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Wikipedia is slowly mutating into Shitpedia
The continuing fair use image witchhunt has taken its toll on me. This revision of my user page is the last major contribution I will ever make on Wikipedia for an indefinite time period.
What was once an occasional hobby has become a source of frustration for the past several years. While people like myself and the other members of WP:H!P, WP:ALBUM, and other Wikiprojects continue to make positive contributions within the boundaries of copyright law and protected by constitutional law, there are many others who only contribute sanctioned vandalism. This is no way to run an encyclopedia.
The recent non-free image policy that was recently enacted by the Foundation was done so without informing or consulting with the majority of Wikipedia editors that have been totally inconvenienced by this lame-assed neo-dictatorial decree. I feel that those of us that were following the rules are being punished for the actions of the assholes that didn't know the same rules. I'm sure the legions of Jimbo Dittoheads will trot out the "Wikipedia is not a democracy" talking point. Fine. If he doesn't want a democracy, he can move to a country that doesn't have democracy and take this website's servers with him. The last time some idiot with a Napoleon complex decided to do away with democracy, his time on this planet ended with his giving head to his handgun in an underground hideout in Berlin as an entire planet was about to give him a collective kick in the ass on his own stomping grounds. Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
A more rational Foundation would have accepted the Fair Use Clause as the protection from legal difficulties that it was meant to be. Wiki.theppn.org, the website that covers the same ground WP:H!P does and beyond, revels in the Fair Use Clause, as it should. But when was the last time the Wikimedia Foundation was operating realistically, outside of every time they beg for monetary donations?
For those reasons, and many others, I am walking away from over three years of contributing to what was once a fun diversion, but has become a virtual pile of fecal matter. This ship is slowly sinking, and I am doing the right thing by getting the fuck out of dodge while there's still plenty of lifeboats to hop into.
I predict that if things do not change for the better, there will not be a Wikipedia anymore within five years; it will be a faint memory of the biggest joke on the World Wide Web since Pets.com - only unlike Pets.com's iconic sock puppet, I don't think Jim Wales will have a second career as anything.
For the time being, my contributions here, major and minor, remain under the licenses I assigned as they were when I finalized them on July 16, 2007; those copyright boxes are at the bottom of this page. If and when I find an outlet more in tune with the First Amendment and the Fair Use Clause, I reserve the right in the future to rescind those rights.
No longer yours, CJ Marsicano 03:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
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| I do not grant permission for the Wikimedia Foundation to relicense any of my contributions. |
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