Libre Pathology:Images on Libre Pathology II
We are currently having a challenge with the images on Libre Pathology that are coming via the InstantCommons feature of Mediawiki.
We are working to resolve the issue but it may be a few days to sort out.
Background
Mediawiki is the software that runs this modest site and Wikipedia. It comes to us from WikiMedia (formally the WikiMedia Foundation - abbreviated WMF) the organization that runs Wikipedia and the WikiMedia Commons (also WikiCommons and WC).
The WikiCommons is the multimedia repository for all the different Wikipedias and Wiki projects of the WMF.
As the mission of the WMF is to disseminate knowledge, they allow non-WMF project (like this one) to download images to their server via the InstantCommons (much the way the Wikipedias pull their multimedia files from the WikiCommons).
We use the WC as the images are free (libre) and often reasonable quality. One of us (being active on the WC and Wikipedia) uploaded a good number of them.
We could resolve the issue by the directly uploading the images to this site; however, there are several reasons we are not doing this. Among them is our belief that:
- The images should be shared widely and see the WC as a vehicle for doing this.
- Contributing images to the WC demonstrates our commit to open and ensures they have longevity.