Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Pharos-3]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 6:28 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk@...> wrote:

> On Tuesday 09 December 2008 08:23:07 Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons why
>> they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
>> "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
>> search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"  and
>> you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.
>>
>> It is indeed ridiculous that for people who do not read / write English,
>> Commons not a resource that is functional as a resource where you find
>> freely lincensed pictures. It is however a fact. Do some studies and ask
>> people to find images, people who do not read English. Try it in Arabic,
>> Russian, German, Mandarin, French or Dutch. When that does not convince you
>> try Neapolitan, Nepali, Bangla, Hindi or Xhosa. Have them search for things
>> that are of interest to a seven year old. Things like a horse...
>>
>> I have had the financing to create a demonstration project that
>> demonstrates that this is a problem that can be solved. Our resources were
>> limited so the result is not as polished as I would hope for, but it does
>> include the category tree translated.
>
> Me too - perhaps not as perfect solution, but hopefully adequate:
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php
>
> Examples:
>
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=nl&search=paard
> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=el&search=%CE%AF%CF%80%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%82

Something like this looks pretty good for starters.  Why don't we just
flip a switch?

Thanks,
Pharos

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[Ray Saintonge]

Lars Aronsson wrote:

> Finn Rindahl wrote
>> If there was more active admins, we could have done our job
>> better - especially when it comes to take the necessary time to
>> communicate with the other users who need help. The only way as
>> I see it to actually get volunteers to work at Commons is to
>> build a "community feeling" at commons like in other projects.
>>    
> You need a community feeling among admins, so they can learn to
> know and trust each other and collaborate against individual
> admins who abuse their rights (which surely will happen
> occasionally).  And you need to foster a community feeling between
> admins and regular/occasional/beginner users.  But I doubt that
> the latter is possible.  If it fails, I wouldn't blame you.
>  

Trust is the key to success in any of these projects.  Presumably the
current admins on Commons have built that trust among themselves, but to
the extent of being a closed community,   Aspiring to join a closed
community requires a person to comply with the norms and standards of
that closed community until it is satisfied that the supplicant is fully
compliant.  This strongly discourages any kind of innovative behaviour
or individuality, and protects the received wisdom of the controllers.

Commons is not unique in wanting more admins, but really experienced
admins from other projects are not going to be overly anxious to join a
project when that project would require them to swim among sharks.
> The problem is that many users don't feel at home in Commons.  
> Many of them just upload a few images as part of writing Wikipedia
> articles.  Having to enter Commons is more of a necessary evil,
> just like we all have to learn some wiki markup.
>  
I don't participate in Commons, and do my best to avoid it.  I have had
concerns about it ever since Erik first suggested the idea.  Commons now
houses many page scans on behalf of Wikisource.  Uploading the 500 page
scans for a single book can quickly inflate the Commons page count seems
to support an obsession for quantity over quality.
> Consider this recent comment from one user: "I don't understand
> the title: 'Please link images'. All my pictures are linked to
> articles in the Swedish Wikipedia."  This user didn't categorize
> his images on Commons, and received a complaint for this from a
> bot.  He has no interest in categorizing images on Commons, he
> only wanted to illustrate his articles.
>  
Whatever happened to the old wiki notion of leaving things for others to
do.  There is no need for an uploader to do his own categorisation when
there are admins available to do this.
> Maybe he should just upload the images locally to the Swedish
> Wikipedia, where they are used, and someone else, with a primary
> interest in Commons, should forward them to Commons and categorize
> them there.
>  
Indeed.  If the Commons bot then finds that the image does not meet its
copyright or other standards it just leaves that image where it is found.

