Re: Wikibooks fair use policy

>From: Robert Horning <[email protected]>
>I apologize that I haven't been up on this discussion, as my computer
>(and hard drive, etc.) crashed to a completely unrecoverable state over
>the past couple of weeks.

My heart goes out to you, I've suffered the same in the past. Nothing ruins 
your agenda like a complete computer failure.

>...  The reasons for using the content
>must by its nature be very much restricted.  At the same time, I think
>there is room for some limited fair-use images within Wikibooks.

The issue always seems to come back to one of heavy restrictions on fair use 
to the point that all images tagged as "fair use" should be viewed with 
absolute scrutiny.  There are few instances where fair use are "required", 
and plenty of opportunity for people to abuse fair use, or misuse it out of 
ignorance, and those misuses can be dangerous for our project. I've made my 
opinion on this known, and I won't continue to kick this poor horse any 
further.

What I envision (a vision that is likely not to gather much support) is the 
uploading of all images (or nearly all images) to commons, and almost 
banning outright image uploads to our server. This serves a variety of 
purposes. Foremost is that commons is staffed by more people who are 
knowledgeable and proficient at dealing with images and copyright licensing. 
The few fair use images that don't qualify at commons could be uploaded to 
wikibooks, and those select few could be examined through the proper lenses. 
I am not trying to start a discussion on this issue here, i'm just trying to 
draw a complete portrait of my intent.

I do want to hear what the WMF has to say officially about fair use (it was 
mentioned that they had a statement on it "forthcoming") before we start 
making any radical alterations to our policy pages.

--Andrew Whitworth

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