Why I do what I do
I was talking with a friend in my logic class, and he was asking me how long I had been programming. I told him, and went on to mention some of the things I’ve done. I talked a bit about MediaWiki and the volunteer development work I did there. He asked me why I enjoyed developing for free. To me, it’s all about doing your part. I just happen to do my part by developing software rather than writing articles or taking pictures. I’ve got extremely liberal ideas about content and its accessibility. To me: quality information (be it text, images, video, music) should be as readily available as possible to everyone.
I take special note of the word quality. To me, when trying to balance quality over quantity, I tend to give heavier weight to quality. 2,000,000 articles is useless when it’s unorganized, unverified and poorly written. It’s be as useful as putting the world’s literary collections into a giant pile, after ripping all of the pages out and shuffling them around. The same goes for images. Poorly organized, licensed and documented, this too turns into a degenerate mess.
A second ideal that I’ve gained respect for is cultural significance. We need to be generating content that is both of high quality (as possible) and high cultural use. So when we take up the subject of sexually explicit photographs, I see a quick distinction. Unlike older photos and paintings that cannot be obtained now (we can only take pictures of the Mona Lisa, we can’t make a brand new one), pictures of things in our everyday lives, be it houses, cars, or people (clothed or nude) can be taken any day of the week. I think I put it best earlier, when I said on Foundation-l that “Commons \ is meant to be a collection of freely-licensed media, not a dumping \ ground for all media that happens to be free.”
At some point, a line has to be drawn. We are not a hosting service, we are a collection of free content. A free image does not necessarily make a good image. When asked about what the difference was between being a collection and dumping ground, I followed with:
Emphasis on usefulness. We’re about providing free content, and I would hope being culturally significant would still be a priority. I always considered that a major point in inclusionism/deletionism debates. Are we remaining culturally relevant? Talking about pop culture as well as historical events, places, customs, etc. Providing information about naked people, their habits, customs, fetishes even: I consider this culturally relevant. Hosting a picture looking up a girl’s skirt is hardly culture, and is borderline voyeurism.
If we’re a dumping ground, of course none of this matters at all.
Have priorities changed over the years? Is this in fact the direction our community wants to go in?
I looked up “collection” in dictionary.com and found the following: “a group of objects or an amount of material accumulated in one location, esp. for some purpose or as a result of some process.” I like this definition, particularly the part of it being “for some purpose.” That is what distinguishes commons from, say, Flickr or Webshots or Photobucket, and it should probably go beyond the free license, and be in keeping with the mission of the WMF, i.e., to promote and expand free knowledge.
While the specific guidelines defining “purpose” may need to be defined, I think it is essential when distinguishing a “collection” from an “aggregate.”
In other words, I completely agree with you.
“A line has to be drawn.” Conveniently passive. Who gets to draw it? Who gets to decide who gets to draw it?
“I consider this culturally relevant.” How do you not notice that as you imposing your values on what is fit for others to read/see?
Do you consider that your judgements about what is “culturally significant” are not influenced by your culture? If so how did you achieve this feat?
Taking a picture looking up someone’s skirt is certainly not high culture, but I’m not sure how you can say it is not “culture” at all. Is culture an objective thing with clear boundaries? If so what are these things outside it? What is considered acceptable or high culture has hardly been a fixed thing over time.
I agree with you… we shouldn’t be a dumping ground. I just find taking my own value judgements to be fit for everyone as very problematic. And so far I can’t find a good solution to this problem.
Because my judgments are always right? I jest.
My judgments are not always right. Nor are yours, or Danny’s, or Jimbo’s. The Foundation isn’t always right, nor is the community at large. None of us are always right. Nor should any of us expect anyone else to be 100% right. Blind faith in someone’s opinion is problematic, as that person can in fact be wrong.
I would argue that the community as a whole has the good enough sense to determine cultural significance, but I’m not always sure that’s the case.