It looks like a solution to bug 4547 is on the horizon.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4547
See also [Wikitech-l] Reasonably efficient interwiki transclusion
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/197322
This will be very useful for templates which Commons has developed,
especially language related templates, however I am concerned that
people are also planning on using Commons as a repo for Wikipedia
infoboxes, and including the *data* on Commons rather than just the
template code. e.g.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Peter17/GSoc_2010#Interest
This centralisation of data makes sense on many levels, however using
Commons as the host of this data will result in many edit wars moving
to the Commons project, involving people from many languages. Even
the infobox structure can be the cause of edit wars.
I think it is undesirable to have these Wikipedia problems added to
Commons existing problems. ;-)
Tying Wikipedia and Commons closer together is also problematic when
we consider the differing audience and scope of each project,
especially in light of the recent media problems. If the core
templates and data used by Wikipedia are hosted/modified on Commons,
it will be more difficult to justify why Commons accepts content which
isn't appropriate on Wikipedia.
A centralised data wiki has been proposed previously, many times:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/historicalhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidatahttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata_%282%29http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiDatabank
Non-WMF projects, such as freebase, dbpedia, etc., have been exploring
this space.
Isn't it time that we started a new project!? ;-)
A wikidata project could use semantic mediawiki from the outset, and
be seeded with data from dbpedia.
A lot of existing & proposed projects would benefit from a centralised
wikidata project. e.g. a genealogy wiki could use the relationships
stored on the wikidata project. wikisource and commons could use the
central data wiki for their Author and Creator details.
--
John Vandenberg
Hi guys,
I keep coming across http://www.addthis.com/ . It's an easy way to share
things on allmost 300 websites.
Would be great if we had something like this on our image pages at Commons.
You click it, select your site where you want to reuse the image and
you're done. Clicking the image should bring you to the image page at
Commons.
This would be a great way to promote reuse of our content!
Maarten
Hoi,
Blogger is the platform I use now for many years to blog about the subjects
that are important in my appreciation of a Wiki world. At first I did not
illustrate my blogposts but thanks to Pfctdayelise I started to pepper my
blog posts with illustrations.
At this moment it is no longer possible for me to upload pictures to
blogger. The message that I get is that I have to ensure that I have a
license for the pictures that I upload. This is true for pictures that I
have downloaded from Commons and cropped, it is for screen shots of the
interaction with the Blogger user interface..
It is possible for me to get pictures displayed when I refer to the upload
page of a Commons picture but that does me no good when it is a svg picture.
Obviously I can download the picture and save it as an png ... but that does
me no good.
There are several "solutions" to this problem. I can upload the png, I can
use Wordpress instead. The obvious solution is for Google to get its act
together.
The solution that I like best is for Commons to become a true repository of
images that is not only intended for the illustration of Wikipedia and its
sister projects but also for the illustration of blogs like mine. Commons is
my first choice for illustrations for my blog but for some topics it just
does not provide me with the illustration that I am looking for.
I think that Commons has already many images that are usable, what would be
needed is just a different kind of pictures or more pictures that are
grouped by subject and easier to find.
Thanks,
GerardM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Farsi.svg The svg I would like to use as a
png
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2010/08/big-boost-for-mediawiki-localis…
blog post that needs an illustration
For the new uploader I'm working on[1], we want it to remember your
previous preferences about what license to use and maybe a few other things.
Here's what I'm thinking about:
- We add a new preference for preferred license.
- If present, this prefills the upload form with a license.
- If absent, no license is prefilled.
- Whatever you pick in this form overwrites the preference. That is,
uploading a file has the side effect of storing a preference for the
next time.
I realize this doesn't capture every edge case, but the point is to get
behaviour that's simple enough that most people can actually use, and
experienced users can work with.
Our main difficulty at this point in the upload form is going to be
about explaining licenses. I don't want to ask them to do understand
something else like "Do you want to keep the same license choice for
next time?" before they've even finished uploading this one. If it turns
out that we have to ask them about this explicitly, I'd rather leave
that to the end of the process.
[1] http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/ -- this is JUST a prototype,
we're changing a lot
--
Neil Kandalgaonkar |) <neilk(a)wikimedia.org>
forwarding because this hits more people than just wikitech-l
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Stojnic <rainmansr(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2010/8/12
Subject: [Wikitech-l] relocating search servers
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi all,
We are currently relocating some servers internally in the datacenter.
As a consequence, search snippets, "did you mean..." and interwiki
search are going to be turned off during this time, and only bare
results shown. This will affect all WMF wikis. I expect, if everything
goes well, that in around 4-5h things are going to go back to normal.
Cheers, Robert
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
--
Huib "Abigor" Laurens
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
G'day all,
I hope it's appropriate to cross-post this to both commons and foundation
lists - it seems so to me, and no doubt if there's a courtesy or practice
I'm unaware of, someone will be kind enough to point it out :-) (rude words
and nasty comments are ok, but it's better if they rhyme.)
Discussions at the meta page where Robert Harris is posing some related
questions is gently dying down -
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_C…
and over on commons we're approaching another poll about whether to adopt
the 'sexual content' policy proposal -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Another_poll.…
What appears to be the largest point of discussion extant is whether or not
media featuring sexual content should contain at least an assertion that all
of the participants consent to the upload / publishing of the material - you
can see some folk arguing that we shouldn't apply such a condition
retrospectively, and maybe not at all -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Automatic_del…
I believe consent is desirable across the board in regard to sexual content,
and would like to see this sort of wording ratified as policy -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Sexual_content&oldid…
The discussions are actually pretty substantial, civil, useful, and
generally better than we've managed in the past, and of course the more
outside views on the matter, the better - so if you're at all inclined to
share your thoughts on the commons specific side of how WMF handles sexual
content, please do pipe up, either ahead of, or as part of the upcoming
poll....
cheers,
Peter,
PM.
