Hello friends of Multimedia,
Time for another update about our multimedia project. We’re sorry about the radio silence
in recent weeks, as many of us were tied up at Wikimania and/or traveling.
Here are some highlights of what we’ve been working on this month:
1. Media Viewer Improvements
We are now working to improve Media Viewer in coming weeks, to address editor concerns
while making it even more useful for readers — our main target users for this product.
Here are some of the improvements we are planning to test and develop for the next
version:
* a much more visible link to the File: page;
* an even easier way to disable the tool;
* a caption or description right below the image
* remove additional metadata below the image, directing users to the File: page instead.
As described in our improvements plan (1), these features are now being prototyped and
will be carefully tested with target users in coming days, so we can validate their
effectiveness before developing and deploying them in September. You can see some of our
thinking in this presentation we discussed with community members at Wikimania in London
(2) -- with positive responses from many experienced users. We’ll keep you posted on what
we learn from this research in coming days, based on our latest prototype (3). Please
contact us if you are interested in testing the prototype, with the understanding that we
are now optimizing it for casual users, not power users.
2. Community Discussions
While Media Viewer has generally been well received on most wikis, you’ve probably heard
by now that it was the subject of three separate Requests for Comments on the English and
German Wikipedias, as well as on Wikimedia Commons.
The Wikimedia Foundation has now responded to all three RfCs, as briefly summarized below.
We understand that a majority of editors participating in these RfCs would prefer that
Media Viewer be disabled by default for all users. Yet many of those editors have also
correctly pointed out that Media Viewer is primarily aimed at readers — and the feedback
we have collected so far shows that many readers find this tool useful, across our
projects. We also note that if Media Viewer were to be disabled by default, it would be
very difficult for those readers to re-discover it and re-enable it. So it seems important
to keep it enabled for logged-out users, instead of preventing them from using it, if they
find valuable. And while we recognize that enabling Media Viewer by default can be
inconvenient for logged-in editors, it’s also easy to disable -- either within the tool
itself, or in their preferences -- and we plan to make it even easier to opt out in the
next version. For software tools like these, our view is that we should let individual
users decide for themselves if they want to keep new features enabled.
For these reasons, the foundation respectfully declined to disable Media Viewer by default
for either logged-in or logged-out users on the English and German Wikipedias at this
time. On Wikimedia Commons, however, the tool has just been disabled for logged in users
by default, as a special exception due to that project's primary focus on media
curation. Each community has responded in different ways to the foundation’s statements.
In one case, our decision to leave Media Viewer enabled by default led to a conflict
escalation between the foundation and some German community members, which we deeply
regret. In coming weeks, we will exert our best efforts to resolve these issues in a
variety of ways, from improving Media Viewer itself (see above), to improving the process
by which new features are developed, tested and released (see below).
3. Working Together
As our executive director Lila Tretikov stated on her talk page (3), the foundation is
committed to working with the community towards a constructive resolution of this and any
future disputes. We are now reviewing our current development processes and exploring new
approaches to allow for feedback at more critical and relevant junctures. With that in
mind, we invite you to help brainstorm ideas that might improve community engagement for
future product rollouts, on this special page (4). I will also be going to Germany in
about a month to discuss some of these issues in person with community members, whom I
really look forward to meeting face-to-face.
4. Wikimania Update
Most of our multimedia team was present at Wikimania in London, where we hosted 7
different roundtable discussions and sessions, which we found extremely productive. Topics
ranged the gamut from the Structured Data to Upload Wizard, Media Viewer, Video, Community
Engagement — and yes, even Kindness. We really enjoyed our many constructive conversations
with hundreds of community members, who worked with us as partners to improve our plans
and products in a variety of useful ways. We’re very grateful for these special
collaborations, which keep getting stronger year after year. In coming days, we will share
what we learned together in some of these sessions. For now, you can check each
session's slides and notes, which are linked on this overview page (5). You might also
enjoy some of my favorite photos from this exceptional gathering (6), as well as the
latest installment in my ongoing series of community ideas on how to improve Wikipedia
(7). Finally, those of you who read German might appreciate User:Ziko’s excellent article
for the Kurier on our in-depth conversation in London (9).
Overall, the wonderful collaborations we’ve enjoyed with many of you at Wikimania are a
great example of what is possible when we all work together in good faith and with mutual
respect for each other.
Thanks to everyone who made this inspiring event possible!
I am sorry about the length of this message, but we had a lot to catch up on: I wanted to
cover some of the recent events, so we can move forward with a shared understanding of how
we got there, where we’re going, and how we can improve things together.
We all look forward to more collaborations with you on Structured Data, Upload Wizard,
Video and other projects looming on the horizon — above and beyond Media Viewer. :)
To be continued …
Fabrice — for the Multimedia Team.
(1)
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/document/d/1iCDNOUK14D7xb47o33k1p0D…
(2)
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/presentation/d/1FNGLEzVsoELZqxiso_1…
(3)
http://multimedia-alpha.wmflabs.org/wiki/Rapa_Nui_National_Park
(4)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov#Working_Together
(5)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Process_ideas
(6)
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Events
(7)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabola/sets/72157646189670769/
(8)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabola/sets/72157646308694626/
(9)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier
_______________________________
Fabrice Florin
Product Manager, Multimedia
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)