On 28 October 2010 21:21, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Now, the second part. Finding pictures in Commons is really hard. It seems that categories and textual descriptions are added by the uploader, and rarely modified or enhanced by others. Finding a map of bird migration paths across Europe might be easy, but finding a plain and simple map of Europe is hard. Images that appear directly in top categories (such as Category:Maps of Europe) are a very random mix, and not the most useful generic maps of Europe.
The relevant search term is "blank map of europe".
In practice if you are thinking of commons as wikipedia pictures by far the best attack line is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_%28polar_stereographic... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_%28polar_stereogr... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Blank_SVG_maps_of_Europe
The "next 200" navigation is a total disaster, that not a single newcomer understands. Anything that is beyond the first 200 (e.g. subcategories that start with M-Z) are not found.
That can I think be addressed through {{category tree}}
Is there any topic category on Commons that is actively maintained for easy searching, i.e. where subcategories are well defined and where new images are systematically monitored and recategorized with enhanced descriptions?
Not categories. Any attempt to do that gets flooded by bots.
Closest would be http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flowers http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Felis_silvestris_catus