On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Desilets, Alain
<Alain.Desilets(a)nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote:
MediaWiki
supports a upload from URL feature, thus skipping the need
to
local save. But it's disabled on WMF
projects.
I suspect that will not be easy enough for many folks. For example, I
suspect many people will do something like this:
* Go to google and search for a picture of a tree
**
http://images.google.com/images?hl=fr&q=tree&btnG=Recherche+d%27ima…
bv=2
* Click on a tree that looks interesting, which would lead them
somewhere like here:
**
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.freefoto.com/images/15
/19/15_19_1---Tree--Sunrise--Northumberland_web.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www
.freefoto.com/preview/15-19-1%3Fffid%3D15-19-1&usg=__OFzLWf5V_u5Jq7HX_6o
TYEBMQYA=&h=400&w=600&sz=129&hl=fr&start=2&sig2=Sgr35XjTpKJsBElvgz8QOQ&t
bnid=rL2dCnuYhy7MAM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&ei=FCNmSb-0EaX6NNS0jZYE&prev=/imag
es%3Fq%3Dtree%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dfr
* Copy and paste that google URL into the wiki image upload box
* Of course, we tech-oriented folks know that the above URL is not the
URL of the actual image (it's the URL of a page that CONTAINS the
image). To get the URL of the actual image, you of course, have to first
click on the google link that says: "Display full size image", which
gets you to:
**
http://www.freefoto.com/images/15/19/15_19_1---Tree--Sunrise--Northumber
land_web.jpg
* But given that the previous google URL is largely dominated by the
image of interest, I suspect (based on my observations) that most
"normal" folks would use that as the URL for the image.
Now, if the user could drag the image from the google URL onto the wiki
page, and the wiki was able to figure out from that the URL of the image
and upload it, now that would be REALLY COOL!
Alain
... cool, but probably not that great a feature for WMF projects,
because copyright violations are widespread as it is. There's a fine
line between making images easily uploadable and, well, discouraging
people from uploading stuff.
But improving the interface for working with images once you've got
them, for embedding them in existing pages, etc. would be great. And
it would be nice to not make the upload/licensing wizard just that,
and not a crazy templated hack.
I can't think of good ways to "prove" that commons is useful, however,
beyond the standard arguments about making free materials accessible
to a global community, reducing duplication and improving quality
among all editions of our projects, providing a resource for (more
than just the encyclopedia) to tap, etc.
-- phoebe