> This is how we normally distribute tasks among users within each
> language of Wikipedia: One person creates an article, another adds
> wiki markup, a third adds categories.  But once you upload an
> image, you need to go out through the door, across the street,
> into the Wikimedia Commons building, and there you have to feel as
> part of a new community which doesn't fully speak your language,
> and each image must be categorized and correctly licensed and
> attributed (including the incomprihensible distinction between
> "source" and "author"), or else all your actions will be reverted.
>  

If it were just a language problem that could be helped by insisting
that any uploaded image must have all its data in two languages. ;-)  
By insisting on this as strongly as for categorisation and other
requirements.  Any image without two language data could be speedy
deleted.  This should only create problems in that small handful of
countries where knowing a second language is an exception. :-P
> Commons was set up in 2004.  It was a great idea and has served
> its purpose well.  But as we recruit new users, less experienced
> users who we have to actively recruit, this is not a vehicle for
> the best possible user experience and productivity.
>
>
>  
I support the notion that we should start moving away from the single
monolithic Commons.


Ec

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[Platonides]

teun spaans wrote:

> Many times it works well.
> But the procedures also irregularly goes amiss.
>
> I also received deletion messages of a pic i had uploaded with a correct
> license. Some wikimedian had accidently removed the license, making a bot
> come along and warn me. By pure coincidence i happened to come along at
> commons - sometimes months go by without me dropping in - and was able to
> restore the license, protest angainst its deletion, and so on.
> 7 days is awfully short. One easy thing that can be approved is an email
> instead of a bot message on a talk page.
>
> But that wont change the self centered attitude of commonists.

You *will* get an email if have chosen on your Preferences to get an
email whenever your talk page is modified.
Having that option available on WMF wikis was pushed from commons
community, and in fact Commons was one of the first projects where it
was added. Now it is enabled on all wikis but the big ones.


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[Platonides]

Pharos wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 6:28 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk@...> wrote:
>> On Tuesday 09 December 2008 08:23:07 Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>> When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons why
>>> they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
>>> "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
>>> search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"  and
>>> you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.
>>>
>>> It is indeed ridiculous that for people who do not read / write English,
>>> Commons not a resource that is functional as a resource where you find
>>> freely lincensed pictures. It is however a fact. Do some studies and ask
>>> people to find images, people who do not read English. Try it in Arabic,
>>> Russian, German, Mandarin, French or Dutch. When that does not convince you
>>> try Neapolitan, Nepali, Bangla, Hindi or Xhosa. Have them search for things
>>> that are of interest to a seven year old. Things like a horse...
>>>
>>> I have had the financing to create a demonstration project that
>>> demonstrates that this is a problem that can be solved. Our resources were
>>> limited so the result is not as polished as I would hope for, but it does
>>> include the category tree translated.
>>
>> Me too - perhaps not as perfect solution, but hopefully adequate:
>> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php
>>
>> Examples:
>>
>> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=nl&search=paard
>> http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=el&search=%CE%AF%CF%80%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%82
>
> Something like this looks pretty good for starters.  Why don't we just
> flip a switch?
>
> Thanks,
> Pharos

+1
We should help using this tool from the search interface.


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[Bryan Tong Minh]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 10:03 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@...> wrote:

> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>> Finn Rindahl wrote
>>> If there was more active admins, we could have done our job
>>> better - especially when it comes to take the necessary time to
>>> communicate with the other users who need help. The only way as
>>> I see it to actually get volunteers to work at Commons is to
>>> build a "community feeling" at commons like in other projects.
>>>
>> You need a community feeling among admins, so they can learn to
>> know and trust each other and collaborate against individual
>> admins who abuse their rights (which surely will happen
>> occasionally).  And you need to foster a community feeling between
>> admins and regular/occasional/beginner users.  But I doubt that
>> the latter is possible.  If it fails, I wouldn't blame you.
>>
> Trust is the key to success in any of these projects.  Presumably the
> current admins on Commons have built that trust among themselves, but to
> the extent of being a closed community,   Aspiring to join a closed
> community requires a person to comply with the norms and standards of
> that closed community until it is satisfied that the supplicant is fully
> compliant.  This strongly discourages any kind of innovative behaviour
> or individuality, and protects the received wisdom of the controllers.
>

