Centralized Wiki for NC files will work. It's the same debate when we started to put metadata on Commons, it did not stop the process, it just made it slower and less efficient, but it remained kinda inevitable.
It's the same background, the frustration and confusion of the current situation is projected to the future one, it's mostly a "passive" resistance with a little bit of patronizing attitude toward other communities. It happens also because the more some users assume this future scenario is inevitable, the easier it is for them to consider the present situation as inevitable as well and skip any responsibility, it's a little bit an identity element.
Local users are not confused or irritated in general because they are moody, it's mostly because the Commons community is moody. Local communities are not three or four isolated users, they are structured, with a spectrum of established competences. The mass of users involved will come from that pool. I am pretty sure that if you build a repository without all the users who encouraged most of the dysfunctional attitude we have now on Commons, it's going to be better, if not fine. For some of us in the end the local user repeating a wrong concept to get a file kept is very similar to the Commons user doing the same to make it deleted, the same stubborn attitude with limited overall perspective that few people really wanted in the first place. These two profiles find a balance but it's not the best balance for the general workflow, it's a "social thing". Whatever disrupt the situation, give us some chance to improve that.
Of course many users will show there to oppose. And if approved, for the first two or three years at every single minor misstep of the process they will jump there foretelling disasters: They usually find the time to oppose to this sort of requests, more than doing a lot of other tasks probably, and the concepts are usually the same. That's why its getting more and more difficult to give to it a big weigh.
In any case, some way to centralize existing NC will be found. For example, think about Wikidata item for logos and connect them to local files. It will be more tortuous, in a way it's not noticed immediately, probably. Until we get there somehow, personally I skip many activities regarding NC including their conversion, and focus on something else. I am probably not the only one adopting more or less this attitude.
Good outreach for me is not about a single aspect, is a method, and will always include a spectrum of results. The statement "no Wikipedia if you don't remove NC" is not really so effective, it sounds cheap especially after many years Wiki exists and people know what they want. For the high-quality material we miss, I think it's more about proposing a good project, a structured project and in that framework I can suggest to update some NC. I have refused to trick people to give files with no NC, I clearly tell them to understand the license. There are many files which were not uploaded initially, but those users ended up giving more new files later. If I could be a user with a flag for NC upload, I will put a very limited amount of files per year, but the process behind such files will be very valuable.
A.
Il martedì 14 luglio 2020, 09:41:05 CEST, Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> ha scritto:
James wrote:
> I simply wish that such a position would convince more
> organizations. WHO has repeatedly told me that we, as a non-profit, are
> already free to use their work and if we chose not to, that is on us.
I agree of course that this sort of institutional inertia can be
incredibly frustrating, especially in cases like WHO -- a publicly
funded international institution which should be putting its work in
the public domain. For all its own institutional failings (and there
are many, past and present), the US was at least able to get that much
right in its copyright laws more than 100 years ago. I don't believe
we should let publicly funded institutions that use restrictive
licensing terms off the hook, and there's a degree to which positive
persuasion needs to be coupled with public pressure here.
Like Pete, I'm curious about resources & practices folks have found
useful in persuading individuals or institutions to release materials
under free licenses. I'll reiterate that my sense is that _new_
partnerships that focus on material yet to be created may be a good
way to get a foot in the door, so to speak.
Alessandro wrote:
> At least, we should start centralizing that non-free material locally uploaded
> since it's already there. I would like logos of Universities and coat of arms
> of public administration and doubtful old images that according to some
> platforms are free but for Commons are not (gray areas), to be on a NC
> part of Commons, or a dedicated platform (i always link
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NonFreeWiki and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NonFreeWiki_(2).
I agree that a nonfree wiki that does not alter existing policies
(i.e. is not intended to open the door to NC) is a reasonable thing to
consider for practical reasons; however, I personally oppose these
proposals on practical grounds. While the opposition to the main
proposal is currently a minority, I suspect the ratio would change
rather quickly if the proposals were more widely announced.
I see two primary scenarios for how a nonfree wiki could play out:
- scenario A: a nonfree wiki is successful at policing uploads and
usage consistent with the policies across wikis. Uploaders from those
communities are frequently frustrated and confused by deletions,
discussion, and policies of the nonfree wiki, just as they are
frustrated by deletions, discussions, and policies on Wikimedia
Commons today. With one more wiki in the mix, the process of uploading
files is increasingly seen to be akin to a Klingon Pain Stick Ritual.
- scenario B: a nonfree wiki is unsuccessful at policing uploads, and
becomes a DMCA magnet or worse. Communities are frustrated because
their own rules for limiting nonfree uploads are frequently violated
through the transclusion of files from the nonfree repository.
In fact, a combination of those two scenarios -- where there's deep
frustration about both enforcement and lack thereof -- seems most
likely to me.
It's worth asking whether there are good ways to improve the handling
and patrolling of nonfree files. I suspect there are many, but I'm
pretty sure the creation of a separate repository for this stuff is an
idea that doesn't withstand scrutiny. Exemptions must be considered in
a project-local context, both in terms of policy and concrete use, by
a community in its own language, and any improvements to efficiency
must start from this central premise.
Warmly,
Erik
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>