User:Aron Manning/Design/Non-free content
A few solutions to minimize the proportion of possibly free content uploaded as "non-free":
- Free is the default. Make it a significant effort (multiple steps) to choose NC or ND license. This is what the cookie opt-out UIs do, very successfully.
- At each step inform the uploader, that a non-free license severely limits the visibility of the content (no media, no private schools, no Internet-in-a-Box).
- If a user mostly uploads non-free content, notify them, this negatively affects Wikipedia as whole in its mission to be a free encyclopedia.
- If non-free content is uploaded in great quantity, that content should be examined by other editors, and proposed for deletion, if similar content is available with free license.
- If some content is available elsewhere with free license, the content and license can be replaced with that. This can be automated to an extent with reverse-image search.
- After all these measures, I will have good faith, that most editors understand the benefit of free content over non-free, and only uses non-free licenses when it's truly necessary.
The use of non-free licenses should be marginal as a result, but allow to host content about underrepresented communities, while respecting and protecting their cultural heritage. The draft refers to 2 articles of such cases:
- a unique, personal case - commercial use of photos (motivation for NC)
- the use of Native-American cultural heritage in trade marks and branding (motivation for ND, NC)