Commons-l

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2055 discussions

Mayflower: Wikimedia Commons media search
by Tangotango 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

On 2/13/07, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Fantastic. It would probably be useful to include the image page > wikitext in the result.. even if it lowered the density of the > results. Unfortunately, that's not currently possible due to the structure of the index... (it only stores words and a reference to the pages on which that word can be found) However, an extension version of this tool would be able to do that, as can Special:Search. > should have a "Images and other content are copyright their respective > owners" or the like. :) Fixed :) Thanks for pointing that out. Cheers, Tangotango

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Re: [Commons-l] ogg/flac
by bawolff 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

sorry, I get this in digest mode. I didn't realize someone already said that -bawolff >In response to: >Message: 1 >Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:10:42 +0100 >From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> >Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Sound files >To: commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, "The Wiktionary > (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" > <wiktionary-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> >Message-ID: <45CEC172.4070608(a)gmail.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > >>Hoi, >>I read this in digest mode so let me answer things together. >> >>The reason why .ogg files are not great is because indeed it is a lossy >>algorithm. There is some great software to analyse pronunciation files; >>a program called "praat" is worth mentioning it is even licensed under >>GPL. There is even functionality in there to do with IPA transcription. >>Gregory's proposal to use Ogg/FLAC is not helpfull. This is not the >>format that is used to analyse pronunciation files. The notion that a >>specific quality was "the gold standard" at the time is indeed that. It >>used to be, times have changed. >>The Shtooka program that we are talking about CAN create both a WAV and >>an OGG file. It just needs asking. It would be helpful if we learn >>sooner rather than later what the outcome is of this request. >>Thanks, >> GerardM >Umm, so what's stoping you from converting it back to wav? ogg/FLAC is >completely lossless, so no information will be lost. >bawolff

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Ogg/flac
by bawolff 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

In response to: Message: 1 Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:10:42 +0100 From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Sound files To: commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" <wiktionary-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <45CEC172.4070608(a)gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Hoi, I read this in digest mode so let me answer things together. The reason why .ogg files are not great is because indeed it is a lossy algorithm. There is some great software to analyse pronunciation files; a program called "praat" is worth mentioning it is even licensed under GPL. There is even functionality in there to do with IPA transcription. Gregory's proposal to use Ogg/FLAC is not helpfull. This is not the format that is used to analyse pronunciation files. The notion that a specific quality was "the gold standard" at the time is indeed that. It used to be, times have changed. The Shtooka program that we are talking about CAN create both a WAV and an OGG file. It just needs asking. It would be helpful if we learn sooner rather than later what the outcome is of this request. Thanks, GerardM Umm, so what's stoping you from converting it back to wav? ogg/FLAC is completely lossless, so no information will be lost. bawolff

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Re: [Commons-l] Sound files
by Gerard Meijssen 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

Hoi, I read this in digest mode so let me answer things together. The reason why .ogg files are not great is because indeed it is a lossy algorithm. There is some great software to analyse pronunciation files; a program called "praat" is worth mentioning it is even licensed under GPL. There is even functionality in there to do with IPA transcription. Gregory's proposal to use Ogg/FLAC is not helpfull. This is not the format that is used to analyse pronunciation files. The notion that a specific quality was "the gold standard" at the time is indeed that. It used to be, times have changed. The Shtooka program that we are talking about CAN create both a WAV and an OGG file. It just needs asking. It would be helpful if we learn sooner rather than later what the outcome is of this request. Thanks, GerardM

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Fwd: Share-Alike with images
by Erik Moeller 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

