[Commons-l] Cross project perception of Commons?

[Brianna Laugher]

On 24/08/07, Herby <herbythyme at fmail.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm guessing some section of the population of this list will have a go
> at this BUT I do think we need to look at some PR issues.  A while back
> there was a sharp rap on the knuckles on Meta about deleting images
> because it was "better to have them locally as Commons just delete
> things without warning".  That one I think was pacified in part & I
> cannot put my finger on a link.

IIRC that was about the project logos, and partly *caused* by the fact
that we, Commons, had no way of knowing (ie checkusage) the images
were used on mainpage portals (not on any wiki). The other part of
that issue was about Commons unnecessarily deleting alleged
"duplicates" and I don't support that action so I won't defend us on
that count... (but I haven't heard many complaints about it lately
either, which is probably good...)

> I felt folks should be aware of this
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#BetacommandBot_and_commons.

wow... full on. :o

> To me this is a wider PR thing.  When I was on en wp I knew next to
> nothing about commons.  On this list recently we were equated with a
> "service" to Wikipedia.  Elsewhere (I forget again where) I mentioned
> that I changed an upload warning template on Meta that suggested
> uploading material to en wp.  I really do not think that we (our
> function & us) are well understood and I think this is worth some
> thought.

Yes. well in that discussion, it's clear there's some legitimate
concerns, and some concerns we can't do anything about, like what the
GFDL actually implies or means.

At any rate you prompted me to set up a project I had in the back of
my head for a while...

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikimedia_Outreach_Project
and specifically
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikimedia_Outreach_Project/enwikipedia

please join, start similar pages for other projects, etc.

At the end of the day if people want to hold a grudge against us we
can't stop them. But we can
* be understanding about why people feel the way they do
* admit when we've acted in error
* act to correct mistakes brought to our attention
* try to enact processes that stop the same mistakes happening again
* ?


cheers,
Brianna

-- 
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/