[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Tuesday 09 December 2008 08:23:07 Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons why
> they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
> "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
> search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"  and
> you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.
>
> It is indeed ridiculous that for people who do not read / write English,
> Commons not a resource that is functional as a resource where you find
> freely lincensed pictures. It is however a fact. Do some studies and ask
> people to find images, people who do not read English. Try it in Arabic,
> Russian, German, Mandarin, French or Dutch. When that does not convince you
> try Neapolitan, Nepali, Bangla, Hindi or Xhosa. Have them search for things
> that are of interest to a seven year old. Things like a horse...
>
> I have had the financing to create a demonstration project that
> demonstrates that this is a problem that can be solved. Our resources were
> limited so the result is not as polished as I would hope for, but it does
> include the category tree translated.

Me too - perhaps not as perfect solution, but hopefully adequate: 
http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php

Examples:

http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=nl&search=paard
http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php?uselang=el&search=%CE%AF%CF%80%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%82