User talk:C.m.jones/Wikipedia:I bid you adieu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I am not sure I get this essay. 67.102.28.217 14:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Response
There are several issues here. Firstly, wikipedia has always been about creating a free content encyclopaedia. Even if you don't agree with that goal, you surely should still follow it when editing wikipedia. If you are unable to, well really shouldn't be editing. We have other things like Attribution, NPOV which you must also follow. Some people don't agree with these policies. After all, if a sports reporter says something about Jack Nicklaus he's probably right, right? Why waste the reporters time and our time on reliable sources?
Secondly, it fails completely to describe free content or why it's important. While I personally am more of a FreeBSD person and prefer licenses which don't require you to release them under the same license, I understand some people don't agree with this view. You should have told this reporter that his articles could be sold commercially, but whoeever sells them has to release them under the GFDL, include the GFDL license, provide attribution to sources etc. You should have also told him there are a lot of free licenses for images. While all of the ones we accept on wikipedia require commercial use and derivatives, many are still fairly restrictive. The GFDL requirements we have already mentioned. Including the license in a newspaper or a tshirt or whatever is somewhat impractical.
Then someone should also tell the reporter if he or she's worried about Jack's gut, well why not just crop it Image:JackNicklaus.cropped.jpg? Perhaps someone should have also told the reporter why we need to allow commercial use. Wikipedia is not commercial. But let's say one day we want to release wikipedia to Africans to use on their $100 laptops or even print some of the stuff. But wait, we don't have the money. Never mind, how about we sell some copies of the encylopaedia to people, companies and the like and use this money to help finance the project. Companies can even buy the encylopaedia and donate it directly.
But wait, is this commercial use? Maybe. So we suddenly lose 1/3 of our images since we allowed non-commercial use. Oh and we need to crop some of our photos and improve them in various ways. Oh wait we allowed non-derivatives. Ooops there goes another 1/3 of our images. Nevermind we still have fair use. Oh wait, is it really be fair use in this context? Well nevermind let's just analyse every single occurance and make sure. Oh wait, that will take too long. Many African countries don't have fair use anyway. Oh well nevermind why does anyone actually need to see images?
(Admitedly publiclity images would still be okay for some uses. But make sure you have a good lawyer, like all people who deal in such matters do. And our content still wouldn't be as free. The Africans who received the encylopaedia, well they can view the content. But reuse the images? Well just ask your lawyer. What's a lawyer? I don't know. Well it doesn't matter because no one is going to come after some poor African genius right? Maybe but the African genius wants to do what's right. Or maybe the African genius has a great idea for a project. This African genius has all the content. He or she does such a good piece of work that it gets on the world news. But wait, are you sure you're allowed to use that photo? It just a poor African genius so who cares if he or she's violating copyright, right?) Nil Einne 21:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
