User:Lommer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As of February 5, 2006, I will be taking an indefinite wikibreak. I cannot contribute to a project that actively destroys people's work for the sole reason that corporations can't use it. I've left an excerpt from my old user page below. Other than that, I'm gone. -User:Lommer | talk 20:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I've recieved an email which criticiques my position on two points, which I've answered below. Though I've been quite tempted to return, I will still refrain from editing wikipedia for the forseeable future. -User:Lommer | talk 07:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Lommer's Beef with Wikipedia
I 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.
-Lommer | talk
[edit] Debate continued
A 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 trying to stay 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)
[edit] Merger of Weather Map and Weather Front pages
It appears you were the original author of one of these pages, so I'm officially letting you know of their merger and expansion as one document now titled Surface Analysis - Weather. Also, as someone who is currently part of the government, I feel wikipedia is an excellent way to share the volumous information the government generates which is not considered secret/classified. A lot of that information even 10 years ago (some still is) would have been sitting in some office, collecting dust, forgotten and virtually lost. Now some of it resides on the far corners of the internet. Wikipedia allows it to be organized in one place, and for that reason, I appreciate wikipedia. Thegreatdr 17:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
