[Commons-l] Pikiwiki project problems

[Dror Kamir]

I don't know if this message will be placed in the right thread. I 
didn't get it to my email, so I had to read it through the archive. 
Anyway, this is a response to Alex Brollo's question.

The fact is that people are reluctant to contribute images to the 
Commons. This is our observation for Israel, and I think other chapters 
around the world have similar observations about their countries.

The Hebrew interface of the Commons is not easy to handle, and English 
is a foreign language to most Israelis. The number of license tags is 
huge, most of them are irrelevant to the Israeli user. Communication 
with the Commons' administrators is often impossible due to the language 
barrier, and the need to place a description template, which is actually 
a code, is quite frightening to most technophobic people, and there are 
plenty of them.

An localized interface makes uploading images much more friendly. The 
users can see only the the licenses relevant to them, read them in 
Hebrew, communicate with a Hebrew speaking team etc. The fact that the 
localized interface is dedicated to Israeli history and to the region's 
views is very helpful for PR. It is easier to convince people to 
contribute by saying: "your country needs you - contribute to the 
heritage of your own country" or something like that. We often limit it 
even further, and call upon people to contribute to their city's or 
village's heritage, because this gives a lot of motivation to contributors.

Teachers and instructors feel more comfortable to view the images with 
their pupils via a localized Israeli interface in Hebrew, so this way we 
can have better exposure to the Wikimedia projects.

I think I've brought here quite a lot of reasons, but I could probably 
think of some more.

Dror K