Trust is indeed the key. But that trust needs to come from from both
sides. I agree that Commons should work into getting more trusted by
other projects, but it certainly should also work the other way
around, other projects should at least try to get trusted by Commons.
Every once in a while users from other projects come by claiming
"What? Why do you follow the law of XYZ country? That is ridiculous,
we should boycot Commons!" That is certainly not helpful in building
trust. (exaggerated and not specifically pointed at anybody)

I wrote a lot of messages ago that it was all about language. Perhaps
it's not, but it's more about culture and misunderstandings. Some
people do not understand that the rules on their own project are not
universal. Then they get warnings or their images are deleted, and
they get hostile at Commons admins, and Commons admins get hostile at
them and eventually we end up in the current we-versus-them situation.

Perhaps we should step back from making comments like "I try to avoid
Commons at much as possible" and "Your kind of people is exactly what
we don't need on Commons". We don't need this story to become a self
fulfilling prophecy, if it hasn't happened already.


Bryan

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[Teun Spaans]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Platonides <Platonides@...> wrote:

> teun spaans wrote:
> > Many times it works well.
> > But the procedures also irregularly goes amiss.
> >
> > I also received deletion messages of a pic i had uploaded with a correct
> > license. Some wikimedian had accidently removed the license, making a bot
> > come along and warn me. By pure coincidence i happened to come along at
> > commons - sometimes months go by without me dropping in - and was able to
> > restore the license, protest angainst its deletion, and so on.
> > 7 days is awfully short. One easy thing that can be approved is an email
> > instead of a bot message on a talk page.
> >
> > But that wont change the self centered attitude of commonists.
>
> You *will* get an email if have chosen on your Preferences to get an
> email whenever your talk page is modified.
> Having that option available on WMF wikis was pushed from commons
> community, and in fact Commons was one of the first projects where it
> was added. Now it is enabled on all wikis but the big ones.
>
> Thank you, I now have this enabled on commons.
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l@...
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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[Michael Peel-2]

On 13 Dec 2008, at 14:02, Platonides wrote:

> teun spaans wrote:
>> Many times it works well.
>> But the procedures also irregularly goes amiss.
>>
>> I also received deletion messages of a pic i had uploaded with a  
>> correct
>> license. Some wikimedian had accidently removed the license,  
>> making a bot
>> come along and warn me. By pure coincidence i happened to come  
>> along at
>> commons - sometimes months go by without me dropping in - and was  
>> able to
>> restore the license, protest angainst its deletion, and so on.
>> 7 days is awfully short. One easy thing that can be approved is an  
>> email
>> instead of a bot message on a talk page.
>>
>> But that wont change the self centered attitude of commonists.
>
> You *will* get an email if have chosen on your Preferences to get an
> email whenever your talk page is modified.
> Having that option available on WMF wikis was pushed from commons
> community, and in fact Commons was one of the first projects where it
> was added. Now it is enabled on all wikis but the big ones.

 From personal experience, this feature doesn't work reliably. I have  
a fairly large number of items on my watchlist at Commons and on  
Meta, such that there are edits made on average once a day, but I  
only receive the emails about those edits sporadically, and often in  
bursts.

It is still a very useful feature, though. It's a pity that you can't  
have two watchlists on en.wp, such that you can use one to keep an  
eye on articles you're particularly attached to, with the other  
handling all the rest.

Mike

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[Andrew Gray-3]

2008/12/16 Michael Peel <email@...>:

> It is still a very useful feature, though. It's a pity that you can't
> have two watchlists on en.wp, such that you can use one to keep an
> eye on articles you're particularly attached to, with the other
> handling all the rest.

I find that a useful method is to have a subpage of your userspace,
link to every article you care about, and keep an eye on
Special:Recentchangeslinked.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray@...

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[Judson Dunn-2]

This is sort of unrelated, but may be of interest to the people
discussing language issues with search:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/12/cross-language-enterprise-search.html

Google is announcing some cross language searching for enterprise now
anyway, where you might search in one language, and have your query
translated, and search against multiple other languages. Something to
keep an eye on anyway.

Judson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

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