There seems to be two things in conflict when dealing with anything upload related.
1) uploading from a mobile phone is easy - that's a good thing
2) uploading useful content to commons is difficult for most people
Remember we made it super easy on web and we even limited who could see it but people still uploaded selfies and copyvios. IMO the copyvios were an attempt to be helpful.
So I ask you what's more important - 1 or 2? The only really the commons app was a roaring success was the lack of its brand value as Amir says most "muggles" don't know what it is so this serves as a filter for people that use the app. Folding this functionality into a Wikipedia app would make you hit problem 2 and all the moderation problems associated with it.
> An Android Commons mobile app is probably the mandatory catalisator for hundreds of millions of people to participate to Commons. If you have only 300 unique users a month with an official Commons app, IMO the only thing it tells you is: the app is not good enough!
Muggles (no offense, honestly) don't know what "Commons" is.Either we need to educate the world that Commons is an awesome repository of media that can compete with Flickr and Instagram, or we need to bundle it with the Wikipedia app, which a lot of people do have.Facebook unbundled the Messenger app from the Facebook app, and millions hate it, but the same millions use it because they are hooked too strongly, and Facebook has a super-strong interest in hooking people to the Messenger (the most popular explanation is that they want to transition it to a payment processing app).
We are not in the business of hooking people, but in the business of sharing knowledge. I'd actually love the first thing to happen - to popularize the Commons as a truly free competitor to Flickr, etc. But at this point in time this appears to be a much higher-hanging fruit than adding easy image sharing functionality to the Wikipedia app.
> But, these numbers are not a surprise to me. I have tested Commons *in real conditions* a year ago in Africa and the result was: almost impossible to upload picture to Commons (but no problem to upload the same pictures to Tumblr).I'm not sure that I understood: Is it because of server problems that we can fix, or because there is no app?
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Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
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