Hmm, These are all very interesting answers, so thanks! Yaroslav, it would be totally awesome if you would help out with some lists (any lists you want to do would be great). The reason I put both issues into this original query (about making the lists AND about the way the monuments database is set up) is because these issues are related.
It helps to use a concrete example, so here is an example with the Belgian monuments:
If the monuments database only gets updated with pictures on Wikimedia Commons that have been added manually to the beschermd erfgoed lists on the Netherlands Wikipedia, well, then I guess I don't feel a need to create a list on the English Wikipedia until those lists get pictures added to them.
The English Wikipedia still has lots of users adding photos to Wikipedia instead of Wikimedia Commons, and there are lots of monument fotos on Wikipedia already. People are free to add pictures to lists at any time (it's not even part of the competition to do this). I can imagine that someone may go and take pictures on their own to fill up a list on say the German Wikipedia that is there for one of the German towns in Belgium, while the Dutch Wikipedia has a list that is already filled with pictures. As far as I know, there is no real method for photo selection, so any picture with the proper identifier can be used in a list.
Rereading the responses of Kilian and Platonides, I guess basically we need a " reverse bot" that can generate a list of suggested pictures (or maybe just a running total of files per list as an update indication?). If people add pictures from Wikipedia rather than from Wiki Commons, then it's clear: either transfer the file or replace it in the list with another suitable one from Commons.
To update the lists, it would be great if we had a tool to do this, so if ch uses en as the central language for the list, then exporting the database list to en/fr/it/de would be a great tool to have.
Jane
2012/2/24 Platonides
<platonides@gmail.com>
On 24/02/12 13:35, Kilian Kluge wrote:
> Hi Jane,
>
> On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Jane Darnell wrote:
>> What I really would like to know however, is whether the pictures that
>> someone adds to an English list (so not Dutch, French or German) will make
>> it into the monuments database on Commons? I assume there is some checks
>> done on the leading language lists in order to update the database.
>
> The answer is yes and no ;-) The monument database has different
> tables for each language, so there can be multiple tables for a single
> country, each containing the monuments listed in the specific
> Wikipedia (e.g. ch-de, ch-fr, ch-it each contain all Swiss monuments
> but in different languages).
>
> I'm not sure if all of those are included in the monuments_all-table, though.
There's only one ch table, monuments_ch_(en) and it is included in
monuments_all.
There are for instance monuments_fr_(fr) and monuments_fr_(ca)
(monuments in France in French and Catalonian), and both are included
into monuments_all.
I think the monuments_all entries from ca will get overwritten by the fr
ones, though.