"users from Germany are the root of the problem" (Lars Aronsson, Commons-l, 27 Feb 2011)
Wow. I never expected to read such a phrase on Commons-l. Though I hate to possibly fulfil Godwin's law, when reading Aronsson's above cited claim, the infamous Nazi slogan "The Jews are our misfortune" (sv: "Judarna är vår olycka") came to my mind.
Mr. Aronsson obviously hasn't understood the Wiki system: if you think something can (or needs to) be improved, just DO IT or make a substantial proposal at the right place, but without spitting your contempt in the face of those who have done the pioneer work (even, if somewhat lousy).
Though Mr. Aronsson's second focus seems to be on German admins, it may have slipped his attention that default message templates used for notifying uploaders that one of their uploads is considered copyvio, derivative-work, missing permission, missing source or missing a license, etc. were not necessarily written by the admins who use them on a daily basis. But if Mr. Aronsson prefers, I can ask all 48 de-native-tagged admins on Commons to stop all their admin-work until we get Mr. Aronsson's personal approval.
The problem Commons is facing since a while, is massively missing admin-power/resources. On February 23rd, Commons had 9 mio files. (read on [[:de:WP:Kurier]]) Today (Febr 28th), Commons has 9.35 mio files. (as of [[Special:Statistics]])
That means, in 5 days 350.000 uploads needed to be checked for detecting blatant and not so overt copyvios, for attack images/pages, for personality rights violations, for useless bullshit, for clearly promotional material, for missing source entry, for missing license, for missing permission (when uploader not identical to author), etc. etc.
Yes, we have 270 admins on our list. Surely all are doing valuable work. But rather few are active in the dirty work of upload patrol (To get a surely incomplete impression: http://toolserver.org/~vvv/adminstats.php?wiki=commonswiki_p&tlimit=1576...). Why? Though upload patrol may keep Commons existing (instead of being closed down by WMF after getting the 10.000th DMCA takedown-request), it doesn't make you any friends. You get angry reactions from clueless, careless or reckless uploaders, you are personally insulted, you even get death threaths, your userpage is vandalized, etc. but you NEVER get a thank-you from WMF or any institutional body of WMF or Commons (except from a few single users or fellow sysops). I'm not really asking for the latter, but mentioning it may help to understand the "constructive" impact of your rant.
Túrelio
(COI disclosure: admin on Commons, who is de-native, but has never written a default message template; Disclaimer: speaking strictly for myself, not for a non-existing de-admin cabal)
In einer eMail vom 28.02.2011 02:52:19 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt commons-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org:
Message: 4 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 20:30:00 +0100 From: Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] " To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4D6AA638.7090607@aronsson.se Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Magnus Manske wrote MediaWiki, Commons was suggested by Erik M?ller, and the Toolserver is German. The Germans have contributed more than most to the Wikimedia projects, especially in software and technology. Not to mention the huge archive photo donations and Wikipedia Academy, pioneered by the German chapter. However, the German Wikipedia has a different set of standards, more strict rules for inclusion and notability, and more speedy deletions. This adds to the "focus on content, rather than people", and when this is described as a problem on Commons, what I can see is that users from Germany are the root of the problem.
Spanish or Norwegian admins on Commons are not the problem, as far as I can see, despite using the same ..
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.s
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2011/2/28 Turelio001@aol.com
"users from Germany are the root of the problem" (Lars Aronsson, Commons-l, 27 Feb 2011)
Wow. I never expected to read such a phrase on Commons-l. Though I hate to possibly fulfil Godwin's law, when reading Aronsson's above cited claim, the infamous Nazi slogan "The Jews are our misfortune" (sv: "Judarna är vår olycka") came to my mind.
I don't like some statements of this 3d. My English skill is very limited, and what I'd like to tell is rather complex, so please consider this point when reading.... don't be hurted: I don't want to hurt anyone.
First of all: thanks to any admin engaged in partolling and fixing innumerable mistakes that I currently do.
