On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 4:04 AM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Making the upload button go straight to Commons would create a lot of problems there, as nonfree content that would be legitimate on Wikipedia would be routed there and subsequently deleted, creating headaches for them and confusion for the uploader.
Would create? We'll it's pretty much already done: If you're not autoconfirmed (which most of the 'but I just want to add this' crowd will be) the only way to upload is to go over to commons. After the message you got when you were not autoconfirmed was changed to mention commons we did see more ENwp traffic, but it was nothing commons couldn't handle. It helps that commons has a lot less distractions when it comes to processing images.
Commons is the direct target of the upload link for several large Wikipedias, and it's only one hop off from English. I can't see making it direct increasing the load in any way that commons admins can't handle.
I think an approval process might work, though there's certainly nothing stopping anyone from saying "There's an image at [link here] that I believe could legitimately be used in [[article]], could you please have a look and upload it if you agree?"
Right. Thats my preference. If it was done well in a way that made requests easy to write and caused them to be quickly handled it might effectively make the upload process for these images a lot easier, if a little less personally gratifying for the initiator.