[Commons-l] Thoughts about 'Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening'

[Michael Maggs]

This thread illustrates both what is good and what is bad about Commons.

There is general agreement that Commons could be made more user-friendly 
and that we need to reach out and communicate more.

Good:  There are at least 15 decent ideas that have been mentioned, all 
of which merit further discussion. So there are plently of ideas around.

Bad:  Everyone has ideas, but nobody has the inclination to take the 
lead and to do anything with them. So, nothing happens (again).

Proposal: 

(1) That the ideas in this thread be captured, and copied to Commons 
under a new project page called (eg) Commons: Outreach.
(2) That we try to build support for taking some of the ideas forward.  
The first stage would be to find users who are committed to improving 
Commons/the Wikis and who would be prepared to act as sub-project leaders.

What about it?

Michael



Florian Straub wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> since I'm, subscribed via digest I have no mail to reply, so here some 
> random ideas (rough brainstorming) about the issues mentioned in the 
> thread 'Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening':
>
> * We need to have at least one (leading) person per language to 
> translate the messages. They should be contactable via email as well. 
> Maybe coordinated by a mailing-list. Wasn't there one?
>
> * We could "use" the translation power of the folks at betawiki 
> (http://translatewiki.net/ )
>
> * I tried to launch a mentoring programme some months ago, but with no 
> success: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Mentoring
>
> * Maybe we could include SOME contact people directly in the templates.
>
> * What about something like ambassadors?
>
> These are just some spontaneous ideas, I wanted to share. Maybe you have 
> some to say about some of them ...
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Flo
>
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