By Antonio A. Casilli (Centre Edgar-Morin, Paris)

Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support?

(This is just my opinion. But in case you had to face a similar decision this might help…)

It’s the end of the year – it’s time to make a donation to one of the many worthy causes this big network called the Internet is full of. I don’t want to enter into details as to my financial situation – suffice to say a choice had to be made.  And the choice was between  Wikimedia Foundation and Creative Commons. I just want to say that many factors were weighed in order to make this decision.


Creative Commons:

* is the license that already covers the entirety of the contents of this blog;

* is the best possible compromise between gung-ho copyright protection and no-copyright at all (a solution that I still found fancy, but not implementable in the present situation);

* messes up with the law through uncontrolled license proliferation and sometimes downright misuse;

* gives away free t-shirts to donors ;)!

Wikimedia:

* produces the de facto go-to reference for every first search on the web;

* is a philosophy I enforce through the creation of collaborative wikis in my everyday research activity;

* is where I spend some of my nights, writing articles for Wikipedia;

* has MASSIVELY pissed me off this year with the Wikipedia art controversy in February, and the MEGA FAIL over the deletion of the page of Brazilian activist Daniel Padua in November;

* is recreating (through a complex « caste system » of gold-star editors, administrators, experts, etc. ) the same academic hierarchies it was supposed to stand up to.

So if you scroll down this page, you will see where my money went: to Creative Commons – which gave me in exchange a cheesy green badge for « Premium » users. This titillates my narcissism and also voices my dissent as to the directions Wikipedia has taken in the last 12 months.

—a

décembre 28, 2009 | Filed Under unclassified 

Comments

8 Responses to “Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support?”

  1. open source on décembre 28th, 2009 22 h 50 min

    Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support? | BodySpaceSociety: So if you scroll down this page, you will see where http://url4.eu/10IHa

  2. Antonio A. Casilli on décembre 29th, 2009 8 h 12 min

    Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support? http://bit.ly/70qUih #BodySpaceSociety << I had to make a choice…

  3. Tweets that mention Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support? | BodySpaceSociety -- Topsy.com on décembre 29th, 2009 9 h 13 min

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Antonio A. Casilli, open source. open source said: Creative Commons or Wikipedia? Who to support? | BodySpaceSociety: So if you scroll down this page, you will see where http://url4.eu/10IHa [...]

  4. Antonio A. Casilli on décembre 29th, 2009 14 h 57 min

    Why support Creative Commons NOW!!! http://bit.ly/70qUih #ccCritical

  5. Antonio A. Casilli on décembre 29th, 2009 15 h 04 min

    Why support Creative Commons NOW!!! http://bit.ly/70qUih #ccCritical << pls RT massively

  6. Antonio A. Casilli on décembre 30th, 2009 22 h 14 min

    RT @dgouldin Please consider donating to Creative Commons. They need your help #ccCritical << here's a few good reasons http://bit.ly/70qUih

  7. Antonio A. Casilli on janvier 10th, 2010 18 h 50 min

    I proudly wear my Creative Commons tshirt << just received in the mail as a resul of my donation http://bit.ly/7MV5xf #CC

  8. Antonio A. Casilli on janvier 26th, 2010 22 h 22 min

    @Calimaq bien sûr qu'elles sont illégales, les licences #CreativeCommons. C'est justement pour ça qu'on les soutient http://bit.ly/7MV5xf ;)

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