Dear Commonists,
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
These images are licensed cc-by-sa. Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive have signed a cooperation agreement that, among other things, asserts that the Federal Archive owns sufficient rights to be able to grant this kind of license.
The images are 800 pixel in size on the longer side, which is near the lower bound for being useful on the internet. We are aware of that, and we hope that after some time, we will be able to get the Archive to release the images in a higher resolution. The quality of the work of Wikimedia Commons might help this negotiation process.
The other part of the cooperation is a a tool for linking people from a list compiled by the Federal Archive to the de.wp Persondata and to the person authority file of the German National Library (something de.wp already does since 2005).
Daniel Kinzler is working on the upload process to Commons and eventually on (semi-)automatically categorizing them.
100.000 images is to my knowledge the single largest donation to Wikimedia Commons so far and I am very hopeful that this is only the start of a long lasting relationship that might serve as an example to other archives and image databases.
All the best, Mathias Schindler
FYI: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&lim...
Congratulations to this fantastic deal! Great work!
Now, let's continue feeding the BArchBot :-)
Magnus
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Commonists,
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
These images are licensed cc-by-sa. Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive have signed a cooperation agreement that, among other things, asserts that the Federal Archive owns sufficient rights to be able to grant this kind of license.
The images are 800 pixel in size on the longer side, which is near the lower bound for being useful on the internet. We are aware of that, and we hope that after some time, we will be able to get the Archive to release the images in a higher resolution. The quality of the work of Wikimedia Commons might help this negotiation process.
The other part of the cooperation is a a tool for linking people from a list compiled by the Federal Archive to the de.wp Persondata and to the person authority file of the German National Library (something de.wp already does since 2005).
Daniel Kinzler is working on the upload process to Commons and eventually on (semi-)automatically categorizing them.
100.000 images is to my knowledge the single largest donation to Wikimedia Commons so far and I am very hopeful that this is only the start of a long lasting relationship that might serve as an example to other archives and image databases.
All the best, Mathias Schindler
FYI: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&lim...
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Why 800px? They do not have larger ones? Or they choosen it because it's useless outside internet (being honest it's useless even in Wikipedia for me) and they would have good PR after giving us such crap?
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
AJF/WarX
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:01 PM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
Why 800px?
Because it is the maximum we were to negotiate after 12 month.
They do not have larger ones?
In most cases, they do.
Or they choosen it because it's useless outside internet
This thought has certainly crossed their mind.
(being honest it's useless even in Wikipedia for me) and they would have good PR after giving us such crap?
Please go to nytimes.com or cnn.com or any other web site and see what the average image size there is
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
What do you prefer, deleting every image that cannot be printed in 2x2m poster size with 75dpi? Okay, propose it.
Mathias
W dniu 3 grudnia 2008 22:08 użytkownik Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com napisał:
Please go to nytimes.com or cnn.com or any other web site and see what the average image size there is
It's the reason I do not go to those web sites. The most beautiful thing about Wikipedia is that in MOST cases when I see interesting photo I can go and watch large, full of details one. No other website gives me such thing.
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
What do you prefer, deleting every image that cannot be printed in 2x2m poster size with 75dpi? Okay, propose it.
No. I just not want us to kneel, when someone gives us something like stated above. I do not depreciate that it's large negotiation success (I know how concrete is bureaucracy in Poland), but we should only be happy of this crack in concrete, not of the files themselves, cause they are far below standards created by ''amateurs'' on Wikipedia.
AJF/WarX
Hi,
2008/12/3 Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com:
No. I just not want us to kneel, when someone gives us something like stated above. I do not depreciate that it's large negotiation success (I know how concrete is bureaucracy in Poland), but we should only be happy of this crack in concrete, not of the files themselves, cause they are far below standards created by ''amateurs'' on Wikipedia.
Just to add this: Included are thousands of "official" photos which no amateur would have access too because of a) timeline and b) access to events. You just won't get any images like this from "amateurs" - only from news agencys or commercial stock photography agencies.
Bye, Tim.
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:19 PM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
No. I just not want us to kneel, when someone gives us something like stated above. I do not depreciate that it's large negotiation success (I know how concrete is bureaucracy in Poland), but we should only be happy of this crack in concrete, not of the files themselves, cause they are far below standards created by ''amateurs'' on Wikipedia.
