[Foundation-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Lars Aronsson]

Finn Rindahl wrote:

> I guess I'm one of the Commons admins "actively working against 
> being [just] a service project" for the various other wikimedia 
> projects.

This was David Gerard's wording and not mine.  Overly general and 
harsh descriptions are not productive.

> If there was more active admins, we could have done our job 
> better - especially when it comes to take the necessary time to 
> communicate with the other users who need help. The only way as 
> I see it to actually get volunteers to work at Commons is to 
> build a "community feeling" at commons like in other projects.

You need a community feeling among admins, so they can learn to 
know and trust each other and collaborate against individual 
admins who abuse their rights (which surely will happen 
occasionally).  And you need to foster a community feeling between 
admins and regular/occasional/beginner users.  But I doubt that 
the latter is possible.  If it fails, I wouldn't blame you.

The problem is that many users don't feel at home in Commons.  
Many of them just upload a few images as part of writing Wikipedia 
articles.  Having to enter Commons is more of a necessary evil, 
just like we all have to learn some wiki markup.

Consider this recent comment from one user: "I don't understand 
the title: 'Please link images'. All my pictures are linked to 
articles in the Swedish Wikipedia."  This user didn't categorize 
his images on Commons, and received a complaint for this from a 
bot.  He has no interest in categorizing images on Commons, he 
only wanted to illustrate his articles.

Maybe he should just upload the images locally to the Swedish 
Wikipedia, where they are used, and someone else, with a primary 
interest in Commons, should forward them to Commons and categorize 
them there.

This is how we normally distribute tasks among users within each 
language of Wikipedia: One person creates an article, another adds 
wiki markup, a third adds categories.  But once you upload an 
image, you need to go out through the door, across the street, 
into the Wikimedia Commons building, and there you have to feel as 
part of a new community which doesn't fully speak your language, 
and each image must be categorized and correctly licensed and 
attributed (including the incomprihensible distinction between 
"source" and "author"), or else all your actions will be reverted.

Commons was set up in 2004.  It was a great idea and has served 
its purpose well.  But as we recruit new users, less experienced 
users who we have to actively recruit, this is not a vehicle for 
the best possible user experience and productivity.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se