Thanks for the links, Yaroslav, I'll take a look.

About the embedding, yes, you can embed an image using HTML code. You can't embed an image or a video using oEmbed, so you can't share a video from Commons in, lets's say, Facebook. And you can't just add the URL of the video in WordPress and play it, like millions of blogs are doing with YouTube or Vimeo videos. So you can't share externally a video (or an image) just using the URL, which is one of the main entry points YouTube is using for external playing. Is it technically possible to embed a video from Commons in a place which is not Facebook/Xitter/Mastodon... yes, it is, but coding is necessary, which is not how to make Commons part of the essential ecosystem of free knowledge.

In the same way, you can upload a video to Commons. We upload two every week for the project Ikusgela (https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari:Hezkuntza/Ikusgela), but it's not a simple process, which is the point of this message.

Thanks

Galder


From: Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 5:59 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong
 
Dear All,

I can easily find two recent discussions which touch the topic of video on Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2023/12#Prioritizing_our_technical_needs

and

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Requests_for_comment/Technical_needs_survey#No_objection,_but...

I am sure there were more.

I do not know whether videos can be embedded externally, but images certainly can. I for example embed them in my blog (random example: https://ymblanter.dreamwidth.org/146913.html; the text is in Russian which is irrelevant for my point). I have been doing this for years and never encountered any issues.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 8:00 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:
Kaya

I'd like to my perspective from wikimania side the amount of effort volunteers and time to bring every session alive on commons is all consuming yes YouTube is the best place to put that content.  It gets harder the smaller the event is. Video needs to be addresses as a priority along with issues raise by galder. Simple mp4 upload option would be a starting point, surely we are big enough for any copyright holders to donate the licensing if wmf comes made a request

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024, 2:44 pm Mrb Rafi, <mrbrafi1971@gmail.com> wrote:
+1 to Galder. 

Sharing a current situation.

A significant number of non wikimedian photographers participate in the wiki loves X campaigns and since the upload process in commons is complex than any other site, most of them feel lost and don't retain. 

We are arranging wiki loves folklore in Bangladesh this year and we have prepared a handbook for the participants considering the above situation. The handbook has been uploaded to commons and now we're receiving feedback that our participants are feeling lost after visiting the description page, they can't decide how to view the pdf.

Wikimedia commons needs a user friendly and intuitive pdf viewer asap.

Best,
Rafi

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024, 4:24 AM Ivan Martínez <galaver@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you Yaroslav, I would very much appreciate a link to the discussion.
By not having a Youtube 2.0 we are avoiding a Wikipedia 2.0 with pure encyclopaedic videos. I see a false dilemma there.

El mar, 23 ene 2024 a las 16:03, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga (<galder158@hotmail.com>) escribió:
Thanks to everyone for your comments.
We don't need to worry about Commons being "Youtube 2.0", because we can't embed Commons video outside. Furthermore, we can't even embed Commons images or videos in Diff, because oEmbed is not working for Commons and Wordpress can't take directly images or videos from Commons. This has been known since... 2010!


Again, the problem is not about this code or that specific piece of code. The problem is lack of direction, ambition and goals. 

Cheers,

Galder
From: James Heilman <jmh649@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 10:49 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: We need more interactive content: we are doing it wrong
 
Yes we see this sentiment regarding a number of issues in our movement. The existing community wants to keep certain processes more difficult / time consuming to make sure that those involved in the process are sufficiently "dedicated". 

Maybe we just need a flag which can be given to allow certain folks we trust to use an easier process or only allow video upload by people with so many edits which can be removed if they misuse it?
 
James

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 2:38 PM Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt@gmail.com> wrote:
Specifically related to video uploads, we had discussions on Commons on different strategic issues recently, in particular, about this. The general sentiment was, to my understanding (pls correct me if I am wrong) that Commons has no ambition to become Youtube 2.0 and we do not have any resources for this. If video upload is encouraged, very strict policies must be in force concerning of what is in the scope of Commons.

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 10:05 PM Brion Vibber <bvibber@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Converting them to suitably compact files in h.264/aac in .MP4 format would be by far the simplest way. Use ffmpeg as we do on the server side for online playback.

Conforming to the arbitrary Wikimedia prohibition on h.264 you could use mpeg-4 visual instead, still in .mp4 - afaik patents are expired and it'll play in standalone files (not in HLS)

If you jump through enough hoops you might get vp9 working in HLS offline, but adaptive streaming may be irrelevant to offline use.

-- brion

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 12:52 PM James Heilman <jmh649@gmail.com> wrote:
It would be amazing if one could play videos on iPhones when the videos are within ZIMs in an offline environment aswell. Brion not sure what barriers there are to this currently?

