Commons-l December 2007

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

49 participants
35 discussions

seasonal cards
by wayne 22 Dec '07

22 Dec '07

> >Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:13:52 +1100 >From: Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [Commons-l] Commons greetings cards >This spun off from a different discussion elsewhere, but I was >wondering about the possibility of printing Christmas cards based on >images from Commons. Maybe a partnership with a printing company could >be made for next year's fundraiser? (I'd buy them!) > >Angela Hi all, I mentioned several months ago that I was publishing a series of greeting cards and postcards, of which the postcard series is begun with 18 in the first run. One photo is used and creditied to Commons and I have permissions from a couple of Users: to publish their photography as postcards. I was thinking of using sales to help support Wikimedia and Wikipedia for those particular ones. As far as religions etc and not supporting any one particular avenue of thought and remaining unbiased, I am sure some disclaimer or wording can be put on the cards that would please the masses and the nay sayers. Hey ? Commons Sense Cards, now there's a name. Wayne Ray

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Commons Picture of the Year 2007 - Please help checking/translating/testing
by Bryan Tong Minh 21 Dec '07

21 Dec '07

Thanks to many translators, the Commons Picture of the Year 2007 has been translated into many languages [1]. If you have any time, you can help by filling in the missing translations and check the current translations. Also the software could use some additional testing. See [2]. If you have an account on other wikis than Commons, please try out the software with that account. Thank you, Bryan * [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2007/Translat… * [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2007/Voting

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Commons in the CAPTCHA Hall of Shame
by Brianna Laugher 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

http://www.pineight.com/rant/captcha/ Commons is listed under "confusing examples": Wikimedia Commons links to Special:Captcha which mentions (but does not obviously link to) Commons:Contact us which links to Commons:Help desk, which permits anonymous posting. (Some other Wikimedia sites, such as English language Wiktionary, use the same CAPTCHA. The English language Wikipedia does not use a CAPTCHA at all.) Presumably they're referring to signing up for a new account. (I think captchas are also triggered when anon users introduce new external links.) Can anyone confirm or deny that enwp doesn't have the same captcha?? I thought all WMF projects had the same one now? cheers Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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Üdvözlet
by Vezér János 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

Nagyon kellemes KARÁCSONYT és boldog Új Esztendőt kívánok minde n wiki-ző barátunknak, erőt, egészséget, munkahelyet, sikereket a z életben : öregJani _________________________________________ Éhes vagy? Internetes ételrendelés, egyszerűen, házhozszállít ással! Pizzák, hamburgerek, saláták, stb.... Minden egy helyen! KLI KK IDE!

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Rotator and cropper bot
by Florian Straub 15 Dec '07

15 Dec '07

Hi there, thanks to Luxo, we now have a bot that rotates pictures (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rotatebot). This is really great. Could we maybe also create a bot, that allows people to crop images online? Blog software like http://www.s9y.org/ and http://www.pivotlog.net is already able that. Maybe we can gpl some code from them ... What do you think? Do we need such a need? Can we create such a thing? Do we maybe already have such a thing? Best regards, Flo

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Re: [Commons-l] Racism in Commons
by Monahon, Peter B. 12 Dec '07

