All,
I'm very happy to announce that the Ford Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to improve our interfaces and workflows for multimedia uploading. Press release here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundation...
For the first time we're also sharing a full grant proposal, with permission of the Ford Foundation. You can find it here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f9/WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Pa...
It should give you a good idea about what we can do within the scope of this project. As a brief recap, Michael Dale has already done some good work on external repository searches and transfers, and integration of uploading into the editing UI, so we're hoping to build on top of this to really get the workflow for licensing/upload/review/embedding of media files nailed.
We've also been having initial discussions with some of the Wikimedia chapters about possible models for working together on the execution of this. For example, we want to make sure that we can facilitate fruitful face-to-face meetings with Commons practitioners, and there is plenty of technical work to be done that can be decentralized and shared. Exciting projects like Wikimedia Germany's investment in multilingual search are already underway, so hopefully over the next year, we'll see lots of useful activity culminating in genuine improvements for Commons and beyond.
Big thanks to Sara Crouse and Naoko Komura for their work on this grant proposal, and of course to the Ford Foundation for funding it. :-) Wikimedia Commons deserves to grow to many more millions of free educational media files, and hopefully this strategic investment will help us to get there.
All best, Erik
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Erik Moellererik@wikimedia.org wrote: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f9/WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Pa...
---- The objective of this project is to increase participation in and contributions to Wikimedia Commons by implementing a 13month software development, usability testing and documentation project to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files to Wikimedia Commons. The deliverables should include the following key improvements: •an integrated upload tool that can be accessed directly from the editing window; •Wikipedia integration of Wikimedia Commons as a repository to store freely licensed media; •an intelligent workflow for fair use media that are not permissible on Wikimedia Commons; •an upload form process that emphasizes common defaults above less frequent use cases; •separated instructions and tutorials for conveying key policy information and background on copyright law and licensing. ----
And thank god for that! :) I can't wait.
Steve
This is excellent news. For those who haven't seen it in action, Michael Dale's work on the upload workflow is looking awesome. I'm sure this grant will make it even better.
-Chad
On Jul 1, 2009 11:52 PM, "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Erik Moellererik@wikimedia.org wrote: http://upload.wikimedia.org... ---- The objective of this project is to increase participation in and contributions to Wikimedia Commons by implementing a 13month software development, usability testing and documentation project to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files to Wikimedia Commons. The deliverables should include the following key improvements: •an integrated upload tool that can be accessed directly from the editing window; •Wikipedia integration of Wikimedia Commons as a repository to store freely licensed media; •an intelligent workflow for fair use media that are not permissible on Wikimedia Commons; •an upload form process that emphasizes common defaults above less frequent use cases; •separated instructions and tutorials for conveying key policy information and background on copyright law and licensing. ----
And thank god for that! :) I can't wait.
Steve
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It sure does look good! I have a question: the extension project I'm working on needs a customized upload interface for its own Special: pages - the Special:Upload classes in the new-upload branch are exactly what I need. I've been doing a similar refactoring of Special:Upload to allow me to use subclasses to customize the upload process. Is anyone willing to risk a wild guess about when the new Special:Upload classes will replace the current version?
Lee Worden McMaster University
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Chad wrote:
This is excellent news. For those who haven't seen it in action, Michael Dale's work on the upload workflow is looking awesome. I'm sure this grant will make it even better.
-Chad
On Jul 1, 2009 11:52 PM, "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Erik Moellererik@wikimedia.org wrote: http://upload.wikimedia.org...
The objective of this project is to increase participation in and contributions to Wikimedia Commons by implementing a 13month software development, usability testing and documentation project to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files to Wikimedia Commons. The deliverables should include the following key improvements: •an integrated upload tool that can be accessed directly from the editing window; •Wikipedia integration of Wikimedia Commons as a repository to store freely licensed media; •an intelligent workflow for fair use media that are not permissible on Wikimedia Commons; •an upload form process that emphasizes common defaults above less frequent use cases; •separated instructions and tutorials for conveying key policy information and background on copyright law and licensing.
And thank god for that! :) I can't wait.
Steve
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