Wikipedia is the de facto online encyclopedia, providing a vast amount of information on any subject imaginable. Recently New York Times writer Noam Cohen took a look not at the text of Wikipedia, but at the photos. He wasn’t impressed:
Photographs are a glaring flaw in the Wikipedia model. Unlike the articles on the site, which in theory are improved, fact checked, footnoted and generally enhanced over time, photographs are static works created by individuals. A bad article can become a better article. A bad photograph simply stays bad.
The sticking point for many photographers wanting to contribute works to Wikipedia is the licensing stipulation that the photo may be reused (for any purpose, although attribution is usually required). Duncan Davidson wrote a blog post a while back titled I Wish I Could Help Wikipedia, in which he talks about the issues that prevent him from contributing.
Given that the Cohen raised the Wikipedia photo topic again (this time with a quantity and quality angle), I turned to Steven Walling, a Wikipedia administrator to get his take on both the article and the state of photos on Wikipedia. This is Steven’s response:
If Noam Cohen really means to say that Wikipedia is sorely lacking free photos, then he clearly hasn’t done his research.
As of 9am on August 3rd, there are 853,652 uploaded pieces of media on Wikipedia. 800K photos would be a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.9 million text articles. But what the piece neglected to mention was that the real wealth of images comes not from within Wikipedia, but from its sister project: Wikimedia Commons, which holds more than 4.8 million freely-licensed works, the vast majority of which are photos. Those photos are then linked within Wikipedia articles just like they were a native part of the encyclopedia.
Yes, Wikipedia is limited in some significant ways by its strict adherence to a free license. In particular it’s hard to get a free photo of a living person, since you cannot use one under fair use laws even in an educational project.
But it’s not like we’re just sitting around waiting for people to take pity on us. What Wikipedia loses in the ability to legally use other photographer’s work, we more than make up for in passionate volunteers. For years, there have been Wikipedia users who’ve obtain press passes to red carpet events to take photos just like any press photographer, and they do original interviews and portraits of notable people as well, many of which are totally unique. The free license also often gives people a motivation to let themselves be photographed for Wikipedia, since they know we don’t seek to profit from their likeness.
Whether we’re receiving freely-licensed work from others or creating our own, one fact remains: no one can honest call nearly 5 million photos a desert.
What do you think? Is the Wikipedia photo situation as bad as Cohen makes it sound, or is he blowing a situation out of proportion?
Photo by quartermane, used under Creative Commons licensing
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