Second. I learnt from Konrad Lorentz how difficult is communication between different cultures. The same behaviour, the same gesture, the same words can sound perfectly sound or very cold and hurting: it's simply a matter of differencies in habits and conventions, with different, deep roots into local culture. I presume that such feel of kindness / rudeness emerges too from written language, just like it emerges from body language.
Third. I'd like that any new user could be alerted about this point. A new user have no idea about troubles of patrolling, and about how hard, and annoying, such a work is; nor he can imagine the number of edits that are needed to try to keep consistent something complex as Commons, and the mean time that a patroller can devoid to any one edit (five seconds? two seconds?). So, I presume that a big effort is needed to let new users known about this point, much more than trying to write "kind statements" that invariably will turn out far from perfect, in one or the other cultural, specific setting.
Alex
inthe third point of Turelio its an interesting approach and a good one maybe highlighting the statistics(numbers are the same no matter the language) could be of benefit and constructive in helping new users understand the need for accurancy in the first instance when uploading.
Yesterday in Commons uploaded in the previous 24 hours: 35,000 media files of which the following issues were identified; Copyright violations:500 missing author information:4500 missing licensing or permission: 3000 (Otrs permissions recieved:10) uncategorised:7000 nondescript names:900 media deleted:2000
stats are not actual just fictional to illistrate a thought they could also be for different periods depending on what is the simplist sampling method, a month period would mean less updating of the stats but may render the impact less effective because of high values being uncomprehensible and repetative This could be transcluded wholis or in relivant parts onto every notice template so that all editors, not just new ones are made aware of the work load they are creating for other users.
On 28 February 2011 18:59, Alex Brollo alex.brollo@gmail.com wrote:
2011/2/28 Turelio001@aol.com
"users from Germany are the root of the problem" (Lars Aronsson, Commons-l,
27 Feb 2011)
Wow. I never expected to read such a phrase on Commons-l. Though I hate to possibly fulfil Godwin's law, when reading Aronsson's above cited claim, the infamous Nazi slogan "The Jews are our misfortune" (sv: "Judarna är vår olycka") came to my mind.
I don't like some statements of this 3d. My English skill is very limited, and what I'd like to tell is rather complex, so please consider this point when reading.... don't be hurted: I don't want to hurt anyone.
First of all: thanks to any admin engaged in partolling and fixing innumerable mistakes that I currently do.
Second. I learnt from Konrad Lorentz how difficult is communication between different cultures. The same behaviour, the same gesture, the same words can sound perfectly sound or very cold and hurting: it's simply a matter of differencies in habits and conventions, with different, deep roots into local culture. I presume that such feel of kindness / rudeness emerges too from written language, just like it emerges from body language.
Third. I'd like that any new user could be alerted about this point. A new user have no idea about troubles of patrolling, and about how hard, and annoying, such a work is; nor he can imagine the number of edits that are needed to try to keep consistent something complex as Commons, and the mean time that a patroller can devoid to any one edit (five seconds? two seconds?). So, I presume that a big effort is needed to let new users known about this point, much more than trying to write "kind statements" that invariably will turn out far from perfect, in one or the other cultural, specific setting.
Alex
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Hi Túrelio,
Op 28-2-2011 10:12, Turelio001@aol.com schreef:
The problem Commons is facing since a while, is massively missing admin-power/resources. On February 23rd, Commons had 9 mio files. (read on [[:de:WP:Kurier]]) Today (Febr 28th), Commons has 9.35 mio files. (as of [[Special:Statistics]])
That means, in 5 days 350.000 uploads needed to be checked for detecting blatant and not so overt copyvios, for attack images/pages, for personality rights violations, for useless bullshit, for clearly promotional material, for missing source entry, for missing license, for missing permission (when uploader not identical to author), etc. etc.
This numbers might be off a bit because of a bit because of a batch upload, seehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Geograph_Britain_and_Ireland As far as I know normal numbers are around 5000 uploads a day.
Maarten