Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a major part or 'Project' of the  (WMF). More commonly known as merely Commons, it is a wiki of an online depository  of over 19 million freely usable  files to which anyone can contribute. The files, which include , s and ; are primarilly for use by the various Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia. And whilst the English Wikipedia will accept 'fair use' images, the Wikimedia Commons will not; all must be completely free to use (either public domain, or an unrestricted copyleft license). Other individual language editions of Wikipedia have their own differing standards for fair use — e.g. Español Wikipedia will not allow fair use media.

The InstantCommons extension for MediaWiki will allow non-Wikimedia Foundation sites to use Commons media on their own wiki.

(As of: 13 December 2013)
 * Wikimedia Commons at Wikimedia Meta-Wiki
 * Wikimedia Commons Statistics — stats.Wikimedia.org at Wikimedia Statistics
 * Wikimedia Commons Interactive Statistics, from Wikistatistics.net

Mission and culture
The exact boundaries of the mission of the Wikimedia Commons have not been clearly defined. It is generally agreed that the Commons should host images that will be useful in other Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia. Less clear is whether it should serve as a repository for images that are likely to only be useful outside Wikimedia. For example, a photograph of a girl holding a flower might be useful as a in corporate promotional brochures, but if there is no Wikipedia article that requires that image (as could be the case if Wikipedia already has a suitable image to illustrate its articles on flowers, or if the image is unsuitable for Wikipedia), then it is an open question whether the Commons should host that image. These matters are decided on a case-by-case basis, with little consistency, and are heavily influenced by whether Commons users like the media in question (e.g. whether they think they are aesthetically pleasing).

Sometimes debates arise as to whether users are adding content for the benefit of the Commons, or for their own promotional purposes. E.g., a user may say "These are some images I took, posted to my website, and am sharing with the Commons" and others may object that the true agenda is to promote the website by listing its URL in the image attribution page. Frequently, users have uploaded images of their genitals and been accused of ; this has occurred so often that the Commons community has announced that no more images of genitals are needed or welcomed unless there is a specific request, e.g. if a new genital-relevant article is created on Wikipedia that needs an illustration.