"Sharing" is something else.
> I'm not minded to…
Which is fine. But many are happy to contribute without caring about the end use of the information. I generally much prefer something like CC-BY-NC myself, preferably later versions which have addressed the third-party copy-left troll issue, but I don't feel using CC0 is deserving of scorn at all. Without any licence explicitly stated, CC0 is pretty much what a lot of people would assume anyway (correctly or otherwise), and in this case a lot of what is being shared is going to be facts, rather than creative works, which are essentially public domain anyway (though I'm sure some corproates out there are busy lobbying to change that…).
No one is forcing contributions. You spend your time, you takes your choice! Of course, you do right by yourself in making sure the licensing terms are to your taste before taking part, and are well advised to do so.
> "Sharing" is something else.
This is sharing, under very open terms. At least they are not claiming ownership, and the rights given are public not just to the site.
Would we really call this "informed consent"? ... or it more likely that contributors either haven't read the licence agreement or have read it but haven't properly understand what it actually means?
> This is sharing, under very open terms [..]
Kind of like one way sharing? You give, they take?
I would. It isn't at all hidden. It is presented front-and-center in the terms page, right after the introductory paragraphs.
This isn't like IMDB when content which had been given over to public domain, hosted on shared/donated resources for the first half of the 90s, suddenly had IMDB Inc.'s copyright notices all over it.
> contributors either haven't read the licence agreement or have read it but haven't properly understand what it actually means?
That might be a valid arguement for complex clauses hidden deep within pages of legalise, especially in the past when we were all a lot more naive about IP issues, but to miss this (or just not bother checking) in today's world you need to be wilfully ignorant rather than just unaware.
> Kind of like one way sharing? You give, they take?
Sharing with the public via CC0, with them as a middleman. They aren't claiming ownership of anything, they aren't restricting other distribution of what the user has submitted, they aren't hoovering up stuff published elsewhere to power/train a commercial AI.
There are a few things I think might be valid to take issue with¹², the use of CC0 for provided content that you can just not provide if you disagree is not one of them IMO.
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[1] “We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time.” is rather far reaching, though pretty standard and can't affect the license of the user provided content.
[2] “By accessing … the Service you agree to be bound by these Terms.” - just reading a page, or even just loading a page, should not be considered an act of consent in that manner IMO, and is likely not legally enforceable in most places.
Yes. There are plenty of examples of people sharing knowledge on the internet without expecting anything in return. Wikipedia, StackOverflow, and most open-source projects come to mind.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of software that you use directly or indirectly every day would not exist had the authors shared your sentiment.
