Hello all,
I was thinking about how we could test Commons' coverage compared to other media sources such as Getty Images and Flickr. One way would be to make a list of topics that we should aim to cover. Periodically we can compare our coverage to other resources to see how we are progressing.
Of course we accept that in some areas such as logos we will always be deficient...
There are also several ways we can measure. e.g. -Binary: Yes/No we have something (anything) on that topic. -Quantity: Number of photos in the relevant gallery and/or category -Quality: Number of QI/FP in the relevant gallery and/or category - maybe something also about general believability of other licenses (own work of trusted Wikimedians = great, {{copyrighted free use}} = not so good)
Here are some topics I've thought of so far. What else? What might you go to a media resource trying to find? (I've just kept it to images so far, not audio or video.)
==Nature== Animals Plants Weather and geography stuff (oceans, volcanoes, lightning)
==Science== Planets/celestial bodies ...
==People== Modern celebrities Historical figures
==Stock photography== Generic objects Generic people Generic activities (verbs) Wallpapers ...
==Places== World cities World landmarks
==Misc== Historical events Types of food Works of art Symbols Maps Diagrams Flags
So how would you evaluate it? Of course if we pick 10 specific animal species, for example, to evaluate against, there is a danger that we would just fix up any missing ones right after the first evaluation, because of course that's the wiki way. So although some of these are fixed (eg. World cities and landmarks), with 'animals' we could each time pick a different random subset of 20 or so to evaluate against. For the 'fixed' ones, well, we can hope quality and quantity measures improve.
So as to whether topics should be covered, things that we could potentially get images of should be included, even if it seems unlikely, e.g. people. Things we could not host in accordance with Commons:Licensing should not be included (eg maybe Eiffel Tower, Ausralian Aboriginal flag, works of art that are still in copyright).
Basically it would be good to have this kind of evaluation, because then we can say "look our coverage of this broad range of topics is like this". It also gives us an idea of coverage gaps, where we need to improve.
So ideas for topics we should aim to cover, and other resources besides Getty and Flickr that we should compare against, would be welcome.
I read that Lulu.com (vanity press/prints books on demand) has made a licensing partnership with Getty images - http://www.lulu.com/partners/getty/ "Lulu.com is working with Getty Images to enable authors, creators and organizations to use licensed content to enhance and embellish their original works, while protecting and compensating the copyright holders. Portions of three extensive collections — Stockbyte, Digital Vision and Photodisc — from Getty Images' vast library of photos and illustrations will be available to Lulu.com users." I wonder if this agreement is exclusive...
Do you think Commons could pursue an agreement with a company like this? Do you think Commons should? (I would put up a subset, like QI+FP, to avoid bad licensing problems.)
Lulu does not really get the open content idea, I think (I had an argument in their forum once with a guy who said freely licensed work puts pro photographers out of business, or similar nonsense). So maybe WMF could still set up an agreement with them and get some small profit out of each use :) or maybe just a good example of the variety of applications of open content.
Also there is a competitor http://www.blurb.com/ and AFAIK they don't have any such agreement yet :)
cheers Brianna user:pfctdayelise