12 Dec '07

> Earlier: "...I think we should just use common sense. In all honesty, I think that we should allow most non threatening materials which would not spark largescale anger - don't forget the commons motto which if I remember is something like "a database of freely usable media files - not a database of educational Materials"..." Peter Blaise responds: Great advice, but "common" is such an uncommon thing! Especially in the "Commons"! The reference to things "common" for me is based on the US Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and so on. What's "common" mean to you? "Non threatening" and "not spark large scale anger" have never been criteria in any of my "common sense" references. I think of the struggles to garner religious and personal freedoms, children's rights, women's rights, the rights of people of color, the rights of people with disabilities, abandoning caste systems ... all these come about through much threatening and sparking large scale anger, right? Also, on the Internet, ONE single, solo person can dominate a group, good or bad, and "look" like a "large scale" situation, so the term "large scale" is almost impossible to accurately and unambiguously quantify, and base policy on, even though it sounds nice. It even smacks of "appeasing the bully" in trying to placate someone's manifest anger. I don't think anger's a good or bad thing. It's just part and parcel of some people's gyrations, thought process, and sharing, and is part of the flow of things. After all, it's only a mailing list, and these are only words! Anger is in the eye of the beholder, right? ARGH! Is my writing "ARGH" anger, or frustration, or irony, or submission, or ridicule, or teasing ... or what? It's just words. It doesn't matter. Go with the flow! Same with pictures. It's just pictures. And words. Read 'em. Or not. Respond. Or not. Move on. Or not. I think that's all I'm encouraging the originator of this thread (copied below), to do. Those cartoons? Read 'em (or not) just like the rest of us, and move on (or not). Vivisecting political cartoons have been around since politicians have been around. > Earlier: "... [photo Gallery page] ... in commons includes ... cartoons [presumably that express a point of view] ... Commons does not have a NPOV policy ..." Peter Blaise responds: I have another observation: what are "Galleries" for in the first place? Shouldn't the Commons be the one place where Categories themselves reign supreme? If I want to find all resources in Commons on any topic, such as "Ariel Sharon", why have a hand-selected Gallery of not all Commons resources, when an all inclusive search by Category would be a more honest reflection of the true Commons contents? Sadly, those cartoons are not even objectively categorized by content. They appear to have been assessed by type over content: Category:Caricatures of ... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Caricatures_of_Ariel_Sharon So, although the intention of the original poster in this thread was to filter Commons contents by their own criteria, I see it has revealed that there are already too many filters on the Commons, and the "Categories" feature us waay underutilized. I think Categories should be expanded to include anything salient and relevant that EXIF and IPTC Metadata would include.

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Re: [Commons-l] Commons-l Digest, Vol 31, Issue 13
by Durova 11 Dec '07

11 Dec '07

> > > Hi folks, > > I noticed something interesting today: the daily-image-l mailing list > [1] now has 1001 subscribers. It was started in late February 2007, so > in less than a year it has picked up all those people. Pretty cool I > think. > Does that make me the lucky lady? I subscribed yesterday. Hi all. Hola. Tag. Bonjour. Einmal hatte ich Fluenz in Deutsch, aber selten kann diese Sprache Mann in Californien praktizieren. Este es mi lengua tercera. Es mas utíl en ciudad San Diego. -Durova

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daily-image-l now has > 1000 subscribers
by Brianna Laugher 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

Hi folks, I noticed something interesting today: the daily-image-l mailing list [1] now has 1001 subscribers. It was started in late February 2007, so in less than a year it has picked up all those people. Pretty cool I think. For those who don't know, this mailing list is kind of for people who are NOT Wikimedians but still maybe interested in getting a free pretty picture each day. So each day they get a mail with a link to the image, license info, and captions in as many languages as provided. I had a quick look over the membership list to see what language interface (for mailman) people had used to subscribe. There are 24 different languages! The mailing list is linked on the Commons English main page, and maybe a dozen or two other language main pages[2], but certainly not all of them. I started counting the totals for each language subscription but it was a bit tedious so I only got about halfway through. ;) Nonetheless here are some trends: - Spanish was by far the most used language after English. - Other highly used languages were French, German, Chinese. - really surprising: Japanese only had one subscriber [surprising because ja.wp is the 5th largest Wikipedia, but I think the link is not on the Japanese main page] - Polish was also seemingly underrepresented To see the variety of languages used is really heartening, both for Commons and also for the general open source translator community! These are the languages Mailman supports now: [3] How to add a new language translation: [4] How to add translations of the Commons POTD captions: go to [5] and start clicking on redlinks and filling out ones you know :) The growth in subscribers to this list also says to me that there is a lot of fairly passive interest in Wikimedia projects that we perhaps don't capture too well. Any project can start this kind of list: there is "daily-article-l" for English Wikipedia and there could be for other languages too. Just suggest the idea to your community, get some support, make a bugzilla request for the new list, and either set up a script to automatically mail the content each day, or do it by hand yourself. If your wiki already has some kind of "daily content" then it is not too hard to do. cheers, Brianna [1]: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-image-l [2]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&target=li… [3]: http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/Languages [4]: http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/i18nhowto [5]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_day

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Re: [Commons-l] Racism in Commons
by Monahon, Peter B. 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