This is a discussion from cc-licenses, the Creative Commons mailing list, that might be of interest to some. See the thread here: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2007-February/004960.html I've also asked Larry Lessig for his thoughts on the matter. I think that if we cannot achieve this with CC-BY-SA, it may be necessary to create a stronger copyleft license that does. But the answer isn't clear yet, and it might be helpful if some Wikimedians weigh in on the discussion. Mailing list subscription info: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Feb 9, 2007 4:44 AM Subject: Fwd: Share-Alike with images To: lessig(a)pobox.com Hello Larry, I have received no clear response to this on the cc-licenses mailing list. It would be helpful to discuss this a bit. If CC doesn't want to explicitly make copyleft apply to, e.g., the combination of an article and an image, it might be useful to create a separate, stronger copyleft license for this purpose. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Feb 5, 2007 3:01 AM Subject: Share-Alike with images To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses(a)lists.ibiblio.org> The Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license currently states: "For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical composition or sound recording, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ('synching') will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License." This is cool and helps to clarify copyleft in the context of music. What about the case where a photo is used in a newspaper or encyclopedia article? Like a musical piece in a movie, there is a clear semantic relationship between the two; one is directly enriched in its meaning by the other. I think the license is currently ambiguous about such uses. However, I think it would be clearly in line with the copyleft philosophy to demand free licensing of the combined whole in such a case (not in the case of mere aggregation within e.g. a collection of photos where there's no semantic relationship between them). In my discussions with photographers, I've found that many use NC licenses because they worry about commercial exploitation of their works. If we could clarify copyleft in the context of images, many of these fears could be alleviated. The simple fact is that a photo by itself is not likely to be modified much, especially if it's of very high quality to begin with. That's why I think it's important that we establish a clear and unambiguous reciprocity when images are used in larger works. Perhaps the movie-specific phrase in the current SA license text could be generalized: "For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is semantically combined with another (a film with time-synchronized music, an article with pictures, and so on), the combined Work will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this license." I don't think the "Collective Work" portion would need to be modified, as it already speaks of "separate and independent" works, which would be clarified by a phrase like the above. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Vision for Commons, 2007
by Brianna Laugher 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

