[Foundation-l] Re: Launch of the Wikimedia Commons

[Delirium]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Each of these features must be judged on its merits. As you pointed out on  
>wikitech-l, the template system provides us with a direct path towards  
>metadata. An existing gallery system is not an option as this is not what  
>we are trying to create here. Users are encouraged, for example, to edit  
>captions as they see fit, or to replace images with higher quality  
>versions. We want to use all the cool features a wiki gives us - recent  
>changes, diffs, page histories, and so on.
>
>Wikis are something fundamentally new. Old software concepts do not apply.  
>  
>
I don't think that's really true: A wiki is just something you can edit 
from a web browser.  Most of what it does is does in clunkier form 
elsewhere (editing the pages with emacs and diff'ing using CVS is a 
trivial example), but wikis make it easier for a non-technical user.

This gallery really should have the benefits of both editability and 
strong database support.  Whether it's better to start from an existing 
gallery system and add editability to it, or start from a wiki and add 
metadata/EXIF/etc. to it is largely a matter of preference and ease of 
technical implementation.

-Mark