Topic on Project talk:Wikimedia Strategy 2017/Flow

I am just a peon contributor, but don't see any other place to ask (tell me if I'm missing something),

For me, Wikipedia has a serious problem with its licensing requirements. The way everything must be documented to death. I had a grandma in Louisiana send me a wonderful picture for a wikipedia page, and she knows nothing of origination and originality. I was hounded first by a person, then by something automated, that I could not honestly say I had all attribution of the picture. I was trying to be honest but it's absurd, and a true knowledge killer.

It is fine with me if you remove this comment from this particular page, but please tell me where I can talk about it or how.

Perhaps it is a sign of decline that you talk about how grand and mighty a thing Wikimedia is, when you can't just let someone post a picture from some grandma who can barely send an email. She will not ever make a Wikipedia/Wikimedia/Whatever Commons account.

Why not just let things be posted unless/until it is challenged by someone else?* At which point there is some sort of probation and mediation. probably only 2% of the vast offerings here are any sort of actual problem. Let the rest sail through please!

Thanks if you can help,

Mike Fay, Ph.D.

Atlanta GA USA

*Users can be tagged if they post a lot of things that get challenged. No problem. Most of us peons just want to build this great knowledge base.

"I was trying to be honest but it's absurd, and a true knowledge killer. "

Indeed! However, that's not the fault of Wikimedia, but the current copyright system. We can either play by the rules, or get prosecuted.

And yes, we have been prosecuted (Sweden, Germany). It's not pretty, or cheap.

But we can also fight to change the rules, which have have done. However, that's a long term project, and we have opposition.