Hello, Although 2007 is already 1/12 over, there's no reason we can't still think about what we'd like to achieve in the remaining 11/12 of it. :) This has two parts - my hopes for 2007 (medium-term future), and my hopes for the next 3-5 years (long-term, or still medium?). Here are some things I would like to see Commons achieve or continue to do, for 2007. * Continue its aggressive approach to multilinguality. By this I mean actively seeking out translations and translators, rather than passively waiting for whoever feels like it to translate whatever they feel like. This also refers to making sure the most vital pages (policy, newbie guides, signup process) are translated, and making an effort to communicate with users in their preferred language (for example, by asking a bilingual admin to work with them). * Continue its relaxed and welcoming approach to new administrators. Our current attitude is doing a good job of attracting reliable admins. By 'reliable' I mean: I can't recall any case where a month after sysopping someone, we have had reason to doubt that decision. (Or even any length of time, really...) We have also shown respect for users' local experience and there are many cases where a 'image warrior' on a local project has gained adminship at Commons - not *because* of that, but it certainly helps. (I like to think such folk would be successful without the inevitable flood of local project voters such cases usually attract. :)) * Improve clarity and appropriateness of help documentation, and consolidate information on a topic in one area. This is always tricky in a wiki environment, because of the dispersed and usually undriven approach (whoever feels like writing something writes it, as opposed to something being ordered to written because it is needed). But it's something we need to keep reviewing and checking. Consolidating our help files is useful because it decreases the translation needs, and it decreases the potential for conflicting information to exist. The number of users who clearly ignore or don't understand our requirements shows that this needs constant improvement. We have to concentrate on finding SUCCINCT and clear ways to express ourselves. I would suggest that Special:Upload as it stands, needs to be rewritten again. I don't know exactly how. But this is a constant process. For a start, I would like to see us emphasise and separate help files for people contributing their own work. There is no reason these people really need to look at Commons:Licensing and get so scared (or worse, ignore it). For these people, who are our BEST USERS, because they are typically contributing original, unique, exclusive work, we really need to make their lives easy. I suggest we start by writing a guide [[Commons:Contributing your own work]]. * Continue to develop quality review mechanisms, and highlight high-quality work. The development of [[Commons:Quality Images]] is a great one I think, and I hope mechanisms like this continue to grow. [[Commons:Picture of the Year]] is also proving very successful which is fantastic. One area we are possibly lacking in is in pushing our high quality stuff back out to wikis. It is easy to miss this small %age which is our best of the best. We can promote this stuff by perhaps organising more translations, organising a weekly/monthly newsletter out to wikis that lists these images and suggests possible uses, ...? how else? * Reach out to local Wikimedia wikis and actively promote "Commons only" upload policies. Switching to Commons only has massive benefits for both the local wiki (hugely reduced maintenance burden) and us (new contributions). But we all know now that preparation is required to make the transition a success. WE need language-speaking active admins; THEY need to promote Commons policy beforehand and attempt to educate their users as much as possible before the switch. I suggest we create a guide [[Commons:Turning off local uploads]] (or choose another name) to smooth the path for wikis who want to go down this road. We can offer tips from the ES.wp and PT.wp cases (is there another?? I have a feeling there was but I can't remember it, maybe SV.wb?). Maybe one of the steps will be a small group (even one?) of volunteers from the local wiki making contact with a small group of volunteers from Commons, and both groups committing to work together to move to Commons only uploads (community approval pending, of course). For example the Commons person can look for existing language speakers and encourage them to become admins or translate, and identify key pages for translating. I suggest we also start finding out more about the new-wiki creation process, and get involved with groups there, to encourage groups to consider starting their wiki with "Commons only" uploads from the very start. Also, it should be a much easier task to convert non-Wikipedia projects, where there is already a large number of that language admins. For example: EN, DE, ES, FR, NL?, PL. Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity. Some thirty-odd projects there that we already have the capacity to deal with, were they to turn off local uploads. * Adopt a simple-to-use media rating system. Having a star-rating system (a la Youtube) on all Image: pages would be an incredibly simple way to quickly amass information on media quality. Imagine how useful it would be to view a category ordered by average star rating - a very simple and effective filter. http://www.wikihow.com/WikiHow:RateArticle-Extension should be able to be developed towards this purpose. I'm not sure we'd be able to get it adopted within 11 months, but I hope we should make some progress towards putting this on the radar for the developers. * Continue to push local projects to adopt CommonsTickers. Related to several points above. Vital tool for inter-project harmony! * SUL implemented. (bug 57) We don't have anything to do with this, but it will be a major improvement for us of course. * Introduce user recognition system. We are all volunteers, but there's no reason we can't develop an award system that aims to recognise the time-intensive effort and/or outstandingly high-quality contributions that longterm users have made. The benefits of such a system are two-fold: they give the contributors in question tangible, public and formal recognition of their efforts, which thanks and encourages them; and it offers concrete examples to other users of what kind of conduct is appreciated and needed. I have started writing about this on my user page, but I have some more ideas in my head, that I hope the community will welcome when I finally write them down. :) Here are some things that I hope Commons can achieve over the next 3-5 years. * FileStore implemented This will allow image moving/renaming (bug 709), and extension-free image names (I think). * Core functionality integrated into native MediaWiki. ** Bulk uploading (bug 488) ** User galleries (bug id?) ** CheckUsage (bug 1394) ** Automatic transfer of images from local projects to Commons (automatic as in when requested by admins) (bug 5283) * Some progress towards resolution of galleries/categories into one tool. (bug 3712) * Some progress in multilingual support for categories (bug 3311, 5638) * Some degree of press recognition and fame :) We have a great project, let's get it out there! How can we promote it? I noticed my newspaper now runs about 6 blogs, and the bloggers regularly use photos from Flickr. One recently was 'licensed under a Creative Commons license' and I went and checked the Flickr page, and it actually said 'All rights reserved'. So I left a comment on the blog to that effect, and with links to two lovely photos from Commons. they didn't publish my comment, but the blogger emailed me to say thanks. :) there's no awareness out there! Why are we a fantastic media archive? * All media free to use however you like in any publication, with minimal conditions * Huge range, constantly being expanded * Multilingual access (potentially...) * High quality original contributions found nowhere else on the web, especially in the SVG field * Useful specific descriptions and annotations (this is totally missing from all stock photography archives I've seen) * ... Comments on any of this, or further ideas or hopes are always welcome, of course. regards Brianna user:pfctdayelise

