Here's some of my thoughts, as someone who you would call a contributor:
Contributors who make a mistake: Often time someone comes from some random wiki (most likely wikipedia en) and uploads an image. They make a mistake - no source, no license, unclear licensing terms etc. The image is perfectly usable by commons, but no one knows it. They get a deletion notice on their commons talk page - which is quite useless, as they're not coming back there for at least a year, if they ever come back. However if a message was left at their home wiki, the image would be saved. However its totally unrealistic for CM's to track them down against everything listed at [[special:sitematrix]]. perhaps a bot is needed or something like that, but I think it would go a long way to having more contributors trust commons.
Default search: yes, something, anything/random monkeys picking results. Improvement is vastly needed in this area. Any thoughts on a keyword based system based on semantic mediawiki? (assuming I read the page on semantic mediawiki right). That way, I think you could do much better searching - I think you could do combo searches with it - all yellow things + alll bird things = all yellow birds.
Failing that, maybe some DPL - like search (special page - choose DPL criteria, it makes list). however I'm no programmer, I really don't know what I'm talking about in that area, thoose are just some things that came to mind.
Easy categorization for random uploaders: How about an javascript/ajax version of common sense that comes up when your editing or uploading an image? If its esentially 0-clicks away to fining proper categories, I think a lot more people would categorize.
[[user:Bawolff]]/[[commons:user:Bawolff]]/[[wikinews:user:bawolff]]/[[w:user:Bawolff]] On 11/10/06, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
While thinking about categories/galleries again lately (it really never goes away), I came up with some broad definitions of the types of users that the Commons serves, how they have different needs and responsibilities, and how we can maybe use this kind of thinking to identify priorities for future directions.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Principles If anyone feels up for some high-level thinking, I welcome comments, additions or criticism here or on the talk page. In particular, are there other types of users that are useful to define, who are they and why? Is any of my reasoning illogical? Are there other conclusions I've missed?
cheers, Brianna user:pfctdayelise _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l