Commons:Requests for comment/scope

scope
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Revision as of 23:34, 18 March 2013
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:This puts me in mind of the media which is deleted as out-of-scope so so often, the "Facebook photos", i.e. shots of random people and their friends. The (somewhat unfeasible) alternative is to categorize these images in a way that lets people find them and use them. Is there any sensible way we can store them? What about "Fashion in 2013", "People in 2013", for all those future historians? There is of course [[:Category:Unidentified people]], populated in great part by [[User:DrTrigonBot|DrTrigonBot]]. Now, I love DrTrigonBot, mostly because it seems to be completely insane, but it also makes me think of something: machine vision will improve the ability to search through media and will make the feasibility of categorizing it seem less important. We are certainly a very long way away from "Computer, show me a picture of...", but my thought of "how is anyone supposed to FIND ''ANY'' of these images?" starts to vanish, just a little bit. I like your use of the words "things that don't seem to be much use" - the first section on this page highlighted the impossibility of thinking of all the possible (current and future) uses of a piece of media --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 13:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 
:This puts me in mind of the media which is deleted as out-of-scope so so often, the "Facebook photos", i.e. shots of random people and their friends. The (somewhat unfeasible) alternative is to categorize these images in a way that lets people find them and use them. Is there any sensible way we can store them? What about "Fashion in 2013", "People in 2013", for all those future historians? There is of course [[:Category:Unidentified people]], populated in great part by [[User:DrTrigonBot|DrTrigonBot]]. Now, I love DrTrigonBot, mostly because it seems to be completely insane, but it also makes me think of something: machine vision will improve the ability to search through media and will make the feasibility of categorizing it seem less important. We are certainly a very long way away from "Computer, show me a picture of...", but my thought of "how is anyone supposed to FIND ''ANY'' of these images?" starts to vanish, just a little bit. I like your use of the words "things that don't seem to be much use" - the first section on this page highlighted the impossibility of thinking of all the possible (current and future) uses of a piece of media --[[User:Moogsi|moogsi]] ([[User talk:Moogsi|blah]]) 13:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 
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==Educational scope==
 
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[[File:Sampans in Hong Kong 2.jpg|thumb|right|Someone's holiday snaps, 1960's Hong Kong]]
 
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The purpose of the wikimedia foundation is to provide educational content, that there are an increasing number of wikimedia projects is an indication that what is educational can take many different forms; though there are of course many overlaps. One would not expect a wiktionary entry on a topic to be identical to the wikipedia entry on that topic nor the wikivoyage one, articles are not even identical across languages. One way for Commons to be educational is as a source of images for the other wikimedia projects, and some believe that this is the only purpose of Commons, hence the oft heard phrase, delete as it is not in use.
 
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However Commons is not wikipedia, nor wikibooks etc, Commons must be educational in and of itself, and must define what is educational in its own terms not that of wikipedia etc. The obvious educational purpose of Commons is as a source of free to use files to others, be that school children looking for pictures for a school project, teachers preparing presentations or a magazine needing images to illustrate a story.
 
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However being a source of images is not the only way Commons can be educational. One bugbear is the upload of personal images, pictures of themselves, family portraits, holiday snaps, pictures of their living rooms etc. However (and apologies to everybody who has seen me make this argument before) Would we delete personal photographs from 1863, 1913, 1963? Such files offer a window into the past, of fashion, dress hairstyles etc. being an archive of files illustrating how people lived/live in a particular time and place is a valid educational exercise; being an archive of internet memes is educational. Being an archive of material that people and researchers can use to conduct OR is educational, because although wikipedia disallows OR enabling research is educational. A book is of course educational but would you argue that a bunsen burner is not. Both are but in different ways.
 
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[http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/collections/thematics/ And yes I am saying pictures of people's living rooms is educational].--[[User:KTo288|KTo288]] ([[User talk:KTo288|talk]]) 23:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

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