[Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay)

Tue Feb 22 18:08:01 UTC 2011

While Michel Vuijlsteke's points are excellent, and I agree that  
editors should be encouraged to be patient and welcoming to new  
editors, there may be a problem with the file. That said, a deletion  
nomination is not a good way to respond to a file problem.

I find that Safari does not display the preview of  
File:Van_istendael675.jpg correctly. It displays as a dark negative  
image. Camino does not display the preview and comments as follows on  
the file itself.
"The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Van_istendael675.jpg 
” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors."

Google Chrome displays the file and preview properly.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_istendael675.jpg

Walter Siegmund

On Feb 22, 2011, at 9:32 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> Food for thought.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia at zog.org>
> Date: 22 February 2011 16:29
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians:  
> An Essay)
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org 
> >
>
>
> On 22 February 2011 14:14, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru>  
> wrote:
>
>>
>>> We have to make a profound choice in the culture here:
>>> 1) we continue with the whacking and scaring the newbies away  
>>> (content
>>> priority #1, people #2), or
>>> 2) we embrace the newbies and we let some spam through (people  
>>> priority
>> #1,
>>> content #2).
>>>
>>> So far we are steadily moving along the first route. I believe, it  
>>> is
>> time
>>> we switch the priorities. People are important. It's the people  
>>> who will
>> be
>>> creating content in the future, and not the other way around.  
>>> Wikipedia
>>> will
>>> inevitably fail without participation. And content... we are  
>>> already the
>>> largest and the best...
>>>
>>> Renata
>>
>> To me it sounds too much black and white. Indeed, there are points  
>> you
>> better not stumble across as an editor: engaging into battles over  
>> disputed
>> content (like Middle East conflict), writing articles on smth with  
>> disputed
>> notability, pushing POV or not getting immediately the image upload  
>> rules.
>> But I assume this is a relatively minor fraction of editors (though  
>> of
>> course it still represents a problem). I can not recall that I ever  
>> got any
>> templates in my articles (I have written over 500 of them since  
>> 2007),
>> except for a couple of times from a bot that there are no links to  
>> the
>> article, and that I ever got any angry comments from admins/other  
>> editors
>> concerning the articles I have written.
>>
>
> I don't think it has to be as obviously annoying as slathering  
> templates all
> over pages or wikilawyering the newbies away -- it's often much more  
> subtle
> how content/data seems to be considered more important than people.
>
> One interaction I encountered recently is typical. Michiel  
> Hendryckx, one of
> Belgium's best-known photographers, started uploading fairly
> high-resolution, good quality images to Wikipedia (well, Commons) on  
> 3 July
> 2010. Stuff like this 1983 Chet Baker portrait:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chet675.jpg
>
> The first message on his talk page was a request to confirm his  
> identity
> (which he did).
>
> The second message was a complaint by Nikbot (no valid license for one
> particular image). A couple of hours later, at 10:51 on 4 July, the  
> next
> message is from CategorizationBot, asking Hendryckx to add  
> categories to his
> images.
>
> The third message, not six hours later, was this:
>
> *Please categorize our images !!!*
> You already have been asked by a bot to categorize your images.  
> Therefore I
> don't understand why you keep on uploading images without categories.
> Uploading images without categorizing them doesn't make sense. Only
> categorized images can be found!
>
>
> I'm pretty sure the user in question meant really well, but *this*  
> is what
> that focusing on content over people means to me. It's in the small  
> things,
> the interactions that experienced Wikipedians take in their stride,  
> but that
> can end up scaring people away.
>
> It's like the last message on Hendryckx' talk page, dated 1 February  
> 2011: a
> notification that one if this images is listed at commons:deletion  
> requests,
> and to "please do not take the deletion request personally... thank  
> you!".
> Follow the link to the discussion (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Van_istendael675.jpg) 
> :
> turns out the requester couldn't see the image. His/her first action  
> was to
> nominate the image for deletion. Took about three hours for someone to
> confirm that no, the image works perfectly fine for them, and about  
> five
> hours for the original person to close the deletion request  
> ("thanks").
>
> Again: content over people. No personal interaction with the  
> photographer,
> no message on the photographer's talk page after the deletion  
> request was
> closed, nothing. The last interaction Hendryckx had on Commons -- on  
> 19
> February, almost three weeks after the deletion request was closed  
> -- was a
> baffled question (
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Deletion_requests/File:Van_istendael675.jpg) 
> ,
> asking what on Earth is wrong with the image, and that he'd like to  
> at least
> know why it needed to be deleted.
>
> Again, I'm sure the user in question meant really well again, but  
> here too:
> content over people. Drive-by templating, shoot first, don't ask  
> questions,
> don't even provide feedback, trust people will read every last word  
> in the
> templates, etc.
>
> Michel Vuijlsteke
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