Hoi,<br>When people who speak no English, they will not benefit from Commons. People who do not speak English are not able to find useful images on Commons. As a consequence there are several Wikipedia projects that do not promote the use of Commons. When you combine it with "drive by deletionism" I find the arguments against using Commons persuasive.<br>
Thanks,<br> GerardM<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2008/12/6 Lars Aronsson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lars@aronsson.se">lars@aronsson.se</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
I'm a man, I'm a C/UNIX programmer since 1986, I speak English,<br>
I've been on Wikipedia since May 2001, I have 4,000 edits on the<br>
English Wikipedia, 27,000 on the Swedish Wikipedia, and 1,500 on<br>
Wikimedia Commons; in 2005 I introduced page scanning on<br>
Wikisource. I don't claim to be better than you, I'm just saying<br>
that I'm not a complete newcomer. And yet, my user talk page on<br>
Commons is full of deletion requests. I occasionally contribute a<br>
lot to Commons, but in between I might be away for a few months,<br>
often long enough for deletions to go through.<br>
<br>
The idea that I might be a stable, long time contributor, well<br>
versed in copyright law and GNU and CC licences, fully able to<br>
take legal responsibility for what I have uploaded, hasn't<br>
occurred to the people posting these deletion requests. Instead,<br>
images are deleted 7 days after the warning is posted. This is<br>
completely equal and democratic, in the worst sense: Loyal<br>
veterans get the same treatment as anonymous drive-by vandals.<br>
<br>
Sometimes the deletion requests are anonymous. Sometimes the<br>
conclusion is that the request was invalid because the image was<br>
perfectly legitimate. But I don't see the requestor being punished<br>
for this. In the last year or two, the community culture on<br>
Commons has made this kind of drive-by-deletion-request something<br>
normal. When I pointed out to another user that she needed to<br>
explain why some images should be deleted, *I* was told to behave.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LA2" target="_blank">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LA2</a><br>
<br>
<br>
The Swedish Wikipedia is among those that no longer allows image<br>
uploads, because everything should go on Commons. This means we<br>
are recruiting Swedish newcomers to join Commons and upload their<br>
images there. These are not programmers. They don't always speak<br>
English. They might be afraid of technology, and think that<br>
anything that goes wrong is their fault. (Yes, this includes<br>
women and older people.) Still, we want them to contribute<br>
because they might have unique pictures to share. Typically, if<br>
they are helped to set up a user account, the user interface at<br>
Commons will be set to Swedish.<br>
<br>
One person who is not a newcomer, but a computer user pioneer in<br>
his field since the 1980s, is Sven Rosborn, archaeologist and<br>
manager of the viking museum at Foteviken in southern Sweden. He<br>
has contributed dozens of his own photos and maps. He was a<br>
speaker at the Wikipedia Academy conference in Sweden some weeks<br>
ago. He does speak English, only perhaps not as eagerly as I. He<br>
is not a programmer. His user talk page is also full of deletion<br>
requests. Two months after the fact, he enters and anwers in<br>
Swedish that these are his own self-made images and maps. But<br>
then the result of the request is already "the media was deleted".<br>
<br>
<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sven_Rosborn" target="_blank">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sven_Rosborn</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Both myself and Sven are people who don't give up easily on<br>
Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons. We could take a lot of<br>
mistreatment. But what about the real newcomers?<br>
<br>
With the current behaviour of the Wikimedia Commons community, I<br>
find it pointless to try to recruit new contributors. It would be<br>
like pouring water into a bucket with a hole. This hole needs to<br>
mended first. So, how do we do that?<br>
<br>
How do others manage to recruit newcomers to Wikimedia Commons?<br>
Are there any success stories in public outreach on Commons?<br>
<br>
<br>
If a user only contributes to the Swedish Wikipedia and has the<br>
Swedish language user interface setting on Wikimedia Commons, then<br>
why should their user talk page receive image deletion requests in<br>
English? Some of these template messages have links to<br>
translations in other languages, but that is an awkward solution.<br>
Will the requestor be able to read the user's answer in Swedish?<br>
Shouldn't it be possible to assign Swedish speaking admins to<br>
patroll contributions by Swedish speaking newcomers? That's how<br>
it would work if all images were uploaded directly to the Swedish<br>
Wikipedia. And the reason we moved images to Commons is not<br>
because we wanted to confront our newcomers with English messages<br>
or admins who fail to speak Swedish.<br>
<br>
Maybe we should turn the system around, so our Swedish newcomers<br>
can upload images to the Swedish Wikipedia, where they are<br>
patrolled by Swedish speaking admins. Then, the patrolled images<br>
can be automatically forwarded to Commons, instead of the other<br>
way around. Even though this would require software development,<br>
this seems a lot easier than trying to manage the admin community<br>
on Commons.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Lars Aronsson (<a href="mailto:lars@aronsson.se">lars@aronsson.se</a>)<br>
Aronsson Datateknik - <a href="http://aronsson.se" target="_blank">http://aronsson.se</a><br>
<br>
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