Brief comments on happenings around the wiki:
* A process to recognise "featured galleries" has been started. (A "gallery" is a Commons main namespace page that is used to display/organise/annotate/present media files.) If you are interested in helping develop the criteria, or suggest some of your favourite galleries as possible models, please comment at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Featured_galleries . Innovative and unusual presentations are especially welcome.
* Commons is rapidly approaching one million files. How can we celebrate and mark the occasion? See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Commons:One_million_f...
* A new process has been started [for admins] to review images from Flickr, as license changes or license mismatches are a common problem. No decision has been made about how to handle the images with differing licenses. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Para/Flickr http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Flickr_review_needed http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Atte...
* There is a fledging project developing to organise and encourage Commons maintenance and cleanup work to be done. Mop and bucket optional. Your help needed at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:CommonTasks .
* A new process for photography feedback has been started. It doesn't offer any shiny awards, but could give you more expansive feedback than COM:QI (Quality images, ala 'Good articles', but only for Wikimedian-created works) or COM:FP (Featured pictures). See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photography_critiques .
regards, Brianna user:pfctdayelise
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
We are probably the world's largest site for free wallpapers: the median of the distribution looks like it's 800 kpixels, which is 1024x768.
We like NASA very much we have 7829 photos from them. -- DM
David Monniaux wrote:
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
Don't suppose we've got anything on admin stats yet?
On 10/17/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
We are probably the world's largest site for free wallpapers: the median of the distribution looks like it's 800 kpixels, which is 1024x768.
I'm not so sure, looking at our top aspect ratios: Images Ratio 201436 1.33 61803 0.75 40633 1.00 37839 1.50 20991 0.66 14287 0.62 12942 1.60 10734 1.25 10552 1.49 10352 0.80 ~~~~~~~~
I'd be shocked if flickr didn't completely dwarf us in terms of images with 4:3 and 5:4 aspect.
Since most cameras produce either 4:3 or 3:2, it would be interesting to answer the question: Are Wikimedians cropping all these images, or are we just pulling lots of images from outside websites where they are cropped to fit the layout?
On 10/17/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
I'd be shocked if flickr didn't completely dwarf us in terms of images with 4:3 and 5:4 aspect.
"Free" ? As in "free speech" or in "free beer" ?
Touché
However, Judging by the popularity of Flickr, Youtube, and the non free creative commons licenses (which account for 2/3rds of the CC usage) I'd say that the general public cares not a lick about free content, so long as it is available to them at no cost and no one is suing them (i.e. free as in stolen beer is sufficient, since there is no RIAA going after folks for image copyright violations).
That we have not yet made Freedom a primary concern (even among many of our own users!) is a substantial failure on our part ... other services which play really fast and loose with copyright (thank you DMCA safe harbor) will always have a broader collection of content as a result.
Today, commons is a weakly organized pile of images (and some other media)... We're no better off than youtube, actually.. they offer ratings, recommendations, and a better search engine.
I think we need to think carefully about our future. If we are to continue to provide value beyond a simple image dump for Wikimedia we must focus on the virtues of our model (demanding free content, welcoming enhancement and derrivation) compared to sites like Flickr and Youtube.
On 10/17/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Touché
However, Judging by the popularity of Flickr, Youtube, and the non free creative commons licenses (which account for 2/3rds of the CC usage) I'd say that the general public cares not a lick about free content, so long as it is available to them at no cost and no one is suing them (i.e. free as in stolen beer is sufficient, since there is no RIAA going after folks for image copyright violations).
Getty have been going after websites.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Judging by the popularity of Flickr, Youtube, and the non free creative commons licenses (which account for 2/3rds of the CC usage) I'd say that the general public cares not a lick about free content, so long as it is available to them at no cost and no one is suing them (i.e. free as in stolen beer is sufficient, since there is no RIAA going after folks for image copyright violations).
In France, a society of authors and composers called SACEM demanded payment after a class of elementary school pupils sang a song for the retirement of their teacher (the song's title translates as "goodbye, Mr Teacher"), in public.