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Sound files
by Gerard Meijssen 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Hoi, A lot of wiktionarians are involved in recording pronunciations at the moment. At issue is that pronunciations that are recorded for scientific purposes are universally saved as wav files. Given that with the shtooka software we can record vast amounts of pronunciations, it is a waste to destroy something that can have an incredible value because of an insistence on .ogg files. I would urge us to allow for the recording in .wav files in order to ensure that this data keeps its relevance for scientific usage. Thanks, GerardM

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Wikinews (en) and commons (RE: pfctdayelise's post)
by bawolff 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

>* Continue to develop quality review mechanisms, and highlight >high-quality work. >The development of [[Commons:Quality Images]] is a great one I think, >and I hope mechanisms like this continue to grow. [[Commons:Picture of >the Year]] is also proving very successful which is fantastic. >One area we are possibly lacking in is in pushing our high quality >stuff back out to wikis. It is easy to miss this small %age which is >our best of the best. We can promote this stuff by perhaps organising >more translations, organising a weekly/monthly newsletter out to wikis >that lists these images and suggests possible uses, ...? how else? you are aware that some projects (french wikipedia to name one) use The commons featured pictures as their featured pictures. Maybe you should try to encourage more to. >* Reach out to local Wikimedia wikis and actively promote "Commons >only" upload policies. >Switching to Commons only has massive benefits for both the local wiki >(hugely reduced maintenance burden) and us (new contributions). But we >all know now that preparation is required to make the transition a >success. WE need language-speaking active admins; THEY need to promote >Commons policy beforehand and attempt to educate their users as much >as possible before the switch. >I suggest we create a guide [[Commons:Turning off local uploads]] (or >choose another name) to smooth the path for wikis who want to go down >this road. We can offer tips from the ES.wp and PT.wp cases (is there >another?? I have a feeling there was but I can't remember it, maybe >SV.wb?). >Maybe one of the steps will be a small group (even one?) of volunteers >from the local wiki making contact with a small group of volunteers >from Commons, and both groups committing to work together to move to >Commons only uploads (community approval pending, of course). For >example the Commons person can look for existing language speakers and >encourage them to become admins or translate, and identify key pages >for translating. >I suggest we also start finding out more about the new-wiki creation >process, and get involved with groups there, to encourage groups to >consider starting their wiki with "Commons only" uploads from the very >start. >Also, it should be a much easier task to convert non-Wikipedia >projects, where there is already a large number of that language >admins. For example: EN, DE, ES, FR, NL?, PL. Wikinews, Wiktionary, >Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity. Some thirty-odd >projects there that we already have the capacity to deal with, were >they to turn off local uploads. [note the following starts at the beginning of wikinews history. some of it does not represent current opinions] This is the main reason I'm writing. The English Wikinews (IMHO) is drifting in the opposite direction of those goals. I don't know how many people remember this, but originally, we were started with local uploads turned off. General opinion was fairly strong for commons at the start (I believe, I'm getting this from archived pages so i might misinterpret). On the original proposal page, Angela said, "I strongly suggest that image uploads are turned off on the Wikinews site to encourage use of the Commons, which is an excellent place for the resources that Wikinews will use." http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikinews&oldid=482574#Imag… However We did turn on image uploads for fair use and some restricted images eventually. (Which is a good thing IMO for fair use and the likes, as long as we keep away from free stuff (which we didn't)) Everything is happy, but then some images at commons start to go missing or be substantially edited. Wikinews is not like other wikimedia projects in we like to make our content and lock it away. No one cares about what happened two years ago, so the article should stay fixed. so when Images start to go away it annoyed people. Anyways, some people got mad at Commons ( http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews_talk:Image_use_policy&old… ) and we started to upload "free" media