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US National Archives Will Upload All Its Holdings To Wikipedia

Posted by timothy on from the promise-or-threat dept.

An anonymous reader writes The U.S. National Archives has revealed to Wikipedia newspaper The Signpost that it will be uploading all of its holdings to the Wikimedia Commons. Dominic McDevitt-Parks told the Signpost that "The records we have uploaded so far contain some of the most high-value holdings ... However, we are not limiting ourselves ... Our approach has always been simply to upload as much as possible ... to make them as widely accessible to the public as possible."

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:why? by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To use a US Government-created, pre-1923, or otherwise free image in a Wikipedia article, you need to upload it to Commons first. The National Archives doing this on its own will save people a step.

  2. Re:Deleted by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I personally like it when editors remove fully sourced information that's contrary to their PoV, and then you get a assload of brigading on the topic because it's "contrary to popular opinion."

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    Om, nomnomnom...
  3. Re:Deleted by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that it appears to be rather arbitrary. What objective criteria is used to determine what popular culture is popular enough to warrant a Wikipedia page and what popular culture isn't popular enough so everything must go? In reality I think it comes down to whether or not it is more liked or more hated by editors who hold the power there.

  4. Re:Deleted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And yet, Wikipedia is chock full of trivial facts about TV shows. As in a page for every single episode of some popular shows when there are already plenty of other sites with that info.