[Commons-l] Picture of the year, thoughts

[Delphine Ménard]

Hello,

First, I want to congratulate the organizers of the POTY contest, it
was grandly organized and I found it a great opportunity to discover
some of the finest work on Commons.

There is *one* thing that bothered me though, which bothered me last
year already. It is that the "picture of the year" is undoubtedly the
most "popular" but is it really the most relevant to Commons' stated
mission and goal? Or even goals?

(to be frank, I think it is to some extent, more than last year, but
that's a matter of personal opinion).

By this I mean the following:

I liked having to vote in different categories in the first round and
found it interesting to be able to navigate among different pictures,
but I found myself a bit at a loss having to choose between this or
that picture, so I came up with a quick on-the-fly little grid in my
head which, among other things and just to give an example included:

- Potential for use in educational material (is it just cute, or is it
also illustrative of some thing/animal/concept/issue/question etc.)
- Quality of the image (is it just pretty, or is it pretty and of an
amazing quality?)
- Ease of reuse (does it bear more than one license? Which licences?)
- Interest of description and details provided (is it just "a bird"?
or "birdisia colorfulo, a bird found only in the most colourful places
in the world captured at dawn in wonderland...")
- Is it made by a professional or an amateur? (is it made by NASA and
their talented people/gear, or by a Wikimedian who took it for Commons
to start with).

etc. These are all questions I asked myself, and I am sure I am not
the only one who came up with such criteria to chose the pictures I
voted for.

To be very frank, while I voted for many pictures in the first round
because they actually answered to all of the above point, I ended up
voting in the final round not necessarily for the "picture I liked
best", but for the picture which answered most of my questions
positively.

So I was wondering if it would make any kind of sense to at least
propose a grid for people to use when they vote and around which they
can decide which photo they "like" best. It might also be that we
would like to actually implement a multicategory vote for the final
round, which would allow people to vote for one picture, but also
weigh their vote with different points, such as "this is my fave, and
it is my fave because it is very free, of fantastic educational value,
made by an amateur and despite the fact that its quality should be
better".

I imagine for example that you could then have more than one "pictire"
of the year, ie. one that's voted pic of the year, but also one that's
voted "pic of the year of educational use" etc.

Just thought I'd throw this out there and wanted to see what the
feedback could be on such a proposal.

Delphine

-- 
~notafish
http://blog.notanendive.org

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