The news that Flickr Commons is full prompted me, yesterday afternoon, to cycle down to Cantonment Hill to get some photos to add to the hill’s Wikipedia article. Why? Because I added a short note to Wikinews the other day about the imminent return of the hill to the FCC; and because I was reminded that Commons is a place — the place, perhaps, now — to put photos that might be of use or interest to other people, and I like that ‘collective archive’ idea.
I have always felt that Commons only wants files that are of direct use in another project — mainly Wikipedia — and that unless one can think of a good reason to upload a file, that file should be posted elsewhere. Such as Flickr Commons, or the Internet Archive; I can’t think of anywhere else. Perhaps I’m wrong. Is Commons more like the IA than one might first think? Is it acceptable to add material that is highly unlikely to ever make it in to a ‘proper’ article on one of the projects? Unless there is a need to illustrate, for example, the various types of steel handrails used on stairs in the 1950s, then there are some photos that will never make it out of Commons. That’s okay though. Someone might want to write that article in fifty years’ time.
So I am going to keep working on Wikimedia projects, in my own way, in the hope that it is a worthwhile use of my time. I think it is.