Note that no high resolution images now doesn't mean they will *never* appear on Commons. If this project is succesful enough and the benefits are clear to everyone, the high resolution versions could still be uploaded.
-- Hay
Against such donations? It's like saying we're against people contributing 50$ to the fundraiser because we would rather have 500$. Now we would not want 100px images (useless also for wikipedia), and the fundraiser will not take grants less than $1, but this is a very good initiative indeed.
Finn R
2008/12/3 Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com
Why 800px? They do not have larger ones? Or they choosen it because it's useless outside internet (being honest it's useless even in Wikipedia for me) and they would have good PR after giving us such crap?
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
AJF/WarX
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
W dniu 3 grudnia 2008 22:18 użytkownik Finn Rindahl finnrindwiki@gmail.com napisał:
Against such donations? It's like saying we're against people contributing 50$ to the fundraiser because we would rather have 500$. Now we would not want 100px images (useless also for wikipedia), and the fundraiser will not take grants less than $1, but this is a very good initiative indeed.
$0.01 is still money. You can collect 1 000 000 000 of them and you will have $10M. Even if you collect 1 000 000 000 100px photos you would not be able to upsample any of them to 5MPIX.
If someone wrote short article and at the bottom stated ''For better version visit www....'' you would curse him with your most powerful curses, but when people do the same with images every one is happy.
AJF/WarX
Artur Fijałkowski wrote:
If someone wrote short article and at the bottom stated ''For better version visit www....'' you would curse him with your most powerful curses [...]
Huh, can't say I've ever felt that way myself. When somebody gives me a gift, I appreciate the gift - I don't complain that it should have been bigger!
Stan
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
$0.01 is still money. You can collect 1 000 000 000 of them and you will have $10M. Even if you collect 1 000 000 000 100px photos you would not be able to upsample any of them to 5MPIX.
You are correct, money behaves differently than an image file. In that case, I will both give the promise to continue to ask the Archive for more higher-resolution images and ask you to support me by doing the same and asking more people to negotiate better donations.
Mathias
Hi,
Maybe a stupid quistion but...
When put a photo under a licence the licence is the same for a low res image and for a high res image. Or can both have a other licence?
See ya! Huib
Huib Laurens schrieb:
Hi,
Maybe a stupid quistion but...
When put a photo under a licence the licence is the same for a low res image and for a high res image. Or can both have a other licence?
Not a stupid question, qvery good one. Touching on a lot of issues. I'm afraid there's nither a simple nor a clear answer to that. I suppose the Bundesarchiv would say that it licensed only the low res version. If this is really possible in terms of the German Urheberrecht is a tough question. Like many things, it probably depends on the judge and your lawyer :)
-- daniel
My example of money is based on that a gift (donation pr credit card or check) of 0,1$ would cost the WMF more to receive (fees/administraton) than the value of it - that's the reason why it's now a minimum amount for gifts. A 800px image - while not as good as a high res - doesn't really cost us anything else than serverspace and the job of uploading/mainating those imaes at Commons. All in all, a VERY good beginning - hopefully we can get even better deals in the future. Keep up the good work Mathias&co
Finn Rindahl
2008/12/3 Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
$0.01 is still money. You can collect 1 000 000 000 of them and you will have $10M. Even if you collect 1 000 000 000 100px photos you would not be able to upsample any of them to 5MPIX.
You are correct, money behaves differently than an image file. In that case, I will both give the promise to continue to ask the Archive for more higher-resolution images and ask you to support me by doing the same and asking more people to negotiate better donations.
Mathias _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 8:01 AM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
Why 800px? They do not have larger ones? Or they choosen it because it's useless outside internet (being honest it's useless even in Wikipedia for me) and they would have good PR after giving us such crap?
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
800px images are better than nothing.
With these images in the Commons depository, they can be categorised, described and people will learn *about* an image that they would not otherwise have known of. Armed with this knowledge, people will seek higher resolution free editions.
Congrats to Wikimedia Germany for organising this.
-- John Vandenberg
2008/12/3 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 8:01 AM, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
Why 800px? They do not have larger ones? Or they choosen it because it's useless outside internet (being honest it's useless even in Wikipedia for me) and they would have good PR after giving us such crap?
Sorry for strong words, but I'm very against such donations.
800px images are better than nothing.
