its reputation as
> a reliable source of free media, the that loss effectively contaminates
> everything in the project - potential users will be unsure if my own
> photos were really self-made, or I'm putting free licenses on material
> that is not mine to give away.

Absolutely.  This is a contamination problem that affects most online
media sites.  (Jamendo is one I can think of off-hand that does the
cleanest job of trying to confirm licensing of its free works)


> For projects that have committed to only using Commons for media, the
> pressure to accept borderline material is going to be intense, and it's
> always going to be a secondary concern that the files are going to be a
> problem for other clients of Commons. Projects experiencing that kind of
> pressure should maybe consider re-instituting local uploads, which

Actually, I would be content with a less-free repository for media not
suitable for commons but still of use to at least one page on one
Wikimedia project -- I would like to be able to monitor (and pressure
to become totally free) all 'local upload' materials on a single wiki.
 The technical advantages of having a single way to call a file from
multiple namespaces would still apply, but there could be strong
pressure to replace any non-free media with free media ... while
releasing some of this kneejerk pressure on Commons.

In a similar vein, I'd like a wiki quarantine where I could post
material that is mostly free but contains some non-free parts (a logo
or something that needs removal) -- to allow a community of editors to
see and revise it to make it freely available, without reinventing
tools such as revision control, RC, &c.

The idea of all of this would be to move towards 100% free projects
and contents, but without the strain imposed by the current sharp
edge.

> allows for more gradual migration of material as it is determined to
> meet Commons' standards, and takes away the pressure on Commons admins
> to make snap decisions on tricky copyright issues.

Right.  Except there's no need to tie the advantages of gradual
migration tot eh dsiadvantages and duplicated effort of local
upload...


SJ

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[Geoffrey Plourde]

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If commons is not a service project, what is it? Unlike other projects which have a measurable output, Commons' sole function appears to be as a repository of free images. It is therefore very much a service project as it serves other projects through storage of images.

I think the discussion here is especially important as this is the Wikimedia Commons discussion list. That being said, I feel that there should be an RfC/Poll on Commons about how it should change.

---

From: Huib Laurens <Abigor@...>
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l@...>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 10:34:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons

Hello,

I don't think we need to see Commons as a Service project, All Wikimedia
projects need the other projects.
Wikimedia is build on all the projects and saying that a project is only
a service project can make the people feel bad that are working on that
project.
I think the view that Rama uses can be seen in a lot of ways, and
regarding the point of view that you uses you can make all projects into
a service project.

We have now a discussion in  a "private" place about how people have to
change Commons, isn't it a better idea to make this a discussion on
Commons or on Meta (if you want a neutral place). Commons has a great
communety with people that are spending all there time on Commons, and
whe have photographers that can easely make money with there pictures
but chooses to release it under a free license.. I rather see a onwiki
discussion so we can hear there say's also..

Just my view here but I cant send the email without a notice about this..

I'm seeing a discussions or even multible discussions about how Commons
needs to change to be a better service project. But when Commons needs
to change, will we change all other projects also? There are still
images getting deleted because we couldn't get the source information or
other important information because the file was already deleted local,
there is a bug to give Commons adminstrators view permission for deleted
files globally, there has been a vote on Meta and still it isn't
activated (more than a year waiting time). Things like that will make
Commons also a better service project.. Or isn't that important enough?

Huib



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[Alex Brollo]

2009/6/16 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd@...>

If commons is not a service project, what is it? Unlike other projects which have a measurable output, Commons' sole function appears to be as a repository of free images. It is therefore very much a service project as it serves other projects through storage of images.

I don't agree with this statement.
1. any wiki project has in part a role of service for other wiki project. I.e.: we use la.source as a "repository" of original latin sources for our Italian translations of latin classics.
2. any shared file (images, movies and so on) is an independent output, that can be used both into wiki projects and by any other web user. In particular, movies often carry a "complete message" by themselves. But if you think about, pictures too carry such a complete message, and sometimes a very important one, needing lots of NPOV.

