Ha! Thanks Liam, let me be the first to admit that I'm guilty as charged! I would have used the clip of Paul Newman from Cool Hand Luke on communication, but maybe that just shows my age. I have one comment on your comment about Wikidata metadata handling. Yes this is currently done locally on Commons, and moving as much as possible of it to Wikidata will greatly increase the usability of Commons to non-English speaking users and also decrease the learning-curve of Commons for new-users. That said, the most valuable thing it will do is give non-english-speaking Commons volunteers a structured way to inform uploaders about their images in a language they can understand. So it won't all be one-way communication.
And who knows, maybe one day I will be able to read about all the copyrights regarding media created outdoors that don't fall under fop
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 December 2014 at 10:59, Pipo Le Clown pleclown@gmail.com wrote:
Vous savez quoi? Allez tous vous faire foutre.
Just because you're writing in your native language of French doesn't mean that civility is optional - just as it should not be for native speakers of English. As *The Matrix *films identified https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfnmkgmUDW4, French is a very excellent language to swear in. However, we are not playing a game of "who can make the most offensive comment in order to prove that they were offended by someone else's comment" - even though several people here seem to think we are...
...vous proposiez des choses constructives, des améliorations possibles du
logiciel par exemple, ou une façon de reconnaître le travail des wikifourmis qui catégorisent, corrigent les descriptions...
The request for constructive ways to improve the software (and give positive recognition for people's work) is something that was implied by Steven's first email too:
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:40 AM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
The only interaction I ever get on Commons about my photos is a notification [of deletion]... No thanks for thousands of uploads. No notification of how many views they produce for our projects. No message about downloads for free reuse.
I see both your messages (Pipo & Steven) as asking for the same thing [and I've removed the insulting words from both quotes]. Commons could use some specifically-tailored features to help improve its 'humanity' and make all the positive work that people do more visible. Just like the way the "thank" extenstion https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Thanks was created when it was realised that the only semi-automated feedback tools we had on Wikipedia are for "negative" feedback (block, ban, delete, warn...).
There are at least three independent *software *projects that are underway which will hopefully help to address this issue:
- Erik Zachte has been promoting this RFC on mediawiki.org
< https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Media_file_request_count...
to improve the media file statistics infrastructure. The GLAMwiki community (among others) have been clamouring for usable metrics for years, and this looks like the best opportunity yet to see something happen. This will make it easier to identify the re-use and visibility of our work.
- The Single User Login finalisation project
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SUL_finalisation, if I understand correctly, should mean that we will have the architecture in place to make "global" echo https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)-notifications (e.g. "your image was used in...", global-talkpages (c.f. Flow https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow), watchlists... This should mean that even if you don't visit a wiki regularly, there would be more methods of being kept in contact.
- The Structured Data project
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data will move much of the metadata handling, currently done locally on Commons, to Wikidata. If I understand correctly, this will greatly increase the usability of Commons to non-English speaking users and also decrease the learning-curve of Commons for new-users.
However, none of these software improvements, by themselves, will help overcome the perception that Commons (and Wikimedia in general) is an *intransigent *and* pugilistic *culture. In the GLAMwiki outreach community we spend a lot of time talking to GLAMs about the value of sharing their content with Wikimedia - but they are often fearful of us because of this stereotype. The way this conversation has degenerated into arguments which I will paraphrase as "I'm not intransigent, you are!" only consolidates that stereotype.
It's like we all feel like we're the one being attacked - like some kind of mutual siege-mentality - and where victim-blaming is the first response to any perceived threat. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step to solving it. However conversations like this make it seem that some people feel the only problem is other people saying that there's a problem...
Finally, following Craig's comment: From: Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net
Am I the only one that sees the irony in asking folks not to pick on the Commons community, then immediately asserting that enwp is the source of all drama?
Not just that, but also... Am I the only one that sees the irony in how this thread started by arguing that the Commons community "...cares more about strict free licensing than it does about utility to people who need knowledge", and then the conversation quickly veered off into an omnibus of WikiLawering about strict free-licensing minutiae: Tunisian Freedom-of-Panorama, Tractor logos and Israeli Government Works!?!
-Liam
wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe