My watchflickr tool [1] includes an option to upload an image with a suitable CC license to commons using a "bot" account [2]. So far, I have received no complaints about bad uploads, and from its gallery it seems OK as well (except some duplicate uploads).
Now, anyone can upload an image to flickr, and release it under CC-BY(-SA). Same as wikipedia, right? Except that wikipedia uploads are probably screened much more thoroughly for cases that are clearly not under the given license.
My CommonsHelper tool [3] eases the transfer of images from wikipedia to the commons, and has been used a whooping 93435 times this year. Assuming that every use results in an upload on commons, over 330 images /per day/ enter commons this way, a not unimportant proportion of the 5000 uploads per day, especially considering that it will only take images that have a commons-compatible license.
However, users still have to save the image on their own computer, then upload them under their own user account, which is annoying and time-consuming.
CommonsHelper does have the functionality to do direct uploads via the aforementioned bot account, however, that has been deactivated since forever, due to concerns.
I would like to propose the reactivation of that feature. Concernes about unsuitable uploads through the bot account are superflous, IMHO, since images are screened thrice this way: 1. On the wikipedia where the image was originally uploaded 2. By the CommonsHelper (e.g. it will reject "fair use" images from en) 3. On commons, by the usual suspects :-)
Which is two levels of screening more than direct uploads to commons, which were, last time I checked, enabled ;-)
With SUL in sight, new uploads will shift from wikipedias to commons, but there's still a lot of images around: en : >766,000 (but that includes "fair use") de : ~119,000 (no "fair use") fr : ~37,000
All in all, I'd estimate that there's between 0.5 and 1 million images on the wikipedias that would be suitable for commons. You can see how "save locally, then upload manually" annoyance can scale up :-)
Cheers, Magnus
[1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/watchflickr.php [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:File_Upload_Bot_%28Magnus_Manske%29 [3] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commonshelper.php