Alex

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[Eusebius-3]

Samuel Klein a écrit :
> Actually, I would be content with a less-free repository for media not
> suitable for commons but still of use to at least one page on one
> Wikimedia project -- I would like to be able to monitor (and pressure
> to become totally free) all 'local upload' materials on a single wiki.
>  The technical advantages of having a single way to call a file from
> multiple namespaces would still apply, but there could be strong
> pressure to replace any non-free media with free media ... while
> releasing some of this kneejerk pressure on Commons.
You mean having a kind of central repository for "fair use" media, for
instance? I'm not sure it is a good idea, because local "fair use" (and
generally non-free) policies are based on local laws and regulations. A
non-free use which is acceptable in some country might not be acceptable
in some other.
Maybe I haven't totally understood what you meant, though.

Eusebius

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[Gerard Meijssen-3]

Hoi,
When you leave it up to Commons to decide its role, you forget the need it provides. As it is not an option to ditch Commons when it does not want to fulfill its role, it is not an option to leave it only to Commons.
Thanks,
       GerardM

2009/6/16 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd@...>

If commons is not a service project, what is it? Unlike other projects which have a measurable output, Commons' sole function appears to be as a repository of free images. It is therefore very much a service project as it serves other projects through storage of images.

I think the discussion here is especially important as this is the Wikimedia Commons discussion list. That being said, I feel that there should be an RfC/Poll on Commons about how it should change.

---

From: Huib Laurens <Abigor@...>
To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l@...>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 10:34:38 AM

Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Some reflections about the governance of Commons

Hello,

I don't think we need to see Commons as a Service project, All Wikimedia
projects need the other projects.
Wikimedia is build on all the projects and saying that a project is only
a service project can make the people feel bad that are working on that
project.
I think the view that Rama uses can be seen in a lot of ways, and
regarding the point of view that you uses you can make all projects into
a service project.

We have now a discussion in  a "private" place about how people have to
change Commons, isn't it a better idea to make this a discussion on
Commons or on Meta (if you want a neutral place). Commons has a great
communety with people that are spending all there time on Commons, and
whe have photographers that can easely make money with there pictures
but chooses to release it under a free license.. I rather see a onwiki
discussion so we can hear there say's also..

Just my view here but I cant send the email without a notice about this..

I'm seeing a discussions or even multible discussions about how Commons
needs to change to be a better service project. But when Commons needs
to change, will we change all other projects also? There are still
images getting deleted because we couldn't get the source information or
other important information because the file was already deleted local,
there is a bug to give Commons adminstrators view permission for deleted
files globally, there has been a vote on Meta and still it isn't
activated (more than a year waiting time). Things like that will make
Commons also a better service project.. Or isn't that important enough?

Huib



_______________________________________________
Commons-l mailing list
Commons-l@...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

_______________________________________________
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Commons-l@...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

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[Daniel Kinzler]

Eusebius schrieb:

> Samuel Klein a écrit :
>> Actually, I would be content with a less-free repository for media not
>> suitable for commons but still of use to at least one page on one
>> Wikimedia project -- I would like to be able to monitor (and pressure
>> to become totally free) all 'local upload' materials on a single wiki.
>>  The technical advantages of having a single way to call a file from
>> multiple namespaces would still apply, but there could be strong
>> pressure to replace any non-free media with free media ... while
>> releasing some of this kneejerk pressure on Commons.
> You mean having a kind of central repository for "fair use" media, for
> instance? I'm not sure it is a good idea, because local "fair use" (and
> generally non-free) policies are based on local laws and regulations. A
> non-free use which is acceptable in some country might not be acceptable
> in some other.
> Maybe I haven't totally understood what you meant, though.

This is simply not possible. A repository of fair use material is a
contradiction in terms. Fair use, and similar concepts in other jurisdictions,
depends on the context the image is used in - usually, and editorial context. In
a repository, such a context is missing, so it would not be legal to have the
images there. A fair use image is always bound to its context of use, otherwise,
it's not fair use, it's simply distribution.

-- daniel

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