I retired as an active editor and administrator of Wikipedia effective February 5, 2006. I currently only use my account for minor spelling edits and redirect page creation. I've stepped back because I cannot contribute to a project that actively destroys its volunteer's work for the sole reason that corporations can't use it. I've left an excerpt from my old user page below that explains my philosophy in more detail. Email is the best way to get a hold of me if you have any questions, comments, or critiques. -User:Lommer | talk 00:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Lommer's Beef with Wikipedia
editI only have one real problem with the way wikipedia works: I believe that the policy of using only images which have a licence allowing commercial use is crap. For text, it makes sense because it is impossible to extricate just one person's text from an article, and I can understand the sentiment that wikipedia's material should be available for commercial use someday. However, images are extremely easy to excise from an article, and should therefore not be subject to the restriction. If anyone intends to use wikipedia material for profit, I believe that they should have to pay someone or find their own volunteers to go through the material and remove noncommercial-use-only images. This undertaking would be made especially easy by the helpful image tags we provide. As it stands now though, I'm volunteering my time to work on the wikipedia I know — one that is freely available on the internet and operated by a non-profit enterprise. I do not wish to volunteer my time to corporations who make a profit; they can pay me to do that. What's more, I hate seeing wikipedia losing great image content merely because it's not available under a free-commercial-use licence. I have myself refrained from publishing certain pictures and drawings on wikipedia for exactly that reason. In summary, disallowing noncommercial-use-only images sucks! If you have comments on my opinion, I'd love to hear them on my talk page.
Debate continued
editA wikipedian has provided two points critiquing my position. They are listed below, with my replies in bullet points.
- Allowing non-commercial-use-only images restricts the fundraising opportunities available to the Wikimedia Foundation.
- So what? Its not the first time the Wikimedia Foundation has made life harder for itself because of its principles.
- It's not actually that easy to remove non-commercial-use-only images.
- I would disagree; if images are properly tagged then it seems a trivial matter to identify those that should be removed. Regardless, I stand by my belief that any commercial venture should either hire people or find its own volunteers to perform whatever work is neccesary in preparing their version of the wikipedia.
I've been staying away from wikipedia for some time now. I still check back here occaisionally for notes to my talk page, and email is a sure-fire way to get ahold of me. -User:Lommer | talk 07:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)