Commons:Project scope/Update 2013/FAQ

Scope Review 2013 links: Discuss stage 2 of this review Translation Help your community by translating the review Background Main review page: Background and process FAQ Links to current rules Project Scope Photographs of identifiable people Discussion: Introductory Scope wording Aim of Wikimedia Commons Excluded educational content Discussion: Files Must be a media file Must be an allowable free file format Must be freely licensed or public domain Licensing terms Evidence Precautionary principle 'Realistically useful for an educational purpose' PDF and DjVu formats Discussion: Pages, galleries and categories General pages, galleries and categories User pages, galleries and categories Discussion: Areas of particular concern Censorship "Neutral point of view" Discussion: Identifiable people Lead Legal issues Consent Moral issues Identification Examples Removal requests Other image sources Other proposals Other proposals

Principles

Why should we discuss this now? And why should I care?

• Over the last few months there have been more urgently-expressed discussions within Commons as well as outside about issues concerning the small proportion of our holdings that relate to sexual imagery and to privacy & the rights of the subject. Both have complex moral and legal dimensions, and neither has yet been fully resolved. It makes sense to review all of our scope policies at the same time, and to ensure the greatest possible exposure of these issues throughout the entire Wikimedia community.

Why the big fuss? Why not just let policy evolve naturally?

• Many proposals for change have been made, but there has not recently been sufficient follow-through, nor a wide enough exposure within the wider community, for those proposals to have reached any firm conclusions.

Who is behind this review initiative? Are you trying to push something through against consensus?

• I am MichaelMaggs, a bureaucrat on Commons. I'm generally supportive of Commons as an institution, though think that many things could be improved. You can read my thoughts at en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-19/Op-ed. According to Commons:Bureaucrats, "Bureaucrats are expected be capable of leading where necessary and of guiding (but not imposing their will on) policy discussions and other major community issues" (this may be rather different from the typical role on other sites such as the English Wikipedia). This is an attempt to help the community come to a resolution of these rather difficult issues. While I do have some ideas and have put them forward on the relevant pages for community discussion as possible compromise positions, I'm not wedded to them and have absolutely no problem if the community wants to go in some other direction.

Why don't you just adopt the policies of Wikipedia?

• Commons always has a far broader free-content remit than that that of supporting the narrow focus of an encyclopaedia. Commons provides media files in support not just a single project like the English Wikipedia but all of the WMF projects, including Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage and many more. These sister projects of Wikipedia often have a need to use media on Commons that could never be used on the Wikipedias as they are not - in Wikipedia’s narrow sense - “encyclopaedic”.

I've come from Wikipedia, and know nothing about Policy on Commons. Can't you sort this out yourselves?

• Probably, yes, but it wouldn't be desirable. The WMF projects can only link to Commons media if they are actually part of Commons' collection. Users from all the the WMF projects have a real interest in making sure that the Commons collections are suitable for their needs.

Why are we discussing both "Scope" and "Identifiable people"? They are two different things.

• While they are for historical reasons often treated separately on Commons, from an external perspective both define aspects of whether a particular file should be kept or deleted as "out of scope".

Practicalities

My English is not good. Can I contribute in my own language?

• Yes, of course.

Can I add an idea/proposal that does not fit into the existing structure?

• Yes. Please add it in the Other proposals section