[Commons-l] Pikiwiki project problems

[Platonides]

Dror Kamir wrote:
> I hear many time that people think this is a great project, but in fact 
> the Commons' administrators were quite hostile towards it from its very 
> beginning. Like in many other issues, most of the complaints were 
> technical, but I cannot believe that technicalities are the problem 
> here. None of the images lack source. The person who contributed the 
> images and relinquished his/her copyrights is always mentioned, but not 
> in the field where the administrators expect it.

> The fact that the 
> "description" template is produced automatically makes this minor error 
> very easy to ignore or fix. An administrator merely needs to look two 
> lines below, and if it is really disturbing, an automated process can 
> fix the error in the future

The automated uploading process should upload it right the first time.
It should be a two line fix in the bot code.
Making a second bot to fix it is harder and well, it's quite stupid to
have two bots, one for uploading it wrongly and a second one to fix its
mess.


> Many people upload images manually and the 
> risk of error there is much higher. The fact that these technicalities 
> were enough to block the project (not the bot, but the whole project, as 
> this bot is actually the door between the localized interface and the 
> Commons) makes me wonder whether these technicalities are just an excuse.

Blocking a bot is never to block its operator or whatever the bot is
doing, it's just a way to force it to stop until the operator can fix
the problem it has.
When the problems are fixed, it will be unblocked.



>  Think about it - had one of the 
> administrators sent a template code to the email of the Pikiwiki 
> project, the whole "source issue" would have been resolved. 

Are you accompaning this with a template of where the source is?
Are you providing the code so an administrator can fix your bot?
Are you providing the bot to fix the description of your uploaded images?
It's easy to rant against the administrators. But you must also do the
things right in order to be able to. A bot uploads hundred of images,
which mean a lot of work if something goes wrong.
That's why there's much more important to get things right the first time.

And no, your bot is not the only case. We didn't take a dislike on you
or pikiwiki. Simply, we -the people at commons- want things done RIGHT.
You ranted about what being an administrator meant. Perhaps we should
rant now about what is needed to create a project. Not just making an
upload bot. Would that be nice? I don't think so. Measure your words and
calm down, please.

Perhaps there shouldn't be a single person going back and forth between
Pikiwiki and Commons. Perhaps the programmer should come here to learn
what is expected from him, and so on.