Technically, they were right: this was a public performance of a song written by a still living artist, as managers of the rights of that songwriter they can demand payment. Of course, this created an outrage; the songwriter offered to pay the money owed to SACEM (once the artist hands management to SACEM, as far as I know, he cannot directly choose how SACEM manages his songs).
This should remind teachers and parents that things such as using copyrighted photographs for a publicly displayed work (say, the kind of "students' works" shown during "open doors" days or at end of the year) may result in legal issues. After all, what SACEM does, the societies collecting rights for photographs may do. (Though I suspect they would have the common sense not to create themselves a public relation disaster.)
In any case, running things with the knowledge that things are ok because people will break the law and no one will bother does not sound like a sound approach.
Wikimédia France is trying to push many buttons to get public sources of photographs to release them under free licenses. It is not easy, believe me.
Regards
On 10/17/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
This should remind teachers and parents that things such as using copyrighted photographs for a publicly displayed work (say, the kind of "students' works" shown during "open doors" days or at end of the year) may result in legal issues. After all, what SACEM does, the societies collecting rights for photographs may do. (Though I suspect they would have the common sense not to create themselves a public relation disaster.)
I think the amusing one would be when one of the kids takes their school to court for violating their copyright.
In any case, running things with the knowledge that things are ok because people will break the law and no one will bother does not sound like a sound approach.
Wikimédia France is trying to push many buttons to get public sources of photographs to release them under free licenses. It is not easy, believe me.
Regards
Even if they do release them under a free lisence how were you planning to get hold of them?
geni wrote:
Even if they do release them under a free lisence how were you planning to get hold of them?
We're not there yet. We're trying to get them to discuss the issues with us and trying to show them that, for instance, they would have an advantage in getting free advertisement on our sites (a public museum who puts up a photo on Commons that says "This photo was provided by museum Foobar which has the original painting, can be visited at blah blah" gets advertisement). :-)
On 10/17/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
We're not there yet. We're trying to get them to discuss the issues with us and trying to show them that, for instance, they would have an advantage in getting free advertisement on our sites (a public museum who puts up a photo on Commons that says "This photo was provided by museum Foobar which has the original painting, can be visited at blah blah" gets advertisement). :-)
Except that most stuff produced will not be digitalised. So while your at it you might want to take a look at the restiction the goverement puts on getting hold of PD material in it's various archives.
geni wrote:
Except that most stuff produced will not be digitalised. So while your at it you might want to take a look at the restiction the goverement puts on getting hold of PD material in it's various archives.
We're also working on that.
On Thursday I'm going to attend a meeting on electronic libraries.
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
Out of curiosity, Does anyone know what they highest resolution image on commons is?
-bawolff
bawolff wrote:
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
Out of curiosity, Does anyone know what they highest resolution image on commons is?
Except for fake sizes such as SVG pictures, the largest is: Orion_Nebula_-_Hubble_2006_mosaic_18000.jpg
a 18000x18000 picture stored in a 19 megabyte file.
Thanks, Thats a nice picture. I changed [[n:portal:space]] to use it
On 10/18/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
bawolff wrote:
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
Out of curiosity, Does anyone know what they highest resolution image on commons is?
Except for fake sizes such as SVG pictures, the largest is: Orion_Nebula_-_Hubble_2006_mosaic_18000.jpg
a 18000x18000 picture stored in a 19 megabyte file.
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Where are all these random stats coming from?? Anything the rest of us can play with?
Brianna
On 18/10/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/17/06, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
And a few stats:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commons_stats_October_2006.svg
We are probably the world's largest site for free wallpapers: the median of the distribution looks like it's 800 kpixels, which is 1024x768.
I'm not so sure, looking at our top aspect ratios: Images Ratio 201436 1.33 61803 0.75 40633 1.00 37839 1.50 20991 0.66 14287 0.62 12942 1.60 10734 1.25 10552 1.49 10352 0.80
I'd be shocked if flickr didn't completely dwarf us in terms of images with 4:3 and 5:4 aspect. Since most cameras produce either 4:3 or 3:2, it would be interesting to answer the question: Are Wikimedians cropping all these images, or are we just pulling lots of images from outside websites where they are cropped to fit the layout? _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l