> Earlier: "... The important question[s] > then, [are,] are we displaying images that > people find offensive in spite of the fact > that the get offended, or are we > displaying them because of the fact > they get offended? If it is the latter, we > have a moral obligation to take them > down, and question our own ethics. If > it is the former, we have a duty to > remain uncensored ... I fear that these > cartoons in question (the ones of > Sharon) fit squarely into the latter ..." Peter Blaise responds: I disagree. Two points. 1 - Ignore the perceived content of the images, then make your decision to keep them or not. 2 - After we make the decision to keep them regardless of perceived content, I disagree about the perceived content. More to the third point raised above: I find none of them provocative for the sake of being provocative ... though, there is nothing wrong and censorable or censurable about being provocative for the sake of being provocative. Just as there is nothing actionable about being funny for the sake of being funny, or being ironic for the sake of being ironic, or being ... you get my point, I hope. "But, he is being offensive, the images themselves are offensive!" BS Offence is in the eye of the beholder. If Joe Muslim does not what to sin by making a graven image of Mohamed, then let Joe Muslim not sin by not making a graven image of Mohamed. What does that have to do with me making one, or enjoying someone else's? Many of Latuff's images strike me as ridiculing people who themselves strike me as ridiculous by their own behavior and words. That's just my take. I've seen the pictures, and I can't imagine how anyone subsequent to me would be damaged if I seem to be able to see them without being damaged myself. Censorship is such hypocrisy: "I can see these but you can't"?!? See web places like http://www.anis-online.de/1/rooms/latuff/likud.htm for well exercised dialog on this particular topic. For the general topic, see web resources such as a Google [censorship pictures] search. 737,000 results. But here, what do we say? How about: "Dear Joe Muslim (and Larry Hebrew/Jew, Heather Christian, Ben Hindu, and so on ...), Thank you for asking me to join your personal choices, but I decline. I do not accept the choices you've made for yourself as choices I make for myself, and I accept no authority but the authority we the people continually build together for the unity, justice, tranquility, defense, welfare, and liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Yada yada, so on and so forth. The end. Case closed. ... until someone else comes along and wants to quash each other's contributions to the community. Instead of: "Caution, some people might find images in this collection offensive!" ... let's try: "Caution, we have found that some people seem to be immature and unable to manage themselves when they feel surprised, provoked, or offended. If you are one of those, then enjoy your own personal rage in response to some of the pictures inside, but please do not ask us over and over to take the images down - such requests to remove legitimate contributions that fulfill the purpose of commons will get the same "NO" response as previous requests. Thank you for visiting, and try to enjoy your day and yourself anyway. We are." http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mba/lowres/mban1608 l.jpg

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Re: [Commons-l] Metadata and Professional usage of Commons photographs
by Monahon, Peter B. 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

EXIF is not IPTC metadata - see http://www.exif.org/ versus http://www.iptc.org/photometadata/ and so on. Let's open a can of worms! No ... let's write an extension to, or core for, MediaWiki that only permits successful image upload when all metadata is filled in on a web-form during submission, and that form's blanks get: (a) automatically read from metadata within images that already have it at the time of upload; and / or (b) gets that metadata inserted by the end user / submitter for any data that is missing; and (c) contemporaneous data gets inserted, such as IP and date and user ID. I have my camera automatically put "peterblaise.com" in the EXIF of my images immediately during the making of even the latent image (that's when my copyright happens), but many image converters strip out EXIF and IPTC metadata. Many people superimpose their copyright IN the image fascia, but cropping or cloning can remove that, and too overwhelming a copyright notice changes the image and often makes it purposeless. Rather than contact you with a credit card (are you even ready?) for a non-watermarked copy, and await your response, they will move on to a non-watermarked image. The world's most popular free Google Picasa strips metadata at the time of export and replaces it with "Picasa" in the "Byline:"! That newspaper should never have published that image without having, and being able to provide on demand, an audit trail of it's origins. If Joe Reader sent it in, then the newspaper should have that audit trail, and then Joe Reader is the one to sue (civil) for compensation, and also complain to the authorities (criminal) for prosecution. If the newspaper uses Picasa and just publishes anything it wants, it should be confronted on both civil and criminal counts. Back at ya: Q: How can any of us prove the picture was ours before someone else publishes it? A: http://www.copyright.gov/register/visual.html -- Q: How to insert IPTC metadata in our image files before distribution? A: http://www.photools.com/ and hundreds of other controlled vocabulary IPTC-compatible software - see also http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/ -- So, cc: wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org is anyone up for developing an extension or core code to make MediaWiki accurately handle such MEDIA as photography and images with EXIT and IPTC metadata? Sound recordings can't be far behind. Spoken work and music are ripe for cataloging wiki-style. Will it be MEDIAWiki style? cc: also to http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=testimonial

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Commons-l December 2007