James

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 12:48 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <paulosperneta@gmail.com> wrote:
Should read 2030 Strategy, not 2023 strategy, sorry.

Paulo Santos Perneta <paulosperneta@gmail.com> escreveu (terça, 23/01/2024 à(s) 19:41):
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. We are currently grappling with rather rudimentary approaches when it comes to uploading and reusing video and music files... 
The incredibly useful Graph has been down for quite some time. The extensive capabilities of Wikidata query representations, particularly with geolocated data on maps, appear to have barely scratched the surface. Listeria frequently experiences issues and underwent a major update that disrupted previous queries.

On a personal note, I attempted to create a dynamic digital library of works under a free license using Wikidata for our Digital Humanistics centre. However, I discovered that with the available tools, I would need to code the presentation myself, as the options for reuse outside of Wikidata were very basic.

On the whole, the Wikipedia experience remains challenging, especially for newcomers. The much wanted Visual Editor developments and improvements seem to have stopped years ago. The recent changes made by the 'Desktop Improvement' team to the default Wikipedia skin seem to be more geared towards readers than editors and have apparently worsened the overall experience, according to feedback I've received from newcomers.

These are just a few instances that have underscored, and continue to underscore, my belief that we are likely not on the path towards achieving the objectives outlined in the 2023 Strategy.

My personal impression is that the issue doesn't necessarily stem from a lack of funding to pursue these objectives but rather from the ineffective expenditure and allocation of those funds. I wish I knew how to contribute to changing or improving this situation. 
It would also be great to see a comment/opinion from current CEO Maryana Iskander on this state of affairs, and if there is some roadmap for improving it.

Best,
Paulo


Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158@hotmail.com> escreveu (terça, 23/01/2024 à(s) 11:03):
Dear wikimedians,
Nearly one year ago, the Graphs extension was disabled from all wikis, because there was a security issue that should be solved (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334940). A wide team from the WMF worked on a solution for some weeks, but after Northern Hemisphere spring ended, summer came, then the monsoon season, and now it is again summer in the Southern Hemisphere... and Graphs are still disabled. All the solutions proposed have been dismissed, but every two months there's a proposal to make a new roadmap to solve the issue. We have plenty of roadmaps, but no vehicle to reach our destination.

Seven years ago, we were discussing our Strategy for 2030. We used thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of staff hours and millions of dollars to build a really well-balanced strategy. There we concluded that "By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge". We also made some recommendations to improve the User Experience (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Improve_User_Experience) and claimed that we wanted to Innovate in Free Knowledge (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Innovate_in_Free_Knowledge). Well, the situation is now worse than it was seven years ago, let me give some examples:

  • Graph extension is used in thousands of pages, some of them highly relevant, as COVID or Climate Change information. There are thousands of graphs broken now, and the only partial solution give is loading these graphs as images, instead of promoting an interactive solution.
  • Meanwhile, a place like Our World in Data has been publishing data and interactive content with a compatible license for years. (Remember, "By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge"). Trying to add this data and graphs to Wikimedia projects has been done by WikiMed, and it is technically possible, but still blocked to deploy (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T303853).
  • Wolfram Alpha is like a light year ahead us on giving interactive solutions to knowledge questions, even the silliest ones (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+many+oranges+fit+in+the+Earth%3F). We have good technical articles about a lot of things, but sometimes "becoming the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge" needs to provide solutions to exact problems, like the answer to an equation, and how to solve it. That's also "free knowledge".
  • Brilliant (https://brilliant.org/) is brilliant if you want to learn lots of things, like geometry or programming. Way better than Wikipedia. But... you need to pay for it. How could we even try if we can't add anything interactive to our platforms?
  • We can build interactive timelines using Wikidata, but we can't embed them at Wikipedia. Weird, because I can do it in any external page. Hopefully, Histropedia will do it better. http://histropedia.com/
  • We could have something very special: inline links in video and audio subtitles. We used to have them, but the new video infrastructure doesn't allow it. Imagine a world where you can watch a video and link a link in the subtitles just to know more about that.
  • ...

The list can go on an on ("which phase the moon is today?"), but I think that the idea is clear. We could have interactive content, but we are going in the opposite direction, and every year we are further from our goal, because other platforms are doing it better, way better. And this seems like some wild ideas, but then I read the 2023-2024 annual plan section called "Wiki Experiences" (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Goals/Infrastructure#Bucket:_Wiki_Experiences) and it looks like we should be going there. But we aren't.

I'm sorry if this e-mail feels bitter. My experience in the last years is that we are now further of what we need that we were before, even if many chapters and volunteers are trying to overturn it.

Thank to everyone who have been trying.

Galder









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James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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--
Iván Martínez
Voluntario - Wikimedia México A.C.
User:ProtoplasmaKid

// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado.
// Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org
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