[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons reaches 2 million files

[Florence Devouard]

Brianna Laugher wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am happy to relay that Wikimedia Commons now has over two million
> files. This is around 11 months after we reached one million. Since
> March 2007 we routinely have over 100,000 files uploaded every single
> month. It is becoming more and more common to have over 5,000 files in
> a single day.
> 
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/2M
> 
> This is not much of a traditional press release but will be
> interesting for Wikimedians who are not closely involved with Commons
> (and maybe those who are, too). It lists some recent innovations and
> tools that we have introduced to improve the quality and ease of
> access of the Commons collection.

Indeed not a traditional press release, but hugely interesting :-)
Hugely... thank you so much for that page

> I expect most people here are aware of the Picture of the Year
> competition, and Quality Images, and the Mayflower search engine (
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/mayflower/ ), and the improved
> Ogg video/audio playback thanks to Tim Starling.
> 
> A couple of features people may not be aware of:
> - geocoding - every picture that is geotagged gets a little "Earth"
> icon and clicking on it launches a map that shows the image located on
> the map, as well as other geotagged images  nearby. It's really cool.
> The geocoding folk are very innovative and welcoming so if you are
> interested in helping them out or just finding out other cool ways
> this can be used, please talk to them.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Geocoding
> 
> - category RSS feeds - thanks to Magnus Manske each category now has a
> RSS feed for new files that get added to that category. If you are
> interested in some topic X and it has a category, you can keep tabs on
> what new files get added to it without having to go to Commons to
> check all the time. Just add the RSS feed link (it's on the category
> page under the toolbox) to your favourite feed reader.
> A full list of types of feeds available is here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Feeds
> 
> The 2M mark draws some comparison with English Wikipedia which
> recently passed the same milestone. However the comparison is not
> really valid. Where Wikipedia may expect basically one topic == one
> article (give or take section expension such as 'History of X' having
> its own article instead of just 'X'), Commons would hope to have one
> topic == dozens of files.
> 
> Commons is still a very young project and it is both exciting and
> scary to imagine what it will be like with 10M files.
> 
> By #files we are the largest project. ;)
> By #users we are the 8th largest project.
> By #edits we are the 9th largest project.
> 
> It is a very interesting time to be involved with Commons. We face
> many social and technical problems that are yet to be resolved. Are
> our current processes for dealing with things (eg: uploading, tagging
> as copyvio, deletion discussion, deletion, adminship) scaling well -
> will they continue to cope or will they get overloaded? How can we
> face the joint challenges of welcoming new users on one hand and yet
> tackling the never-ending stream of copyvios on the other? How can we
> provide equal opportunity for our users to participate regardless of
> the languages they do or don't speak?
> 
> The social problems are ours to ponder, yet I can't help feeling that
> our work is made more difficult by using inappropriate tools.
> MediaWiki is a great tool for writing an encyclopedia in  a single
> language, but it has some significant shortcomings when used in a
> multilingual media-based environment that only become more problematic
> as Commons gets larger. Therefore I sincerely hope that the Foundation
> will consider hiring or contracting developers specifically for
> problems that affect Commons, within the next couple of years.

You know... I would be interested in knowing more about how daily work 
is handled with regards to multilingual situation, and if there are 
specific issues that non english raise and are still unsolved.

With regards to the developers request, hopefully, if the fundraising 
goes well, your wish should be answered. 
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
Several new positions are planned with regards to developers.

Best

Ant


> regards,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
> 
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