to wikinews. Eventually people got really mad up to the point ( http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Bots&oldid=339247 ) where we tried to get a bot to more or less cut commons out of the loop. Although the vote technically passed (about 5-1), but Eloquence managed to convince us otherwise so it never happened. Anyways after that, most images got uploaded to wikinews locally. Slowly opinion of commons got better. Today there is not really any active anti-commons feelings. Mostly because commons has became a lot nicer. (pfctdayelise especially helped get commons in people's good books again imho). People no longer delete stuff whilly nilly, and if they do, they can always undelete. However there's still not a great deal of pro-commons feelings. When I first came to wikinews, the general opinion was, "if its free, you better be sure to upload to commons". Now a days its, "if you want to you can, but don't go out of your way". I should probably start uploading our free images to commons (Most of them are well categorized and sourced), but its not exactly at the top of my priority list (My current priority is to bug the crap out of people who didn't source their (locally uploaded) images) Also it currently doesn't help that we don't have a commons ticker on wikinews. It was disabled because the page got too long, and updates kept failing, which is my fault because i didn't archive it enough, mostly because I didn't get through it all. However it was still very useful (or even the deleted template [[commons:template:Used On Wikinews]] would be quite useful in combination of related changes. Another thing that might be of help, is to have a special upload page for wikinews. ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/special:upload?uselang=wikinews ) There are some things for wikinews that don't apply elsewhere, and it'd be good to have a custom page. >* Continue to push local projects to adopt CommonsTickers. >Related to several points above. Vital tool for inter-project harmony! ...sure (: >* Introduce user recognition system. >We are all volunteers, but there's no reason we can't develop an award system that aims to recognise the time-intensive effort and/or outstandingly high-quality contributions that longterm users have made. The benefits of such a system are two-fold: they give the contributors in question tangible, public and formal recognition of their efforts, which thanks and encourages them; and it offers concrete examples to other users of what kind of conduct is appreciated and needed. I have started writing about this on my user page, but I have some more ideas in my head, that I hope the community will welcome when I finally write them down. :) Maybe take some inspiration from http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Contributing_Reporter_Awards Here are some things that I hope Commons can achieve over the next 3-5 years. * Some degree of press recognition and fame :) Help if google images saw you. I see more images that are local uploads to wikinews come on Google images then stuff from commons. --bawolff

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Dual-Licensing Commons
by nilfanion wiki 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

I had a random thought today and think it is worth a cursory consideration. Would it be (1) desirable, (2) technically feasible and (3) legal to relicense Commons under a dual GFDL / Creative Commons license as opposed to the current GFDL state? I don't no strong feelings about this, but I feel it is worthy of a discussion. If it IS possible and legal (I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if it is possible or not), I think there might be beneficial effects of it. For example, imagine the following scenario: An image is uploaded to Commons as CC-by-sa-2.5. A third party then makes use of the image, under the terms of the CC license. In addition to the image, they copy the description on the Image: page to use as their caption. As the text of the page is licensed under the GFDL, would this downstream user have violated the GFDL? If the answer to this question is yes, then there could be significant benefits to a dual-licensing of Commons itself. If this went anywhere, I'd imagine the final decision would be made by the Foundation, but the community ought to think it over first... What do people think? (If its daft, don't hold your punches I don't mind) Nilfanion

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Can't get extended toolbar
by Jonathan Buck 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

My toolbar only shows the standard 11 buttons. I have seen examples in the mediawiki help pages with a larger toolbar allowing tables and other features to be added easily. As I am looking for the tabling functionality, how can I get the rest of the buttons?

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