800px is huge: At the resolutions you might expect a color photograph to be printed in an encyclopedia it's pretty much a full page image. A well downsampled 800px image is nice and probably is generally comparable to the usability of many of our noisy 1600px images. Commons has a little bit of pixel obsession.
If we were talking about 100px images we'd have a different situation. Larger would be better, I agree. But lets have a little perspective.
2008/12/3 Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com:
Dear Commonists,
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
Oh, this is excellent news - 100,000! Is there any chance you could give us a better idea about the general scope of this content? I'm particularly curious as to:
* what periods are covered; is it heavily post-1945, or is there substantial earlier content? * will we get a lot of illustrations of individuals? * are there any particular thematic collections?
These images are licensed cc-by-sa. Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive have signed a cooperation agreement that, among other things, asserts that the Federal Archive owns sufficient rights to be able to grant this kind of license.
...and *this* is a very useful thing to have had explicitly stated. Rights problems are now firmly their responsibility :-)
As to the image size issue: yeah, 800px isn't wonderful. It's better than a lot of the images we currently have, though, and it's *certainly* better than no freely-licensed picture at all - which is probably going to be the case for a lot of this material, especially if we get a good load of photographs of individuals...
Andrew Gray schrieb:
2008/12/3 Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com:
Dear Commonists,
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
Oh, this is excellent news - 100,000! Is there any chance you could give us a better idea about the general scope of this content?
Habe a look: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_German_Federal_Archive
I'm particularly curious as to:
- what periods are covered; is it heavily post-1945, or is there
substantial earlier content?
Some. don't know about "substantial". Putting the metadata in a nice db to answer that sort of question is on the TODO list http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bundesarchiv/Todo.
- will we get a lot of illustrations of individuals?
Yes, but not so many portraits. More the journalistic style.
- are there any particular thematic collections?
Not that I can tell. At least not in a way readily accessible. It's mostly clustered around events.
-- daniel
On 12/3/08, Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
Hi, is there any easy way (toolserver perhaps) to search only within BArchBot's contributions?
—C.W.
How about searching the category with CatScan? http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikifam=common...
2008/12/6 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
On 12/3/08, Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100.000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
Hi, is there any easy way (toolserver perhaps) to search only within BArchBot's contributions?
—C.W.
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 12/6/08, ChrisiPK chrisipk@gmail.com wrote:
How about searching the category with CatScan? http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikifam=common...
Ah, this works but only by coincidence. Thanks.
—C.W.
Charlotte Webb schrieb:
On 12/6/08, ChrisiPK chrisipk@gmail.com wrote:
How about searching the category with CatScan? http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikifam=common...
Ah, this works but only by coincidence. Thanks.
It'S not coincidence that thea all have a specific template and are all in a specific source category :)
-- daniel
On 12/6/08, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
It'S not coincidence that thea all have a specific template and are all in a specific source category :)
Maybe not a coincidence for you but from my perspective it's dumb luck. :p
I was originally thinking of something like this but with a "search" feature: http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php
Adding one might be useful in the long term, if this is possible.
—C.W.
With the new search engine implemented on enwiki, you could search « incategory:Images_from_the_German_Federal_Archive ». Unfortunately it is not implemented elsewhere.
— Sylvain Brunerie [[w:fr:User:Delhovlyn]]
2008/12/6 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com
On 12/6/08, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
It'S not coincidence that thea all have a specific template and are all
in a
specific source category :)
Maybe not a coincidence for you but from my perspective it's dumb luck. :p
I was originally thinking of something like this but with a "search" feature: http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.phphttp://toolserver.org/%7Edaniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php
Adding one might be useful in the long term, if this is possible.
—C.W.
That is not true.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-December/040520.html
On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Sylvain Brunerie sylvain.brunerie@gmail.com wrote:
With the new search engine implemented on enwiki, you could search « incategory:Images_from_the_German_Federal_Archive ». Unfortunately it is not implemented elsewhere.
— Sylvain Brunerie [[w:fr:User:Delhovlyn]]
2008/12/6 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com
On 12/6/08, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
It'S not coincidence that thea all have a specific template and are all in a specific source category :)
Maybe not a coincidence for you but from my perspective it's dumb luck. :p
I was originally thinking of something like this but with a "search" feature: http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php
Adding one might be useful in the long term, if this is possible.
—C.W.
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l