Hello everyone,
We would love to get your feedback on a tool we have been working on:
https://wise.wmcloud.org/
This is a search tool for images and videos on wikimedia. Currently is
searching only on media of the day (approximately 5000 videos). It searches
only the visual content of the file (not on metadata, filename, or
structured data). It also does face detection and recognition.
Please give it a go. Here's some examples:
*Semantic example queries:*
"man at a train station"
"एक व्यक्ति रेलवे स्टेशन पर" (Hindi)
"horse in an airplane"
"విమానంలో గుర్రం" (Telugu)
"man with a flower"
"pirate with a pistol"
*Face search (select "Faces"):*
Click the green "Image" button and paste an image URL
Example inputs:
* https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Charlie_Chaplin.jpg
*
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Neil_Armstrong_pose.jpg
[warning: some videos are ogv videos and your brownser may not play them,
so watch them on Commons, i.e., after clicking the search result, scroll
down to the media metadata table, and follow the link to commons]
*Key features include:*
* Semantic search using natural language to find relevant images on Commons
from the visual content only (not the structured data or description, only
the image itself)
* Face search: upload or paste a face image, and the tool will try to
identify and locate that person across images and videos, including
timestamps where they appear
* Audio search: search within audio files to find relevant segments
* Multilingual search: supports queries in multiple languages
We are actively improving the tool and would really appreciate any
feedback, suggestions, or ideas from the community. Here's some more
immediate future plans:
* Search on all wikimedia images (instead of only videos / media of the day)
* Show similar images when uploading an image to suggest filenames,
categories, and other relevant metadata
More technical details and a place to share feedback at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wise
Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T424092
Announcement on Village pump:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Introducing_WISE%3A…
Regards,
Gopa Vasanth <https://gopavasanth.github.io/>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/gopavasanth1999> | LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/gopa-vasanth/> | GitHub
<https://github.com/gopavasanth> | Gerrit
<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/gopavasanth>
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
Hello everyone,
Following up on the WISE <https://wise.wmcloud.org/> tool's announcement,
we wanted to briefly explain why we are seeking community interest and
support.
At the moment, WISE indexes only “Media of the Day” (~5,000 videos).
Expanding this to cover the full Wikimedia Commons collection (millions of
images) requires significant computational resources, especially
large-scale GPU processing, along with storage and ongoing maintenance.
Before moving in that direction, we want to understand:
- Is this tool useful for the community?
- Should we invest effort and resources to scale it further?
- Are there any concerns we should address first?
If you find WISE useful or promising, you can support or share feedback
here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wise#Community_interest_and_supp…
You can:
- Add your support or comments on the page
- Share use cases or ideas
- Raise any concerns or suggestions
Your input will help guide whether and how we expand WISE further. Thanks
again for your time and feedback.
Wise Tool: https://wise.wmcloud.org/
Regards,
Gopa Vasanth
On Sun, May 3, 2026 at 2:09 AM Vasanth Gopa <gopavasanth1999(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> We would love to get your feedback on a tool we have been working on:
> https://wise.wmcloud.org/
>
> This is a search tool for images and videos on wikimedia. Currently is
> searching only on media of the day (approximately 5000 videos). It searches
> only the visual content of the file (not on metadata, filename, or
> structured data). It also does face detection and recognition.
>
> Please give it a go. Here's some examples:
>
> *Semantic example queries:*
> "man at a train station"
> "एक व्यक्ति रेलवे स्टेशन पर" (Hindi)
> "horse in an airplane"
> "విమానంలో గుర్రం" (Telugu)
> "man with a flower"
> "pirate with a pistol"
>
> *Face search (select "Faces"):*
>
> Click the green "Image" button and paste an image URL
>
> Example inputs:
> * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Charlie_Chaplin.jpg
> *
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Neil_Armstrong_pose.jpg
>
> [warning: some videos are ogv videos and your brownser may not play them,
> so watch them on Commons, i.e., after clicking the search result, scroll
> down to the media metadata table, and follow the link to commons]
>
> *Key features include:*
>
> * Semantic search using natural language to find relevant images on
> Commons from the visual content only (not the structured data or
> description, only the image itself)
> * Face search: upload or paste a face image, and the tool will try to
> identify and locate that person across images and videos, including
> timestamps where they appear
> * Audio search: search within audio files to find relevant segments
> * Multilingual search: supports queries in multiple languages
>
> We are actively improving the tool and would really appreciate any
> feedback, suggestions, or ideas from the community. Here's some more
> immediate future plans:
>
> * Search on all wikimedia images (instead of only videos / media of the
> day)
> * Show similar images when uploading an image to suggest filenames,
> categories, and other relevant metadata
>
> More technical details and a place to share feedback at
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wise
> * Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T424092
> * Announcement on Village pump:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Introducing_WISE%3A…
> Regards,
>
> Gopa Vasanth <https://gopavasanth.github.io/>
> Twitter <https://twitter.com/gopavasanth1999> | LinkedIn
> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/gopa-vasanth/> | GitHub
> <https://github.com/gopavasanth> | Gerrit
> <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/gopavasanth>
>
> “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
>
>
--
Regards,
Gopa Vasanth <https://gopavasanth.github.io/>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/gopavasanth1999> | LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/gopa-vasanth/> | GitHub
<https://github.com/gopavasanth> | Gerrit
<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/gopavasanth>
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
Hi everyone,
I am so pleased to finally announce the winners for this year's Picture of
the Year contest! We had some truly incredible finalists to choose from,
but the community has spoken.
Here are your top three winning images:
🥇 First Place: Damage in the Gaza Strip
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Damage_in_Gaza_Strip_during_the_Oct…
🥈 Second Place: Baby cape fur seal sleeping at Cape Cross
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:014_Baby_cape_fur_seal_sleeping_at_…
🥉 Third Place: Gigantic jet photographed from the International Space
Station
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gigantic_jet_photographed_by_Nichol…
You can view the full results and see where all your favorite images placed
here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2025/Results…
I also want to highlight what an incredible turnout we had. In the second
round, we saw a massive jump in both the number of users voting and the
total votes cast. We had exactly 13,979 votes cast by 3,509 users! To put
that in perspective, last year we had 7,403 votes from 2,837 users. It is
amazing to see that level of growth and community engagement.
Thank you to everyone who voted, helped organize, and generally made the
contest such a huge success this year.
Regards,
User:ZI Jony
POTY Commitee
Hello,
Over the last few months the Global GLAM Calls
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_GLAM_calls> have grown
significantly! This month in April there were more than 100 registrations,
and 50 attendees on the call. This is incredible!
All this is thanks to your contribution, curiosity, and continued
engagement with culture, heritage, and Wikimedia projects.
In case you missed the call the recording is already available
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-04-28> on
Commons. The topics, presenters, and documents, are also neatly organized
in Metabase <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Item:Q43731> for easy
search and reference.
But now’s the time to build out the agendas for the coming months. Do you
have a topic you’d like to present on or have a request for? Send it to the
organizers via the request form
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_GLAM_Calls/Topic_Requests> on
Meta-wiki.
In 2026 there’s special focus on topics from the Strategic Pillars (Small
GLAMs, Minority Languages, Robust Technical Infrastructure, and Community
(mental) Health, and GLAM Recognition) but all kinds of presentations and
discussions are welcome.
Registration for the May call
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-05-26> is
already open, though the agenda is not 100% ready. See you online!
All the best,
Connor
